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[Reply #105 on:]

So how's OLPC working out, anyway? (As an educational tool...)
I haven't been paying much attention, but I haven't seen any killer apps show up, either :-(

[Reply #106 on:]

for example, i've learn hot to modify a module of the kernel 
and when you compile, you should pay attention at the system date 

[Reply #107 on:]

You know, looking at the specs for the BBC Micro

(and other nostalgia)

When I heard about the Pi on a mailing list a long while ago, I wrote a reply, but didn't push send. I didn't want to appear as the grumpy old man who "has seen it all before". (It was in danish so you get the translation) This was in November last year.
Oh... well, well, first I heard of that news. One cant keep up with everything.

On the other hand - the first introductory paragraph says:
What’s a Raspberry Pi?
The Raspberry Pi is a credit-sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC ... high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming.

That reminds me of the ads of the sc/mp (I had one) and the Spectrum (had one of those, too) and so on through the 70ies and 80ies. The only difference is the number of pixles on screen, and the price is (inflation adjusted) ten times lower.

(signed)The old man, smiling a little overbearingly
What I guessed was likely, but didn't write, and this thread makes it clear, is; it is the same geek/hobby/hassle again. Just with more bytes and a faster CPU.

 

[Reply #108 on:]

it is the same geek/hobby/hassle again.

With the same geeks, only a bit older this time round.   

[Reply #109 on:]

it is the same geek/hobby/hassle again.

With the same geeks, only a bit older this time round.   

ROFL - that one almost brought tears to my eyes

[Reply #110 on:]

With the same geeks, only a bit older this time round.

In my case a bit rounder, this time old.

[Reply #111 on:]

 

In my case a bit rounder, this time old.

Hey I thought it was only me that screwed up jokes by having spelling mistakes.

[Reply #112 on:]

With the same geeks, only a bit older this time round.   

I think that, sadly, that's not the case: if it were, they wouldn't be making the same mistakes.

I remember when the Mac first came out. My local computer store owner was a fellow ex-mainframe geek, and we used to spend Saturday afternoons snickering at how the Apple newbies kept repeating the mistakes that had been made in OS/360.

Not that the alleged grown-ups at IBM did a whole lot better with the early PC design...

[Reply #113 on:]

I think that, sadly, that's not the case:

I was talking about myself. I had a lot of stuff published in the Acorn press right from the start. That was 30 years ago.
Here is a small video I took of one of the early Acorn User Magazine shows, in 1985:-

At that time hand held video cameras were very new and most people hadn't seen one.

[Reply #114 on:]

With the same geeks, only a bit older this time round.

In my case a bit rounder, this time old.

AHHH the old good days when MTV was about music..

btw i'm a new "geek", two years into microcontroller and first year into ARM world.. woooo

[Reply #115 on:]

Two other links of old-meets-new - I just fell across these today, I wasnt searching.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/custom-80s_raspberry-pi-case/
http://www.designspark.com/content/raspberry-pi-vax-cluster

[Reply #116 on:]

I think that, sadly, that's not the case:

I was talking about myself. I had a lot of stuff published in the Acorn press right from the start. That was 30 years ago.
Here is a small video I took of one of the early Acorn User Magazine shows, in 1985:-

At that time hand held video cameras were very new and most people hadn't seen one.
[/quote

are you mike_cook?

[Reply #117 on:]

are you mike_cook?

Guilty as charged.

See:- http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1521

[Reply #118 on:]

As this seems to be the place for rebel Pi users, I just posted this 'over there'. It does have some Arduino content but it doesn't have a place in 'our' main forum. We'll see if it stays there......

Finally got my Pi which turns out to be one I ordered on-line way back and I thought hadn't 'flagged' with Farnell's site. and I left it. I have one I ordered later apparently coming this week...

Anyway on with the plot. I'm an old Linux hand (12 years +) and I set my Pi emulating a job I presently have a hacked ARM NAS box doing namely pulling data out of an Arduinio, potting graphs and providing a Web interface for my home monitoring system. :

http://pluggy.is-a-geek.com

I intend to make a few for other people, and as the said hacked NAS box isn't available anymore I though the Pi would be an ideal replacement. I wouldn't have to hack it and its the right price point.
Its basically a collection of BASH shell scripts running as Cron jobs. I've spent 3 days trying to get it to work reliably, but it crashes constantly.

3 Different power supplies (no cheap nasty Ebay tosh either, one of them is a 2.5 Amp Dlink adapter that once belonged to a router I modified to feed the Pi via the GPIO pins), 2 different 8 GB SD cards (1 Samsung, 1 Sandisk). Its running headless but I have connected a Monitor & Keyboard. Everything works, no problem at least for a time. It reads stuff off the internet and the local network (wired ethernet port) as well as the Arduino which is plugged into on of the USBs.
It will run for a few minutes or maybe an hour and then dies. The lights stay on but it stops responding and stops updating log files at the same time. Sometimes I get a load of stuff in log files suggesting its having problems with the USB and network, sometimes not. Tried Debian
Squeeze, Arch Linux and Debian Wheezy, changing memory mix sizes, done Hexxeth's firmware updates, and all the tweaks I can find. They all do exactly the same on each power supply and SD card. If I leave the Arduino unplugged, it will usually run for several hours before crashing, but it still does. Tweaking the BASH scripts so it doesn't do so much stuff on the network/internet also helps. Not doing much on the network at all seems to keep it alive for extended periods, but that kind of defeats the object of the exercise.

Reading some of the developers comments on Github doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence, the finger seems to point at the (my paraphrase) unholy botch that is the USB/Ethernet hardware system and the closed source patched into opensource (or is it the other way around  ) drivers for said hardware. I'm not expecting my next Pi when it arrives to behave any differently. I've tried playing with it with a GUI and browsing the internet and it works, but I generally get fed up of the performance on most sites before it gets around to crashing.

Any pointers ? But I've probably already tried it......

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=10011&p=119416#p119416

[Reply #119 on:]

Iron fist over there, I dared to question why RS Components had taken my money when theres a 10 week lead time for delivery and fobbed me off 3 times when I rang to complain.   The mods decided that 'Don't buy from RS components' as a thread title didn't make the cut for "everything Pi is rosy" and they deleted it. What they doing, paying their Chinese suppliers up front with my money ?.  You could probably get stuff made from scratch and shipped over here on a slow container boat in less than 10 weeks........