Day (who cares anymore) in Pi-land...

[SimpleSi]

...I got RaspBMC (Pi version of XBMC) up and running - the way you install it is unusal - I expected to have to download an SD image with it on but you basically run a Windows prog that installs a bootable downloader onto an SD card and then when you stick it into your Pi, it downloads and sets itself up - bit opposite from the rest of the Pi DIY world

 

Anyway, since I've a blu-ray player in the living room that acts as a DLNA client and I've got my phone and tablet as a DLNA clients as well - its not worth dedicating a Pi to the job but nice to know it works and its is the cheapest way of getting a LAN media player if you don't have anything else lying around.

 

Moving on, I want to take my Pi into schools next week and show my "Digital Leaders" (as Ian Addision calls them) what I've been getting so excitited about.

Now, the Pi needs a bit of protection for this and here is my Raspberry_Pi case (or RaspberryFlan as some of my twitter friends have labeled it!)

Si

[SYNACK]

I've been meaning to ask, in a non-evil way - why are you so excited about the Pi?

 

It is a microcontroller running linux that can output to a TV. The Arduno is closer to the harware and more extensible for wireing in raw hardware. You've been able to put linux on PCs and hack about with them for ages, even as VMs to make having one each easier.

 

You can get PC cases that show you the motherboard etc. Non-obtusely, whats the big deal?

[SimpleSi]

The big deal is the push to get kids into computing

 

So a bunch of people got together and managed to drive down the price of a populated motherboard to $25 so that cost of hardware to learn on would be minimal and that by looking/acting "raw" it encourages tinkering/ownership in the way that the family desktop/laptop/ipad doesn't.

 

Who knows if this will work out but some people are going to give it a real good go

 

I'd argue that the Pi is a computer and that an Arduino is a microcontroller BTW

 

Si

PS Of course, given that its a working computer for $25, us elder geeks are going to be having a LOT of fun doing all sorts of things with them.

[SYNACK]

Ah, fair enough, I just guess I can't get as excited as I have known about this stuff and how to do most of it for ages so it just seems like another format to me, like the iPad (better as signifigantly more free and less expencive) but still just a different format of the same thing. I am majorly cynical but I have seen several of these 'format' shifts that were going to revoloutionise everything and when it all boils down it is not the device but the momentum around it that causes any shifts. I hope that this does lead to more interest in the fundimentals of computing but its the community around it as much, if not more than the device that will make it a success or not.