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On Sat, 3 Mar 2012, Tom Brough wrote:
I give a little chuckle with all this panic buying of Raspberry Pi. It reminds me of the early 80's waiting for the BBC Micro to arrive. Of course in those days there was no internet or even email to keep us informed of progress. I think I will wait for the panic to die down and for the production problems to be ironed out ... as an early BBC owner I learnt the lessons about first generation production boards.....
But someone's gotta be first :)I'm sure the hardware will be fine. In the "olden" days it was practical do to post production fix-ups, but with modern multi-layer boards and the surface mount technology used, it's really not that practical - they'll either all work or all wont!
I hope Raspberry Pi does manage to achieve what it set out to do. The hardware spec doesn't worry me, we all know the software is solid and can be tweaked but what concerns me is will there be sufficient course ware and education material and will it capture the imagination of kids ... or will they just go back to playing games on their play station Xbox's and Wii's ?
My own thoughts are that it will make sod-all difference *unless* the teachers concerned get genuinely enthusiastic about it. Without the people to teach, and the enthusiasm to drive it, it's worthless.
So the new initiatives to change the curriculum will help, but I don't think they'll go far enough. In the 80's everything was new new new, so people were genuinely enthusiastic, but now? It's just another computer, pass my iDribble/ndroid/pad widget ...
To actually get an RPi going needs a HDMI to DVI adapter (£20 from Maplin), or a monitor/TV with HDMI input (rare in schools?) USB keyboard, power supply, USB hub (if you want a mouse), and a nice non metallic platform to sit the thing on... In the days of the Apple II, a cheap 14" colour TV was fine...
Anyway, counting down the weeks now until mines delivered! I'm looking forward to it - a new toy if nothing else :)
Gordon
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