27 Feb
2013
27 Feb
'13
2:25 p.m.
On 26 February 2013 22:44, Jules Richardson
<jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
No I wouldn't. I';d give them soemthign like an (origianl) Mini.
Reasoanble economical on fuel, easy to understand, and the basics are the
same as a more modern car.
On 02/26/2013 02:24 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
If you wanted to get a teenager interested in car mechanics, would you
give them an late-19th-century Daimler-Benz ?
I mean, it's mechanically simple!
No, of course you wouldn't, because it's an antique. It's barely able
to chug along a road at all and it complies with no modern road-safety
standards - it doesn't even have a steering wheel, it has a tiller.
No, you would want something that had a steering wheel, the usual stop
and go pedals, indicators and headlights and so on - something that
actually resembled a car.
That being so, would you give them a huge 1950s sedan? I mean, they're
simpler than modern cars.
No, because it's huge and heavy and complicated to run compared to a
modern car where you put petrol in and it goes for a year without
maintenance. Also, along with all the maintenance and the fact that
it's huge and intimidating, if you have one that still works, it might
be a collectible vintage item; if it's not old enough to be vintage,
it's probably still worth money.
No, you'd give them a little modern compact car, maybe not this year's
latest model, one from a few years ago - small, basic, safe,
roadworthy and familiar and resembling other vehicles they might
encounter. A runabout, something cheap and simple and disposable.
If you are prepeared to use a microprocessor, then get a BBC micro. I've
yet to se a better educational machine. Seriously.
Yes, they are pretty flexible (and reasonably hard to kill!). The 380Z
wasn't bad either, although not quite in the same league. I'm not sure what
a good equivalent this side of the Pond would be - maybe an Apple II as long
as it came with a few useful cards?
In this extended metaphor, being roadworthy means being usable on the
Web. That is what 21st century computers are /for/, that is their
purpose in existence. Being roadworthy means being able to run
Wrong, IMHO. There are certianly uses for comptuers o nthe web, but not
_all_ computers have to have internet access. If you want ot learn
programnming, or hardware deisngm or... then there is no need for _that_
machien to _have to have_ inernet access.
Firefox, say - some standard browser and other fairly
standard
software.
AFAIK the Rpi does not run Firefox.
Having conventional controls - a steering wheel etc. - means having a
GUI, being worked with a mouse and so on.
You are debating which model of 1890s horseless carriage would be most
suitable, when to an impartial outside observer, all of them are
utterly irrelevant.
To a child born in the developed world this century, the Web is part
of life, always there at megabit speeds, as ubiq
For me, and for manty people I know, the only way to truely lean aobut
soemthing is to understnad it at a very basicl level. It is easily
possible to understand a PDP11 at a very basic level. The scheamtics nad
tech manuals eist, oyu cna understnad it to get level. The data sheets on
many of those gate ICs give transistor level scheamtics. You really can
understnad the machine.
I defy anyone to udnerstnad a modern machine to that level. Period. You
may be happy with somebody else understnading what goes on, and jsut
givinhg you fairly complex devices to stick together, but that IMHO is
not truely educational.
Simmilarly, it's possible to undersntad at least older versiosn of
unix-like OSes. To understnad every last line in the kernel source. It's
probably possible to do that o nthe Rpi, actually (well, apart from the
bits where you don;'t get souce...)but fo the simple fact that hte
soruces are not easy to find. Yes, the yexist, but they are not supplied
with the machine and there si no obviopus poitner ot them (like a URL).
Not i nthe book, not anywhere obviosuly on the SD card. This may acutally
be a violation f the GPL, but anyway...
Includign the soruces would eb a good thing. J rand om user might start
readign them almost by accident and learn something.
-tony