Raspberry Pi and the MagPi

[BigEd]

jonb wrote:

BigEd wrote:

I have one on order but no plan on what to with it. I think it should boot direct into an application - perhaps a beebulator.

Hi Ed

Not sure I agree. Modern dev environments are not like the BBC Micro - and we really don't want to impose 80's micros on our kids, do we?

For the intended educational purpose, I agree - a BASIC is not the best approach. I was thinking of myself.

(I do think that a single-purpose boot is better than a windowing environment though.)

So... Scratch? Logo? Anything around Pygame? (Maybe even sugar. Much depends on the target audience and the intention of the teaching. Could be anything from literacy to electronics - doesn't have to be computer science.)

http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/educat ... plications
Raspberry Pi Tutorial 7 - Object Oriented Game Programming with Python and PyGame [video]
Using turtle graphics

[jonb]

Not Sugar, heaven forfend!

Yep, not necessarily computing but its stated purpose is to teach kids programming.

[Dajgoro]

When i was a kid, i of course had my pc, and i wanted to learn programming, but no one that i knew had any idea how to program, even school teachers didn't know. Until one day I've found an old floppy with QBasic, i was so happy, me and my best friend(now my room mate) went crazy about it, and we made tons of programs and games, and we even went to a programming summer school. After basic, i didn't have any trouble learning C and other languages. The pi uses Python, which kinda resembles the basic simplicity, and it is a great starting point for kids.

As for the r-pi board, i want one too, and i don't want to wait until fall to get one!!!!!!!!!
Can please somebody buy one for me in the UK(or where available), and then ship it to me?
I can pay for it via paypal(or western union, but it is expensive).

[BigEd]

Can you still get into the queue? ("Express your interest") Full-scale manufacturing is proceeding.

[Dajgoro]

I registered my interest the first day the pi was launched, and since then nothing. Additionally it is a bit tricky for me since i am from Croatia, and even the authorized distributes won't see anything until august(if they don't shift the deadline again), and i red somewhere that it will be available for full worldwide scale at the end of 2012.
If someone could get me a pi i would be really grateful!

[BigEd]

If you got in line by 5pm on the first day, I gather you will be invited to place your order in the next week.

[Dajgoro]

I doubt it, i think the site was available at 7pm, and i don't remember if my interest was accepted, since it was only registering interest form uk buyers.

[jonb]

Depends on whose site you were trying to order from. RS have been very quiet, but have just started issuing invites to order for the people lucky enough to navigate to their web page to register an interest. Farnell / Element 14 have been quicker, and gone so far as to mail out expected delivery timelines. I registered with both companies; well, I tried unsuccessfully - or so I thought - to register on RS, then gave up and went to Farnell. I got a delivery date from Farnell (next week) and the first ever email update from RS which means they will invite me to order from them as well at some point.
@BigEd: I think there is no such cut off time for order invites. It just depends on how many Pis are in the next batch.
@Dajgoro: I doubt anyone in the UK will buy one for you, sorry to say; at least, not while they are still in short supply. They are going for big money on ebay at the moment. You will have to be patient, I am afraid.

[Dajgoro]

jonb wrote:

@Dajgoro: I doubt anyone in the UK will buy one for you, sorry to say; at least, not while they are still in short supply. They are going for big money on ebay at the moment. You will have to be patient, I am afraid.

I had to try...

Edit: I only wish to have one by summer, because I'll have lots of free time then, and in fall i have to return to the university again...

[BigDumbDinosaur]

Dajgoro wrote:

jonb wrote:

@Dajgoro: I doubt anyone in the UK will buy one for you, sorry to say; at least, not while they are still in short supply. They are going for big money on ebay at the moment. You will have to be patient, I am afraid.

I had to try...

Edit: I only wish to have one by summer, because I'll have lots of free time then, and in fall i have to return to the university again...

Spend some of that time with your girl friend. That, or build another 6502 project. The summer will be gone before you know it.

[Dajgoro]

The summer will be over in a second, no matter what i do...

[jonb]

Well, mine's arrived.

Got it set up quickly enough, although there's lots of tweaking yet to be done to get the display 100%. It isn't particularly quick, but I'm not sure what the memory split is (the kernel will allocate some to the cpu and the rest to the GPU; if I'm not going 3D crazy I should be able to claw some back for the CPU). Yet it is alarming how often the CPU is maxed out according to the CPU monitor.

I think what I am trying to say to Dajgoro, is, well, "you're not missing out on much".

[Dajgoro]

When i watched some youtube videos, the screen resolution was quite high, do you also have a huge screen resolution? Does it have fancy windows (like on win7), if yes, did you try to set the system skin to a classic style and lower the screen resolution?

[BigEd]

(Posting this from my Raspberry Pi!)

The Pi seems to offer just two resolutions, a high resolution (1824x984) if the HDMI is connected at boot and a low resolution on the RCA output (656x416) otherwise. It might be possible to get more flexibility than that, but I've only had it a couple of hours.

Cheers
Ed

[Dajgoro]

What kind of odd resolution rate is 656x416, it is not 4:3, how does it look on the tv?
My friend also is mad about the Pi, he wants to setup a media center on it, so if you have some spare time, try too set something similar up, and see how it is working.