1 Jul
2012
1 Jul
'12
1:38 p.m.
On 30 June 2012 19:56, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Well, that ius nto a change for the better :-). However, it does appear
as though a printed manual/tutorial wil leb avaialbe. How complete it is
I don't know.
Of course all tahts really needed is to have the startup, etc
instructions as ap rinted manual and then to have all the other
docuemtnation on the (supplied) SD card with the OS. Once you;'ve got it
running you can read the programing, interfacing, etc docs.
True. But a prodcut I can't use is surely a total waste of money.
IMHO documentation is not an option, it's essential. If you can't work
out how to use something, it's *(by defintion) useless.
[...]
To answer those of your points that I feel that I usefully can:
Documentation - yes, it does have some. It's online, i.e., on the WWW.
This is the 21st century; that is how things are done now.
Yes, it does at the moment expect you to have a PC and Web access
already. This is not, *at this stage*, a stand-alone computer. This is
AS I siad in another message, it appears it was (as ever) released before
it's finished. Another related thing is that it was rumoured that it
woudl ahve na I2S (Inter IC Sound) port. The current versions don;t, and
from readong soem web pages I could alsomst think it
was becuase they
wired up the wrong pins on the SoC...
the early, developers/hackers version of the product.
AIUI, there will
subsequently be a more polished, complete release, in a case, with a
finished, optimised OS and so on.
OTOH, for embedded projects and the like, this version is more
suitable as you don't have to buy all the bits.
Agreeed. I can see reasosn why yuo'd want the baesd board with no extras.
IMHO both should be available -- ther board on its own amd a complete
plug-n-go ssytem
As for why not to use a PC:
* New PCs are expensive
And you, and others, keep tellign me I can find them for free. Those
amchiens, if they exist, would surely be OK for learing to program. You
cnat' have it both ways ;-)
* PCs are elaborate with many moving parts &
require expert maintenance
Err,um... I keep on saying that I cma not clever enough to maintain a PC,
you keep sayign I am. Please be consistent.
* PCs do not tolerate stressful environments well
* PCs have active cooling - spinning fans to chop little fingers,
Have you ever man aged to chop a finger with a PC cooling fan?
mains voltages that are dangerous, slots that could
have foreign
bodies inserted into them, etc.
And the Rpi needs power, The SMPSU you might use to run it -- e.g. a
mobile phone charger or soemthing -- has mains in it.
* PCs are large and bulky
AS are the keyboard and more particularly the display needed for the Rpi
* Because of their bulk and fragility, and the need
for expertise to
refurbish them, old PCs are not easily obtained and shipped to where
children might readily have access to them.
hang on... Erarlier on you agreed you need web access to get the manuals
for the Rpi. How do yuo propose doign that iwthotu a PC?
* PCs require lots of electricity to run
As does the monitor for the Rpi.
* Some of the complexity issues could be solved by a
single-disk Linux
distro that provided a range of simple tools, but the vastly
heterogenous nature of PC hardware means this is hard to implement.
Come again? I am running oen of the oddest PC-based linux boxes around,
and one thing I have not had nay problems with are the language compilers.
* Also, Linux scares off nontechnical users who only
know Windows;
this is less of a problem with a computer that cannot run Windows at
all.
Ah... Soldering is claimed to be difficult and puts off non-technical
people. Bt this is not a problem for a computer that only comes as a pile
of ICs ad a bnare board :-)
Openness: I have not called it open. Others may have. There are
True, you didn't say it was 'open' bet plenty of others have.
-tony