£15 Computer ...

edscdk · 24 Dec 2011 at 18:37

LucidLogix® said:
Explain how?

Something like that could be vital to AI and Robotics which could shape the future of the world. I don't think you've thought what you said through.

It's a pile of junk, £30 on eBay gets you something more powerful and useful.

30 years ago yes it would be worthwhile..

Who cannot afford £30 to £60 for a pc?

bitslice · 24 Dec 2011 at 18:39

edscdk said:
£30 on eBay will get you something 10x more powerful and useful

Point missed?
this is to learn on and therefore needs to be as cheap as possible.

Tefal · 24 Dec 2011 at 18:40

edscdk said:
It's a pile of junk, £30 on eBay gets you something more powerful and useful.

30 years ago yes it would be worthwhile..

Who cannot afford £30 to £60 for a pc?

when you say £30 on ebay are you talking a full sized old PC?

THis thing isn;t really about the price more the size and what you can do with it.

like the arduino for the price of one of them you could probbaly pick-up an old office pc (heck you can pick one of them up for the cost of a pint usually) which would be far more powerful but you'd struggle to get an ATX board up in the air on your little quad copter.

edscdk · 24 Dec 2011 at 18:40

bitslice said:
Point missed?
this is to learn on and therefore needs to be as cheap as possible.

Seriously are you posting from Africa? Even people on benefits can afford £7 a week on fags

LucidLogix® · 24 Dec 2011 at 18:45

edscdk said:
It's a pile of junk, £30 on eBay gets you something more powerful and useful.

30 years ago yes it would be worthwhile..

Who cannot afford £30 to £60 for a pc?

I'd rather that and put it in a case as its extremely portable then. Once you output the display to a portable screen then its going to be amazing. Lets say your mate has a laptop and you go over his, you can just take this little computer, hook it up to his HDMI TV and bang, you are able to browse the web and visit OcUK.

LucidLogix® · 24 Dec 2011 at 18:46

edscdk said:
Seriously are you posting from Africa? Even people on benefits can afford £7 a week on fags

The whole point is this is going to be aimed at

schools
students
pupils
research teams
robotics teams

etc.

Not the general public. Yes general public sales will be great for them but their main aim is those listed above.

LucidLogix® · 24 Dec 2011 at 18:51

willhub said:
Could it run Windows XP?

I might get one and replace my parents rig with it that has a 4GHz dual core and 9800GTX, that can go on ebay

Will it run WINE (or Windows, or other x86 software)?
No.

It won't run Windows, taken straight from their website FAQ.

bitslice · 24 Dec 2011 at 18:52

edscdk said:
Seriously are you posting from Africa? Even people on benefits can afford £7 a week on fags

Yep, point missed

Back in the 80's parents bought their kids ZX81's, that led to a whole generation of programmers and electronic tinkerers. Make something that is as cheap as chips and parents might buy them just to spark some interest in their kid. In fact I can't imagine what parent wouldn't do this unless they are happy with them flipping burgers.
The cheaper something is the more people buy one to experiment and the larger the community around it. It's the community that will drive this not the price.

edscdk · 24 Dec 2011 at 19:26

bitslice said:
Yep, point missed

Back in the 80's parents bought their kids ZX81's, that led to a whole generation of programmers and electronic tinkerers. Make something that is as cheap as chips and parents might buy them just to spark some interest in their kid. In fact I can't imagine what parent wouldn't do this unless they are happy with them flipping burgers.
The cheaper something is the more people buy one to experiment and the larger the community around it. It's the community that will drive this not the price.

These days £300 is cheap, people will buy a new pc or laptop.... Even people on benefits have laptops, sky, mobile phones, ps3's and xbox's. This is a product 30 years late...

Price is no longer the most important thing almot everyone has access to £100's look at the success of apple are they the cheapest?

LucidLogix® · 24 Dec 2011 at 19:30

edscdk said:
These days £300 is cheap, people will buy a new pc or laptop.... Even people on benefits have laptops, sky, mobile phones, ps3's and xbox's. This is a product 30 years late...

Price is no longer the most important thing almot everyone has access to £100's look at the success of apple are they the cheapest?

Maybe for you! For me, £300 is just under what I live on for one month at university. I live on £80 per week, so £320 per month. £300 isn't cheap at all! People on benefits get all that stuff because all of the other stuff they get paid. Its those who work that get penalised.

bitslice · 24 Dec 2011 at 19:36

edscdk said:
These days £300 is cheap, people will buy a new pc or laptop....

And do what with it - play games, browse the net, rip DVD's?

This isn't for that.

I guess you've never taken a few logic circuits and built something just to see if it would work?
That was my generation but that isn't this generation - I wrote games, this generation just buys them. Hence the lack of talent in the UK.

In order to spark some interest there is no need to chuck £300 at the problem, that is in fact counter productive - there is too much there and it's all done for you. In the same way Lego doesn't come already assembled.

Actually our difference of opinion probably illustrates why this is needed.
You are probably used to consuming technology, I used to build it.

aceface57 · 24 Dec 2011 at 19:45

edscdk said:
Total rubbish pointless product for this county...

This has massive potential, rather than just using it like a bog standard pc. This thing pulls just 1w at full load, you can run this thing on batteries if you wanted to.

Wizardskills · 24 Dec 2011 at 19:45

edscdk said:
£30 on eBay will get you something 10x more powerful and useful

I take it you mean an old normal PC of some kind. Where is the fun in that

PermaBanned · 24 Dec 2011 at 20:20

As much as i like and support the project, i think if the aim is as an aid for teaching and learning programming then it's far too powerful. KISS, and there's no way anyone can get their head around an ARM chip, never mind how it fits into a full system. No, the best dedicated programming device would be a simple 4/8 bit CPU that you can actually understand, and possibly build for yourself.

int · 24 Dec 2011 at 20:53

Having watched the latest update video, I'm keenly awaiting for this just as a temporary measure as I decide whether or not to get a new desktop PC.

1080p output is a big attraction!

firstborn · 24 Dec 2011 at 21:31

int said:
Having watched the latest update video, I'm keenly awaiting for this just as a temporary measure as I decide whether or not to get a new desktop PC.

1080p output is a big attraction!

o..k...

Thrash · 24 Dec 2011 at 22:04

I've knocked up a few Arduino projects in the past and will be having a look at these. It's a great idea, especially if it gets kids away from playing games and actually doing something useful.

mjones1 · 24 Dec 2011 at 22:52

There goes my changes of getting one, even more people are going to be after them.

Lightnix · 24 Dec 2011 at 23:19

PermaBanned said:
As much as i like and support the project, i think if the aim is as an aid for teaching and learning programming then it's far too powerful. KISS, and there's no way anyone can get their head around an ARM chip, never mind how it fits into a full system. No, the best dedicated programming device would be a simple 4/8 bit CPU that you can actually understand, and possibly build for yourself.

"Raspberry Pi Foundation will be promoting learning mainly in the Python language,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_pi

You really don't have to understand the underlying system to program in Python.