On 25/02/2013 23:55, jim s wrote: The Rev2.0 board has an additional header BUT a different pin out on the original GPIO header. -- Dave Wade G4UGM Illegitimi Non Carborundum

On 26 February 2013 20:07, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: Tony, look, it is perfectly fine if you personally choose to live a 1980s existence using 1980s technology. You could have much newer and more powerful computers if you wanted; I've offered to give them to you, deliver them and set them up and show you around them. You refused. You thought about it for a bit, I'll give you that, but you said no. That's fine. It's your choice, your call. But because you choose not to have broadband, choose to use a 1980s PC, choose not to have 21st century technology in your life - does not mean or imply that everyone else should. Something like 80% of the country has broadband in the home. [Citation: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/market-data/communica…] Get a phoneline from Talktalk, they give it to you for free. Wireless networks, flat screens, USB peripherals, SD storage - this stuff is all so old-fashioned now that people are throwing it away. It is appearing in skips beside the road; people are giving away TFTs on Freecycle regularly. I've sent a few to ComputerAid myself because I have no use for 14" or 15" desktop LCDs any more - why would I want to use something so small? You don't have any of this stuff because *you choose not to.* In my Sony ereader - a present from a departing lodger - I have the two smallest memory cards I could find in the junkpile: a 32MB Sony memory stick and a 512MB MicroSD card in a MicroSD-to-SD adaptor that I also found in the bits pile. Those are so small, my friends marvel that I have kept such things. A four gigabyte SD card is ?2 these days. The cost of a half of beer or a bag of chips. You can still get 2GB ones - they cost the same; these prices are at cost. 1GB cards cost more - they are rarities. I am on a classic computers mailing list; I am known among my techno-geek friends as someone with an interest in old computers. I am renowned for running ancient, trailing-edge kit. My main PC, the one I'm typing on, is a 3GHz Core 2 Quad Extreme with 8GB of RAM. It came off my local Freegle list. All it cost me was the train fare to go and collect it. For a junker, it's high-end, yes, but still, this is the kind of PC people are throwing away now. Cellphones have used MicroUSB chargers for some years. Having a spare charger is very likely; again, one would cost a pound or two in a computer fair. An HDMI cable can be bought from Poundland and there is a clue to what it will cost you in the name of the shop. You /choose/ to avoid technology younger than 30 years old. That's your option; have fun. But to complain and cavil that the Raspberry Pi is not really cheap because you need exotic bits is completely unreasonable. The bits it needs are junk from the spare room of the sort of technologically-reasonably-with-it family that might buy a toy computer for their kids. And to suggest that the children should be learning how to debug a PDP/11 is as absurd as saying that they should be able to build a yurt, find some suitable flint, make a stone spear tip and slaughter and butcher a mammoth. Yes, our ancestors did that, 10,000Y ago or something, and these were essential life-skills then. They are not any more. This is a little American-centric, but here is a guide to the worldview of a college-age student of today. The Class of 2016 - those are kids entering university this year. http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2016/ And because I know that you don't have graphical WWW access at home, Tony, because that is too modern for you and you don't see the need, I'll copy and paste it. I hope this message doesn't take too long to download at 14kbs, but I can't remember, because 14kbs modems became superseded and obsolete 20 years ago now and I have not used one in 2 decades - that's half my life ago. *The Mindset List for the Class of 2016* For this generation of entering college students, born in 1994, Kurt Cobain, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Richard Nixon and John Wayne Gacy have always been dead. 1. They should keep their eyes open for Justin Bieber or Dakota Fanning at freshman orientation. 2. They have always lived in cyberspace, addicted to a new generation of ?electronic narcotics.? 3. The Biblical sources of terms such as ?Forbidden Fruit,? ?The writing on the wall,? ?Good Samaritan,? and ?The Promised Land? are unknown to most of them. 4. Michael Jackson?s family, not the Kennedys, constitutes ?American Royalty.? 5. If they miss /The Daily Show/, they can always get their news on YouTube. 6. Their lives have been measured in the fundamental particles of life: bits, bytes, and bauds. 7. Robert De Niro is thought of as Greg Focker's long-suffering father-in-law, not as Vito Corleone or Jimmy Conway. 8. Bill Clinton is a senior statesman of whose presidency they have little knowledge. 9. They have never seen an airplane ?ticket.? 10. On TV and in films, the ditzy dumb blonde female generally has been replaced by a couple of /Dumb and Dumber/ males. * * 11. The paradox "too big to fail" has been, for their generation, what "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" was for their grandparents'. 12. For most of their lives, maintaining relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world has been a woman?s job in the State Department. 13. They can?t picture people actually carrying luggage through airports rather than rolling it. 14. There has always been football in Jacksonville but never in Los Angeles. 15. While still fans of music on radio, they often listen to it on their laptops or replace it with music downloaded onto their MP3s and iPods. 16. Since they've been born, the United States has measured progress by a 2 percent jump in unemployment and a 16 cent rise in the price of a first class postage stamp. 17. Benjamin Braddock, having given up both a career in plastics and a relationship with Mrs. Robinson, could be their grandfather. 18. Their folks have never gazed with pride on a new set of bound encyclopedias on the bookshelf. 19. The Green Bay Packers have always celebrated with the Lambeau Leap. 20. Exposed bra straps have always been a fashion statement, not a wardrobe malfunction to be corrected quietly by well-meaning friends. 21. A significant percentage of them will enter college already displaying some hearing loss. 22. /The Real World/ has always stopped being polite and started getting real on MTV. 23. Women have always piloted war planes and space shuttles. 24. White House security has never felt it necessary to wear rubber gloves when gay groups have visited. 25. They have lived in an era of instant stardom and self-proclaimed celebrities, famous for being famous. 26. Having made the acquaintance of Furby at an early age, they have expected their toy friends to do ever more unpredictable things. 27. Outdated icons with images of floppy discs for ?save,? a telephone for ?phone,? and a snail mail envelope for ?mail? have oddly decorated their tablets and smart phone screens. 28. /Star Wars/ has always been just a film, not a defense strategy. 29. They have had to incessantly remind their parents not to refer to their CDs and DVDs as ?tapes.? 30. There have always been blue M&Ms, but no tan ones.? 31. Along with online viewbooks, parents have always been able to check the crime stats for the colleges their kids have selected. 32. Newt Gingrich has always been a key figure in politics, trying to change the way America thinks about everything. 33. They have come to political consciousness during a time of increasing doubts about America?s future. 34. Billy Graham is as familiar to them as Otto Graham was to their parents. 35. Probably the most tribal generation in history, they despise being separated from contact with their similar-aged friends. 36. Stephen Breyer has always been an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. 37. Martin Lawrence has always been banned from hosting Saturday Night Live. 38. Slavery has always been unconstitutional in Mississippi, and Southern Baptists have always been apologizing for supporting it in the first place. 39. The Metropolitan Opera House in New York has always translated operas on seatback screens. 40. A bit of the late Gene Roddenberry, creator of /Star Trek/, has always existed in space. 41. Good music programmers are rock stars to the women of this generation, just as guitar players were for their mothers. 42. Gene therapy has always been an available treatment. 43. They were too young to enjoy the 1994 World Series, but then no one else got to enjoy it either. 44. The folks have always been able to grab an Aleve when the kids started giving them a migraine. 45. While the iconic TV series for their older siblings was the sci-fi show /Lost/, for them it?s /Breaking Bad/, a gritty crime story motivated by desperate economic circumstances. 46. Simba has always had trouble waiting to be King. 47. Before they purchase an assigned textbook, they will investigate whether it is available for rent or purchase as an e-book. 48. They grew up, somehow, without the benefits of /Romper Room/. 49. There has always been a World Trade Organization. 50. L.L. Bean hunting shoes have always been known as just plain Bean Boots. 51. They have always been able to see Starz on Direct TV. 52. Ice skating competitions have always been jumping matches. 53. There has always been a /Santa Clause/. 54. NBC has never shown /A Wonderful Life/ more than twice during the holidays. 55. Mr. Burns has replaced J.R.Ewing as the most shot-at man on American television. 56. They have always enjoyed school and summer camp memories with a digital yearbook. 57. Herr Schindler has always had a List; Mr. Spielberg has always had an Oscar. 58. Selena's fans have always been in mourning. 59. They know many established film stars by their voices on computer-animated blockbusters. 60. History has always had its own channel. 61. Thousands have always been gathering for ?million-man? demonstrations in Washington, D.C. 62. Television and film dramas have always risked being pulled because the story line was too close to the headlines from which they were ?ripped.? 63. The/Twilight/ Zone involves vampires, not Rod Serling. 64. Robert Osborne has always been introducing Hollywood history on TCM. 65. Little Caesar has always been proclaiming ?Pizza Pizza.? 66. They have no recollection of when Arianna Huffington was a conservative. 67. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has always been officially recognized with clinical guidelines. 68. They watch television everywhere but on a television. 69. /Pulp Fiction/?s meal of a "Royale with Cheese" and an ?Amos and Andy milkshake? has little or no resonance with them. 70. Point-and-shoot cameras are soooooo last millennium. 71. Despite being preferred urban gathering places, two-thirds of the independent bookstores in the United States have closed for good during their lifetimes. 72. Astronauts have always spent well over a year in a single space flight. 73. Lou Gehrig's record for most consecutive baseball games played has never stood in their lifetimes. 74. Genomes of living things have always been sequenced. 75. The Sistine Chapel ceiling has always been brighter and cleaner. Copyright? 2012 Beloit College/ Mindset List/ is a registered trademark -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884

On 27 February 2013 01:48, geneb <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote: :?D Glad to be of service. :?) -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884

Actually, you offered me machinwes that had 'issues' lile they didn't always work. No thanks. I would mcuih rather have a slow and ancient machien that I know will work. I can depend on that. In any cae, a faster PC would not give me fast internet access. I would also need broadbandmm, surely. Yo u may be happy to have j=random-unknown do vrythign for you. I am not. If you are happy taking ready-made stuff and just using it, then fine. But I don;t see how that can be said to be educational _about said ready-made stuff_. -tony

On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 8:45 PM, Alexander Schreiber <als at thangorodrim.de> wrote: I understand the point you are trying to make here, but just to toss out a see-it-can-be-done story, my first Pi was purchased over the counter at MCM Electronics in Dayton (a US distributor). They have a will-call number, so you can call them on the phone and pick up your order 3 hours later (after they pull it and print out all the paperwork). So the Internet was not invoked in the purchase of _my_ Pi. -ethan

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013, Tony Duell wrote: How long before certain [in need of defensetration] officials attempt to control CASH? There was actually an attempt years ago to abolish $100 bills! "because drug dealers use them"! The college administration here (see defenestration remarks) has decided that instead of a library patron handing 10 cents to the librarian to pay for a single page printout, that they must now leave their printout behind, go to another part of the building, pay 10 cents to the bursar's office, and bring the receipt back to the library to reclaim their printout. This was all due to the president of the college being SHOCKED to find out that the library had almost 25 dollars (mostly in coins) in a lockbox in a drawer. I wish that there were a cheap coin-operated printer with a preview screen! THAT is what the LAWYERS say! While I would PREFER dead-tree, those docs could be distributed on SD card, CD-ROM, or even on a remote server for download. I was disappointed that DEBUG on the 5150 wasn't built into the ROM. But, at least it came with PC-DOS 1.00, and the Technical Reference Manual was a pretty good start at reference material. It was a while before intro books were available. OTOH, Radio Shack jumped straight in with the David Lien books for the TRS80. You might need to actually write real software. :-) SOME C compilers are SO lame, that they can't comprehend an array index other than 16 bit int! :-) To get those things accepted by SCHOOLS (NOTE: That is ORTHOGONAL to getting them accepted by TEACHERS), they need to be repackaged, WITH A CASE. Remember when Apple could not adequately break into the educational market? They solved that quite cleverly with their Hell and Bowel deal. The case had to be modified to latch (not velcro), and the cord NOT detachable, so that it wouldn't separate and wander off (THAT requirement has since been relaxed in schools). But, most importantly, it had "BELL & Howell" as the name. It was, therefore, no longer an obscure hippy company named after a fruit. AND, since COMPUTERS required Board Of Education special committees, it could now be slid past the budget approval process as "Audio-Visual Equipment". I don't know why they had to be BLACK. Seriously. THAT is what it took. BUT, once those were accepted as being "legitimate", with their implicit approval by B&H, THEN most schools could then buy them cheaper without going through B&H. Any serious attempt at marketing to schools needs to start with a case, with SAFETY labels. They don't however, really CARE whether it is documented or even whether it works. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com 0.685 semesters to go

:-) As I have said several times, if you want to learn how a computer really works, buy a non-working Unibus PDP11 (nto an 11/24, 11/84, 11/94, etc ,one of the TTL-baed ones), a PDP8/e or an HP9830 and learn to fix it. By the time it's working you will know just how a CPU executes instructions. If you are prepeared to use a microprocessor, then get a BBC micro. I've yet to se a better educational machine. Seriously. But I do wonder jhsut who the Rpi is aimed at. Given that you need a PC and its peripherals (keyboard, mouse, monitor) to use the Rpi, I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler jsut to install a free C compiler on said PC, at least to learn programming. -tony

On 2/26/13 2:24 PM, Tony Duell wrote: I think that for the vast majority of modern households, any of your 3 alternatives would be much more expensive, not to mention disruptive, than simply dressing out a Raspberry Pi system. Most households run Windows. Yes, there exist free compilers for Windows but not a lot of parents understand or are willing to risk that sort of activity on their primary business/communication center. And rightly so. So just throwing a free compiler on a PC will likely require the purchase of said PC. Did you price any BBC Micros lately? Or PDP11 systems, for that matter? How about shipping costs? Not to mention the fact that the common household would need to purchase some kind of serial terminal, or at the least a good USB-serial adapter for use with a PC-based terminal emulator. Bear in mind also that in most countries, cubic footage is a very limited resource... Finally, most households already own as spares all or most of the peripherals required by the Rpi. If not, "old" USB keyboards and mice are very nearly free for the taking. My take on the Raspberry Pi is that it offers EXACTLY what it claims to offer. A cheap, accessible ENTRY POINT into programming and/or hardware hacking. Incidentally, it can also serve nicely as a lower-end general-purpose modern** computer. **where by "modern" I mean there's no need nor desire for FDC, RS232, VGA, stepped instructions, etc. Doc

On 26/02/2013 20:24, Tony Duell wrote: Its aimed at teaching "computer science" rather than "programming". You only need "one" PC per school of PI's to create the SD card installations. This comes with some development tools installed. Each child can have their own SD card and so you don't need any network to develop. You can program on the PI rather than having to use a PC as with other many embedded solutions. Its cheap enough and low power enough so that you can stick it in in a project and not worry about the cost. Take a look the web site:- http://www.raspberrypi.org/ and see what folks are doing..... Dave G4UGM P.S. mine is still sat in front of the TV as a media server. However I think I will get another to use as small file server.

On 27 February 2013 01:49, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote: I say! I had no idea that Plan 9 ran on the Raspi. That /is/ interesting. Thanks for the info! -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884

On 02/26/2013 02:24 PM, Tony Duell wrote: 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? Absolutely. I suspect for many people it appeals because it's a cheap computer, and they don't really have a particular use in mind for it (so it doesn't matter that it's rather middle-ground for so many situations). cheers Jules

On 26 February 2013 22:44, Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> 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. 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 Firefox, say - some standard browser and other fairly standard software. 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 -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013, Liam Proven wrote: kids today haven't HEARD of it. It is HISTORY.

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013, Tony Duell wrote: Why don't you create a device with the equivalent (at least) abilities of the Raspberry Pi, but with your "enhancements" and sell it for $35. Until that happens, I suggest you sit down, shut up and quit being a cranky tonker. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!

On 28 Feb 2013 15:07, "ben" <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote: Yes, of course. That is the entire point of the exercise. How small & cheap can one make a reasonably modern computer that can surf the web and run modern graphical programming tools such as Scratch. The answer is, ?25 - and I think that is pretty impressive. right. What does that mean? Build quality doesn't really enter into it. It's a single, credit-card sized PCB. It has an under-specified processor & an over-specified graphics chip, but they are what was available cheaply from the day job of the designers. It's not as open as I'd like. But for the money, it is stunning. What would you have done differently? Bear in mind the price point. Equal or lower price only. What would you change?

On 02/28/2013 11:45 AM, ben wrote: I think you just answered your own question. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

On 2/28/2013 12:04 PM, Allison wrote: Hard to say. Embedded tasks to me require lots of I/O and that seems to be limited on general purpose systems. I have yet to see a PIA driver for linux. :) Ben.

On 3/1/2013 8:25 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: I want to bit bang the hardware! Ben.

On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 9:39 AM, ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote: You kiss your mother with that mouth?

On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 08:39:51 -0700 ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote: NetBSD has a special device driver framework for this: gpio(4) NAME gpio -- General Purpose Input/Output [...] DESCRIPTION The gpio device attaches to the GPIO controller and provides a uniform programming interface to its pins. Each GPIO controller with an attached gpio device has an associated device file under the /dev directory, e.g. /dev/gpio0. Access from userland is performed through ioctl(2) calls on these devices. [...] -- \end{Jochen} \ref{http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/}

Precisely! I would much rather pay $100 for somethingthat does the job han $25 for soemthign that doesn't. Going bnack 30 eyars, the BBC micro was expensive, sure. But it worked. The Sinclair Specturm was a lot cheaper, but it was nmt useful fo rthe soets of thigns I want to do. I do wonder, though, why you think the HP67 (1975-ish) was the last useable HP calcualtor. I feel the HP41 and HP71 families are also well-desngied. Current HP models, fo coruse, are not. -tony

On 2/28/2013 3:21 PM, Sam O'nella wrote: A lot of the phone chips, for instance the samsung chip i have in my phone are available in these sorts of products. Put a cell phone chip on a board with normal connectors. the problem is that we are now at a time when a lot of these systems on a chip need to have a lot of power management to run low power and to run cool. Most are not designed to just have all the silicon on all the time and run normally that way. With either a linux system or android system most will not run that way unless the vendors full bsp support for all portions of the system are released. I suspect they are turning on only the apps processors and maybe a few other assets and just leaving them on, rather than modifying drivers to turn them on as needed. To expose such in open source would expose a lot of tricks they don't want to share. The Pi processor is not such a system, but is representative of what you would see as a small portion of one of the ones you referenced. In fact I would not be surprised if in the case of the dongle like you describe which I found for the chip in my Galaxy Note 2 the Egynos 4412 has an arm7 equivalent of faster than the Pi completely held in reset and ignored. The modems frequently are on the systems and are hopefully left turned off and passive since there are no RF external gear to make them useful. thanks Jim

On 2/28/2013 1:22 PM, Tony Duell wrote: I remember borrowing them, but never owned one. I may be old fashioned but I want software to be productive not full of gimmicks. I have 3 button microwave (High,low,defrost) and 30 min rotary timer. I does the job it wants to do. I run windows to play games and surf the web and do a little C programing. ( Less now that I got bundled with 64 bit windows, as many of all my old apps will not. t.com was nice editor ). Ben.

On 2/27/2013 2:35 PM, Tony Duell wrote: 99.9% of the people I know have no idea what happens once the take a phone off the hook, and talk into it. They don't care. People who are using computers like the Pi vs. ones like PC's and laptops are going to follow. They just use them and don't care how they work. That is why 500,000 (if that is accurate) are already sold. I don't think there are half a million people who plan to learn how the arm chip is interfaced thru the 3v gpio. they want to hook it to a tv ,keybard, etc. and just use it. There aren't that many I know who used the 8080 and 8 bit, and on that learned them either. I knew a lot of people who used them and even could mix and match boards, but seldom if ever could tell you what each board really did to implement its purpose, as most on this list could. They got along just fine bumbling along with horrible early spread sheet programs, word processors and terminal emulators to name what I saw a lot of people do. Many that I helped came to me and said "I won't pay what <Wang, IBM, name the dedicated word processor system> wants when I can buy a terminal, <name the 8 bit computer> and a qume (that was what gagged me, I hated daisy wheel printers) and do just fine". Later made some money helping people move off of horrible proprietary typesetter systems they didn't really need, etc. jim

Actually, I am not sure I do. Mainly becuase I have no idea what sort of exchange I am linked to. I thought the Rpi was intneded ot give people some udnerstnading of what goes on inside, to let them program, let them do simple hardware hacking (turnign on LEDs, etc). I feel everybody should learn to program. Not becuase they will get a job programming, but because it teaches them how to analyse a problem. That is a very valuable skill I also feel that it is a bad idea to use thigns you do not understnad. This does nto necessarily mean knowing every last detail of the insides. An example is a spreadsheet. It is very easy to get nonsensical results understand how the cell references work. But something more fundamental. Becuasse you don't understand concepts like rounding errors, convergeance, etc. IMHO if you are going to use a spreadsheet you need to understnad this. It has been said that now that calcualtors are everywhere, kids do not need to leanr how to do long multiplication and division. I am nto sure I accept that (given that long multiplciaton and division have applciations in manipulating agebraic expresions too). But I am convinced that if you are goign to assume that clacualtors are everywhere you should teach kids why said calculators do not always give the right answers and how to avoid such problems. -tony

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 10:45:50PM +0000, Tony Duell wrote: Wait. They squeezed every _cent_ from the BOM and you are surprised that the results are less than ... impressive? Yes, that information was cleverly hidden at: http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianFAQ or, for just the package sources: http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianRepository and: https://github.com/raspberrypi has the kernel and various other bits. Yes, the GPU specific code is still binary only - you can thank Broadcom for that. The packages you consider important and the packages that I consider important and finally those that anybody else considers important probably don't have that much overlap. What should they do? Install the world and require a 32 GB SD-Card (guessing on the size here). Offer a 16 GB download (compressed) for the "base image"? Similiarly for not including source in the standard image. The checked out kernel tree alone is several hundred MB. The size of the full download for Debian armhf testing (what Raspbian is based on) is a full DVD image with 4.3 GB. And that presumably has only te binaries as _compressed_ archives. Shipping _everything_ (complete binary & source distro) to _everyone_ who buys a Raspberry Pi would increase the price a quite a bit. Lets say we only need a 16 GB sd-card: that is another USD 15 right there and most people won't need it. So: you can easily get the stuff, but it needs an Internet connection. Big deal. So complete and test your Raspberry Pi setup before you wander off in the woods where there is no network connection ;-) People seem to mistake the Raspberry Pi as the second coming of the BBC Micro. It assuredly isn't. The Internet exists. So does Google. Seriously. And that is one key thing they got right with the Raspberry: if it doesn't boot, you swap the SD card and you're done. No need to hunt down the JTAG gear. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison

On 2/27/2013 2:57 PM, Tony Duell wrote: The Broadcom chip is probably used because it is useless as a phone or other chip, and is just out on the market being sold to people who don't care a fig about changing the drivers. there are a lot of other chips that are now in small Rpi type gizmos that do have all the docs available. You are focusing on the Debian model. They make the sources and binaries easily available in a manner that requires internet access. If you want to go with one of the other OS's you are welcome to. I don't know if any of them offer source other than as a net download. Debian was quick and easy to adapt and there are a lot of people who can work on it, hence it is the foremost choice, but certainly you can download a copy to some media and sell your own. That is the way with things now days. I wouldn't bet my business model on shipping paper manuals like you wish and having any of them current by the time you sell product. things change way to fast to commit anything to dead tree for shipment. Jim