Excellent! Redditors are a strange and interesting bunch. Somehow, that answer does not surprise me, though it may well not have the meaning we assign it here among the reddit crowd. (would have to read comments to know, and I'm not gonna. Why spoil a nice warm fuzzy?)
Well, I didn't opt for the Raspberry Pi. I got the Cubieboard that offers a bit more capacity.
But so far, the only project that I'd really be inspired to build is an advanced digital metal detector with GPS logging of your search patterns and profiling an extensive data base of which kinds of searches are used.
I think that Raspberry Pi could easily do it as well. And there was that guy in Australia that found a nice large nugget recently.
The possibility of a 12 pound gold nugget is an excellent motivator for a DIY project. I just can't figure out how to afford a six month visit to Australia or if they would let a tourist keep the gold they found.
I suppose you could just use the GPX5000 to do the prospecting and have the Raspberry Pi log your movements via GPS separately, but it would be more interesting to integrate the two.
That's funny! Funnier still is that I have never blinked an LED with any microcontroller I started with. I have always jumped right in. Might first experience with the Prop was with the TV Graphics program on a demo board. Jumped right in and started tweaking code to watch the changes in the display. That's what got me hooked; it was so easy.
I'm glad they asked what we do with our RPi and not what we have made with our RPi. Because I've made nothing with it. But I've used it for several things.
As cheap as the RPi is, it is still too expensive to be the heart of anything I deploy. I mean if you can get it done for $1.26, why spend $35.00?
OTOH, I think the RPi is absolutely fantastic. Maxima is the coolest thing I've installed on it. It boggles the mind how great that specific combo is. I've spent hours making 3D plots of everything I can think of. Its display capabilities are simply outstanding for something so small and inexpensive.
The RPi has also revolutionized my opinion of the humble SD card.
Edit: BTW, VGA on a Prop Proto board was my first exposure to the Propeller. Having dabbled with video generation for years (a la Don Lancaster), it blew my socks off to witness the Propeller's video capabilities and to realize how easily I could now incorporate video into all my projects. That was a great moment...
My Pi mostly gets used to verify that propgcc and assorted open source Propeller tools will compile and run there. If you are going to have cross platform software then that's another little check of its portability.
Turns out propgcc and SimpleIDE are quite usable on the Pi. The Propeller and Pi make a very small portable/mobile system that is fully self hosting.
I have the same issue as doggiedoc! I have all the software on my Server but have yet to install or try anything. Got it for Christmas and have only powered it up but nothing more, yet!!!
I have the same issue as doggiedoc! I have all the software on my Server but have yet to install or try anything. Got it for Christmas and have only powered it up but nothing more, yet!!!
I wore myself out trying to get the SD card loaded.
One RPi is running XBMC, it play movies and other media MUCH better than the $139 DVD player. If it were'nt for Netflix, I would ditch the DVD player completely.
The other RPi is running headless as a workstation for a RepRap. Or at least it was till I futzed around and broke that whole side of the lab.
Both RPi's are waiting till I get around to getting the camera and start in on OpenCV. The RPi doing vision and the prop doing control (linked by propforth and Go of course) will be unstoppable, if I ever get started.
I'm sure that all works from XVMC now with having to use all that command line stuff.
The Pi plays video very well. Arguably it has a more capable GPU, at least for video, than most ARM Socs including the Allwinners that everyone raves about. It is said only Apples devices are superior.
There is a lot of Raspi GPU power yet to be tapped. For example for accelerated OpenGL ES for use with webgl in browsers or other apps. This is all being worked on continuously.
I bought the RPi to keep current with Linux. I also plan to take some of the Prop experiments I have done and do the same on the RPi to compare the two. ( For example that 3 to 18 volt a/d converter project.)
I have three Pi's+2 cameras + 1 book. I have a wireless mouse and keyboard... so I didn't have to buy those. Also a Sansui 1080p/i, with an extra HDMI input, so I didn't have to buy that. Total spent so far~$240.
That is enough money to buy two reconditioned Window's XP computers... that I could actually use:)... or 3 1/2 stereo cameras... or 4 cartons of Newport 100s.
I wanted to prove to myself that there was no way that the two Pi camera's could be sync'd together for stereo-analysis.
So far no proof, but no real hope, either.
By the way, to get the three Pi's configured and running took more than a dedicated weekend... morning til night, not my usual style and not a fun experience. I learned almost nothing. ( Except that there are lots of neat utilities out there for free:) I'm on a Mac. At one point I had a Pi talking through my Mac to the internet... then it broke and I couldn't get it back. I'm going to try going wireless next, should be a great adventure.
I have rebooted my main Pi more in one day than I have rebooted my Mac since I bought it.
If I can manage the wifi connectivity, I wouldn't mind using the Pi for Propeller software development and robotics, I think it makes some sort of wifi sense. But I suspect that by the time, I get everything
together it will weigh about as much as an AirBook... which would be make infinitely more sense.
I easily got a Pi talking to my Prop through Python-Serial, then I broke something and found better things to do.
I don't understand the logic(educational zeitgeist) of the Pi. The effort looks more like a thinly veiled marketing approach to sell a million chips (and then disappear), which is what the Pi (in its current form) will do.
I haven't gotten into SSH, which looks very interesting, workable, and inscrutable.
The Pi is a great toy, particularly for masochistic adults, who don't want to dedicate a computer to Linux, but would like to explore Linux.
I have rebooted my main Pi more in one day than I have rebooted my Mac since I bought it.
After the stable OS version came out, I have rebooted only in the course of power cycling. In my experience, load SD image, boot, setup, done. Maybe you go a bad unit?
Using my Pi to:
- learn a bit about Python and review Linux
- connect Pi to internet for remote i/o control (done at the demo stage)
- connect to the Linux command line from remote location (done)
- use the graphical interface over the internet (done)
- turn the Pi into a more sophisticated webserver for remote data acqusition systems than the tried-n-true PINK netburner (lots of work to do)
turn the Pi into a more sophisticated webserver for remote data acqusition systems than the tried-n-true PINK netburner (lots of work to do)
We have the RPi as the linux box for the build and test automation. A custom Go program (GoTerm) on the linux side talks to the prop over usb, and the linux box provides number crunching, long term processing, and communication services, and terminal services to the prop. The prop does the realtime application. For less than the cost of a spinneret, we have all the functionality, plus a full OS linux box.
Sal is also working on massive number crunching using the J language, this should be fast even on the RPi.
Sorry to here you have such a hard time with your Pi. I have two here. All I do is download a Raspian OS image, put it on the SD cards with the dd command, pop them in a Pi and everything works. Monitors, keyboards, mice and such come from old cast offs so extra expense there.
As for ssh, when the Pi is booted you can find it's IP address on your router box or ask the Pi itself "/sbin/ifconfig". Then from you PC it's just a case of "ssh pi@w.x.y.z" where w.z.y.z is it's IP address. Could not really be much easier.
I don't understand the logic(educational zeitgeist) of the Pi. The effort looks more like a thinly veiled marketing approach to sell a million chips (and then disappear), which is what the Pi (in its current form) will do.
You make it sound like a scam. Please don't do that. The Pi has been put together my a few guys passionate about their educational mission. They do it in their own time and for no profit. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charity after all. The demand for the Pi went through the roof quite unexpectedly before anyone ever thought about marketing the idea. I don't believe the Pi is going away so soon. It will be as useful at it's intended purpose in five years or more as it is now. The over a million strong user base ensures that there is a very good support network. It is a stable platform for many uses outside education, stability is a great feature in this context. See for example Arduino or the long life of Parallax products.
You may argue that the Foundation's educational mission is misguided some how if you like but that is another story.
Sal is also working on massive number crunching using the J language,
Interesting. "J language" what's that?
I was recently playing with some "massive number crunching" on the Pi, just as a crude performance benchmark. You can compile the gmp-chudnovsky program to run on the Pi and calculate one million digits of pi. It takes about 17 seconds or about 8 to 10 times longer than my 2GHz PC. Not bad really.
There are other projects that are very worthwhile.
Since audio is available, and the internet, the Raspberry Pi is an excellent Internet Radio server as it is low power and can run for hours without having to boot your main computer than is more of a power hog.
The real trick is to find the right server that is not trying to shake money from you or trying to insert adware.
Google doesn't seem to list my old favorite, I'll have to dig and get back with the name.
~~~~~~~~~
On other fronts...
Whatever happened to the Raspberry Pi Supercomputer?
Why do I need a book when it is all in Ubuntu Linux or Android anyway?
(I won't get a book as I have the Cubieboard... but are we just being Pavlovian consumers... buy the gadget, buy the accessories buy the book, and so on?)
I was trying it out last November as an Ignition client. Currently, it's a bit anemic for it. Ok-ish for a pace counter, but all-out chokes for a full dashboard.
The local English newspapers in Taiwan were discussing rather dismal future sales of PC computers.
It really looks as though the Microsoft business model, where you always were expected to get a faster computer with more RAM and bigger storage, has finally reached end-game.
The main observation is that most people feel that they don't need as much capacity as today's desktop computers provide and they are not that interested in being tied to a desk.
So small mobile computing seems to taking away a large portion of the desktop's market, and sales are dropping drastically. The PC makers are hoping for one more generation of corporate office desktop sales, but I really wonder.
Added to that, the Raspberry Pi is a very adequate desktop IDE computer at $35 USD plus keyboard, mouse, and screen; where as a PC box may run $700 USD or so. It is a good fit with a Propeller, but I would have to spend another $35 for a HDMI to VGA adapter to really feel it is excellent as a kiddie computer. Using the spare VGA makes the whole scheme much more economical.
Considering the power consumption of a desktop is 300 watts or so, versus maybe 20 or less watts that a Raspberry Pi might use.. these devices are much better in 24/7 server situations.
So there are plenty of reasons for users to adopt the Raspberry Pi.
I just waited and got the Cubieboard because it had twice the RAM, and a real SATA interface to allow a hard disk to directly connect. I am glad I did.
In sum, we all seem to have excess capacity and have bought more than we really need. What else is new? First they upsized hamburgers and sodas, then they upsized portions at all restaurants, and finally we went to SUVs and bigger desktops.
Thanks. I certainly didn't want accuse anyone of anything... just trying to report my internal impressions... it felt that way but I know it probably isn't.
I was installing, updating and upgrading three Pi's at once... Those are three different steps. I don't know why I would update AND upgrade, but I slavishly did it anyway.
So. it took me a while(even though my internet service is very fast). I saw that someone reported taking 6 hours just to download
and install SimpleIDE related sources.
The Raspberry Pi is a remarkable development and quite an achievement. It is more of a nail, when I was expecting a hammer. That's all.
I don't think the Pi can possibly serves it's intended purpose very well, but I don't think that matters very much either. There are all kinds of potential uses.
And even though I think it will fail to educate kids very much, it might have an important place in the transmigration of people to Linux and to ARM chip sets:)
If you look at the educational needs of the developing world, it is quite clear that it doesn't matter how much a computer costs, the really
needy of this world can't afford them.
A few years ago I was in West Africa, traveling on my own dime, for a charity I thought was worthwhile.
I visited several schools in the rural areas. One school charged $5 for a semester's worth of lunch for each kid.
Most kids weren't eating lunch.
I can't imagine how a kid could afford a PI, even if there was free internet and $1 keyboards, which there isn't.
I bought a book from the founder, the book spent more than half of its pages just explaining how to get a Pi operating.
Getting Python Serial to work was comparatively easy, considering that it isn't in the install and has to be downloaded (and disambiguating "what" to download and "where" to get it took an hour)...but getting a serial link to stop was impossible, regardless of how far and wide I looked. rebooting works fine.
When I compare the experience with the PI to the experience of getting a Propeller up and running, the differences are startling.
Trying to teach kids C on a Pi is a waste of time... teach them C on a Propeller and they will eventually control their world.
This was an included feature with my first EEEpc and it is much more user friendly, costs nothing, and lets the radio stations be themselves without interruption.
So I think it would be an excellent mate with the Raspberry Pi for easy listening.
~~~~~~~~~
BTW, I think many people are very unrealistic about teaching digital electronics to kids. It doesn't matter what the platform is, the teaching is only as good as the teacher, the teacher's knowledge of the subject, and the teacher's awareness of how young learn.
Sure you can sell just about anything to a parent as an educational package, but that is just hype.
And yet it was easier. I don't think I issued a single Linux command until I went to install Maxima. Even expanding the partition to the size of the card was just a couple of clicks.
Connecting to the internet was nothing more than plugging in an existing cable that ran from the linksys router to the workbench, and then clicking 'Open' on Midori.
You make it sound like a scam. Please don't do that.
Yup. It is terribly unfair and inaccurate. The RPi was clearly a labor of love, like the Propeller. The quality of every aspect of hardware and software is apparent.
I was a skeptic about the whole RPi education aspect until I gave it a try. I found it to be a great platform for writing both C and Python code, and general text editing. It's useful for a lot more, too.
Sal says J language is a programming language that makes perfect sense if one thinks in terms of math formula (or something to that affect). He also says that of his subordinates, the tendency was the math guys "got it" easily, and the procedural guys "never quite got it".
He was showing me some examples, he had a log file (from the SD logger module) with 64 bit unix style time stamps, once per second, for about a week , it was around 80 meg. Using J, he parsed the file and calculated the variance of all bazillion records. There was no delay when he hit enter, the result came out. This was on his laptop, not the RPi, but it should still be reasonably fast on the RPi. Apparently J is designed for crunching large amount of data, and they did a pretty good job.
For exotic number crunching, I generally depend on an HP-50g calculator as it can dump even larger results to an SDcard. It seems to me if HP has a handheld that can do all the maths with reasonable speed, the Raspberry Pi should be able to keep up if the right code is provided.
That doesn't mean that I will ever learn J language, as the HP-50g has an 800 page PDF explaining all that it does.
Of course, if it is number crunching you need, Fortan is as good as it ever was.
There are just sometimes that a good calculator is easier to work with than a spreadsheet format. Spreadsheets can actually bury errors through cut and paste mistakes.
Cheap is not everything... Reasonable cheap and very duriable is a much better value.. and that's why I went with the Cubieboard. In some ways, the Raspberry Pi cut a few corners too tightly for me. It never had to be so ridiculously small, and I dislike the power distribution set up.
Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)
Posts: 23,514
Comments
But so far, the only project that I'd really be inspired to build is an advanced digital metal detector with GPS logging of your search patterns and profiling an extensive data base of which kinds of searches are used.
I think that Raspberry Pi could easily do it as well. And there was that guy in Australia that found a nice large nugget recently.
http://gizmodo.com/5976925/man-finds-12+pound-300000-gold-nugget
The possibility of a 12 pound gold nugget is an excellent motivator for a DIY project. I just can't figure out how to afford a six month visit to Australia or if they would let a tourist keep the gold they found.
I suppose you could just use the GPX5000 to do the prospecting and have the Raspberry Pi log your movements via GPS separately, but it would be more interesting to integrate the two.
As cheap as the RPi is, it is still too expensive to be the heart of anything I deploy. I mean if you can get it done for $1.26, why spend $35.00?
OTOH, I think the RPi is absolutely fantastic. Maxima is the coolest thing I've installed on it. It boggles the mind how great that specific combo is. I've spent hours making 3D plots of everything I can think of. Its display capabilities are simply outstanding for something so small and inexpensive.
The RPi has also revolutionized my opinion of the humble SD card.
Edit: BTW, VGA on a Prop Proto board was my first exposure to the Propeller. Having dabbled with video generation for years (a la Don Lancaster), it blew my socks off to witness the Propeller's video capabilities and to realize how easily I could now incorporate video into all my projects. That was a great moment...
Turns out propgcc and SimpleIDE are quite usable on the Pi. The Propeller and Pi make a very small portable/mobile system that is fully self hosting.
Yesterday I bought this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-User-Guide-Gareth-Halfacree/dp/111846446X
The other RPi is running headless as a workstation for a RepRap. Or at least it was till I futzed around and broke that whole side of the lab.
Both RPi's are waiting till I get around to getting the camera and start in on OpenCV. The RPi doing vision and the prop doing control (linked by propforth and Go of course) will be unstoppable, if I ever get started.
Sweet. I hope you do.
DVD connected to Pi? Sure why not:
http://raspi.tv/2012/play-a-dvd-on-raspberry-pi-with-raspbian-omxplayer-and-the-mpeg2-codec
I'm sure that all works from XVMC now with having to use all that command line stuff.
The Pi plays video very well. Arguably it has a more capable GPU, at least for video, than most ARM Socs including the Allwinners that everyone raves about. It is said only Apples devices are superior.
There is a lot of Raspi GPU power yet to be tapped. For example for accelerated OpenGL ES for use with webgl in browsers or other apps. This is all being worked on continuously.
That is enough money to buy two reconditioned Window's XP computers... that I could actually use:)... or 3 1/2 stereo cameras... or 4 cartons of Newport 100s.
I wanted to prove to myself that there was no way that the two Pi camera's could be sync'd together for stereo-analysis.
So far no proof, but no real hope, either.
By the way, to get the three Pi's configured and running took more than a dedicated weekend... morning til night, not my usual style and not a fun experience. I learned almost nothing. ( Except that there are lots of neat utilities out there for free:) I'm on a Mac. At one point I had a Pi talking through my Mac to the internet... then it broke and I couldn't get it back. I'm going to try going wireless next, should be a great adventure.
I have rebooted my main Pi more in one day than I have rebooted my Mac since I bought it.
If I can manage the wifi connectivity, I wouldn't mind using the Pi for Propeller software development and robotics, I think it makes some sort of wifi sense. But I suspect that by the time, I get everything
together it will weigh about as much as an AirBook... which would be make infinitely more sense.
I easily got a Pi talking to my Prop through Python-Serial, then I broke something and found better things to do.
I don't understand the logic(educational zeitgeist) of the Pi. The effort looks more like a thinly veiled marketing approach to sell a million chips (and then disappear), which is what the Pi (in its current form) will do.
I haven't gotten into SSH, which looks very interesting, workable, and inscrutable.
The Pi is a great toy, particularly for masochistic adults, who don't want to dedicate a computer to Linux, but would like to explore Linux.
After the stable OS version came out, I have rebooted only in the course of power cycling. In my experience, load SD image, boot, setup, done. Maybe you go a bad unit?
- learn a bit about Python and review Linux
- connect Pi to internet for remote i/o control (done at the demo stage)
- connect to the Linux command line from remote location (done)
- use the graphical interface over the internet (done)
- turn the Pi into a more sophisticated webserver for remote data acqusition systems than the tried-n-true PINK netburner (lots of work to do)
Cheers,
We have the RPi as the linux box for the build and test automation. A custom Go program (GoTerm) on the linux side talks to the prop over usb, and the linux box provides number crunching, long term processing, and communication services, and terminal services to the prop. The prop does the realtime application. For less than the cost of a spinneret, we have all the functionality, plus a full OS linux box.
Sal is also working on massive number crunching using the J language, this should be fast even on the RPi.
Sorry to here you have such a hard time with your Pi. I have two here. All I do is download a Raspian OS image, put it on the SD cards with the dd command, pop them in a Pi and everything works. Monitors, keyboards, mice and such come from old cast offs so extra expense there.
As for ssh, when the Pi is booted you can find it's IP address on your router box or ask the Pi itself "/sbin/ifconfig". Then from you PC it's just a case of "ssh pi@w.x.y.z" where w.z.y.z is it's IP address. Could not really be much easier.
You make it sound like a scam. Please don't do that. The Pi has been put together my a few guys passionate about their educational mission. They do it in their own time and for no profit. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charity after all. The demand for the Pi went through the roof quite unexpectedly before anyone ever thought about marketing the idea. I don't believe the Pi is going away so soon. It will be as useful at it's intended purpose in five years or more as it is now. The over a million strong user base ensures that there is a very good support network. It is a stable platform for many uses outside education, stability is a great feature in this context. See for example Arduino or the long life of Parallax products.
You may argue that the Foundation's educational mission is misguided some how if you like but that is another story.
Interesting. "J language" what's that?
I was recently playing with some "massive number crunching" on the Pi, just as a crude performance benchmark. You can compile the gmp-chudnovsky program to run on the Pi and calculate one million digits of pi. It takes about 17 seconds or about 8 to 10 times longer than my 2GHz PC. Not bad really.
Since audio is available, and the internet, the Raspberry Pi is an excellent Internet Radio server as it is low power and can run for hours without having to boot your main computer than is more of a power hog.
The real trick is to find the right server that is not trying to shake money from you or trying to insert adware.
Google doesn't seem to list my old favorite, I'll have to dig and get back with the name.
~~~~~~~~~
On other fronts...
Whatever happened to the Raspberry Pi Supercomputer?
Why do I need a book when it is all in Ubuntu Linux or Android anyway?
(I won't get a book as I have the Cubieboard... but are we just being Pavlovian consumers... buy the gadget, buy the accessories buy the book, and so on?)
It really looks as though the Microsoft business model, where you always were expected to get a faster computer with more RAM and bigger storage, has finally reached end-game.
The main observation is that most people feel that they don't need as much capacity as today's desktop computers provide and they are not that interested in being tied to a desk.
So small mobile computing seems to taking away a large portion of the desktop's market, and sales are dropping drastically. The PC makers are hoping for one more generation of corporate office desktop sales, but I really wonder.
Added to that, the Raspberry Pi is a very adequate desktop IDE computer at $35 USD plus keyboard, mouse, and screen; where as a PC box may run $700 USD or so. It is a good fit with a Propeller, but I would have to spend another $35 for a HDMI to VGA adapter to really feel it is excellent as a kiddie computer. Using the spare VGA makes the whole scheme much more economical.
Considering the power consumption of a desktop is 300 watts or so, versus maybe 20 or less watts that a Raspberry Pi might use.. these devices are much better in 24/7 server situations.
So there are plenty of reasons for users to adopt the Raspberry Pi.
I just waited and got the Cubieboard because it had twice the RAM, and a real SATA interface to allow a hard disk to directly connect. I am glad I did.
In sum, we all seem to have excess capacity and have bought more than we really need. What else is new? First they upsized hamburgers and sodas, then they upsized portions at all restaurants, and finally we went to SUVs and bigger desktops.
Small is beautiful.
Thanks. I certainly didn't want accuse anyone of anything... just trying to report my internal impressions... it felt that way but I know it probably isn't.
I was installing, updating and upgrading three Pi's at once... Those are three different steps. I don't know why I would update AND upgrade, but I slavishly did it anyway.
So. it took me a while(even though my internet service is very fast). I saw that someone reported taking 6 hours just to download
and install SimpleIDE related sources.
The Raspberry Pi is a remarkable development and quite an achievement. It is more of a nail, when I was expecting a hammer. That's all.
I don't think the Pi can possibly serves it's intended purpose very well, but I don't think that matters very much either. There are all kinds of potential uses.
And even though I think it will fail to educate kids very much, it might have an important place in the transmigration of people to Linux and to ARM chip sets:)
If you look at the educational needs of the developing world, it is quite clear that it doesn't matter how much a computer costs, the really
needy of this world can't afford them.
A few years ago I was in West Africa, traveling on my own dime, for a charity I thought was worthwhile.
I visited several schools in the rural areas. One school charged $5 for a semester's worth of lunch for each kid.
Most kids weren't eating lunch.
I can't imagine how a kid could afford a PI, even if there was free internet and $1 keyboards, which there isn't.
I bought a book from the founder, the book spent more than half of its pages just explaining how to get a Pi operating.
Getting Python Serial to work was comparatively easy, considering that it isn't in the install and has to be downloaded (and disambiguating "what" to download and "where" to get it took an hour)...but getting a serial link to stop was impossible, regardless of how far and wide I looked. rebooting works fine.
When I compare the experience with the PI to the experience of getting a Propeller up and running, the differences are startling.
Trying to teach kids C on a Pi is a waste of time... teach them C on a Propeller and they will eventually control their world.
Rich
It is called MediaU. http://www.mediayou.net/web/index.asp?lan=eng
This was an included feature with my first EEEpc and it is much more user friendly, costs nothing, and lets the radio stations be themselves without interruption.
So I think it would be an excellent mate with the Raspberry Pi for easy listening.
~~~~~~~~~
BTW, I think many people are very unrealistic about teaching digital electronics to kids. It doesn't matter what the platform is, the teaching is only as good as the teacher, the teacher's knowledge of the subject, and the teacher's awareness of how young learn.
Sure you can sell just about anything to a parent as an educational package, but that is just hype.
And yet it was easier. I don't think I issued a single Linux command until I went to install Maxima. Even expanding the partition to the size of the card was just a couple of clicks.
Connecting to the internet was nothing more than plugging in an existing cable that ran from the linksys router to the workbench, and then clicking 'Open' on Midori.
Yup. It is terribly unfair and inaccurate. The RPi was clearly a labor of love, like the Propeller. The quality of every aspect of hardware and software is apparent.
I was a skeptic about the whole RPi education aspect until I gave it a try. I found it to be a great platform for writing both C and Python code, and general text editing. It's useful for a lot more, too.
BTW, Raspbian is impressively stable!
Sal says J language is a programming language that makes perfect sense if one thinks in terms of math formula (or something to that affect). He also says that of his subordinates, the tendency was the math guys "got it" easily, and the procedural guys "never quite got it".
He was showing me some examples, he had a log file (from the SD logger module) with 64 bit unix style time stamps, once per second, for about a week , it was around 80 meg. Using J, he parsed the file and calculated the variance of all bazillion records. There was no delay when he hit enter, the result came out. This was on his laptop, not the RPi, but it should still be reasonably fast on the RPi. Apparently J is designed for crunching large amount of data, and they did a pretty good job.
That's kind of silly. Its intended purpose is to be cheap. Hard to reason that it does not do this very well.
That doesn't mean that I will ever learn J language, as the HP-50g has an 800 page PDF explaining all that it does.
Of course, if it is number crunching you need, Fortan is as good as it ever was.
There are just sometimes that a good calculator is easier to work with than a spreadsheet format. Spreadsheets can actually bury errors through cut and paste mistakes.
Cheap is not everything... Reasonable cheap and very duriable is a much better value.. and that's why I went with the Cubieboard. In some ways, the Raspberry Pi cut a few corners too tightly for me. It never had to be so ridiculously small, and I dislike the power distribution set up.