12-08-2012, 12:29 PM
I have had 25 odd years playing around with micro's in one form or another, having cut my teeth on the ZX81 before moving up to a Spectrum and the RML380Z. Of the latter, a respectable machine, but prone to frying the graphics card if you got your programming wrong.
I also remember the hype 15 plus years ago when the PICs first came out. I have a PIC programmer sitting here on the shelf, collecting dust, doing nothing along with a bundle of 16C64 chips. Why? PIC was being marketed as the computer processor for the common man in the street where in actuality you needed to understand machine code in order to get the best from it, and that was before you then designed the hardware to go around it. PIC was in actuality user unfriendly for the man in the street, and that is quite probably the primary reason why I didnt exploit the device.
Pi is a better step forward for the common user. It's a fully integrated computer on a board that does not require you to design anything around it to get it to work from the off whilst using a software that is reasonably easy to use. With PIC you had no idea what was happening inside when turned on, with Pi you look at the screen and get instant results, something that makes it instantly appealing to kids. In addition to the computer you have the MagPi magazine (www.themagpi.com) which from the off has been written for the base user. The last couple of episodes have been covering basic interfacing with the GPIO and USB port whilst issue 3 gave several pages of downloadable software including a BBC Model B emulator. There is a rapidly growing support base out there on the internet, a lot of it is being generated between the ages of 4 to 16, which was the reason why the Pi was conceived in the first place, to interest children in computing the was Sinclair, Commodore, BBC, Dragon etc. did thirty years ago. Not a bad thing in my book
Finally price, yes I'd agree, some silly hype from the press but look at it this way. £30 for the P1, add at most another £25 if you needed to buy a power supply, keyboard, mouse and connectors. Say £60 to round up. But then I recall the ZX81 when it first came out was a wopping £99 at 1980 prices and you had to build it yourself and plug into a television to see what you are doing. What's changed in 30 years? Nothing but the price and a more capable machine, even at £30 quid cheaper over those 30 years it is still a cheap way of getting an internet capable user programmable computer that you can interface to whatever you like and learn a lot along the way.
I do wonder how many of those people at JPL and the laboratories over here contributing to various space related projects actually started with a basic computer all those years ago. With the Pi, maybe in 30 years we will know. Interesting times.
I also remember the hype 15 plus years ago when the PICs first came out. I have a PIC programmer sitting here on the shelf, collecting dust, doing nothing along with a bundle of 16C64 chips. Why? PIC was being marketed as the computer processor for the common man in the street where in actuality you needed to understand machine code in order to get the best from it, and that was before you then designed the hardware to go around it. PIC was in actuality user unfriendly for the man in the street, and that is quite probably the primary reason why I didnt exploit the device.
Pi is a better step forward for the common user. It's a fully integrated computer on a board that does not require you to design anything around it to get it to work from the off whilst using a software that is reasonably easy to use. With PIC you had no idea what was happening inside when turned on, with Pi you look at the screen and get instant results, something that makes it instantly appealing to kids. In addition to the computer you have the MagPi magazine (www.themagpi.com) which from the off has been written for the base user. The last couple of episodes have been covering basic interfacing with the GPIO and USB port whilst issue 3 gave several pages of downloadable software including a BBC Model B emulator. There is a rapidly growing support base out there on the internet, a lot of it is being generated between the ages of 4 to 16, which was the reason why the Pi was conceived in the first place, to interest children in computing the was Sinclair, Commodore, BBC, Dragon etc. did thirty years ago. Not a bad thing in my book
Finally price, yes I'd agree, some silly hype from the press but look at it this way. £30 for the P1, add at most another £25 if you needed to buy a power supply, keyboard, mouse and connectors. Say £60 to round up. But then I recall the ZX81 when it first came out was a wopping £99 at 1980 prices and you had to build it yourself and plug into a television to see what you are doing. What's changed in 30 years? Nothing but the price and a more capable machine, even at £30 quid cheaper over those 30 years it is still a cheap way of getting an internet capable user programmable computer that you can interface to whatever you like and learn a lot along the way.
I do wonder how many of those people at JPL and the laboratories over here contributing to various space related projects actually started with a basic computer all those years ago. With the Pi, maybe in 30 years we will know. Interesting times.
