I purchased my first computer more than thirty years ago. It was one of these:
An Atari 400, primitive by modern standards but exciting in the early 1980s. It had a flap on the front which opened to reveal a socket into which you could drop a cartridge. It might be the “Star Raiders” game, or it could be a Basic language cartridge with which you could write your own programs. This was particularly attractive because the computer featured four joystick ports, and so writing simple games was possible for even an idiot like me.
The other attractive feature for the father of a three year old child was the provision of a touch sensitive keyboard. This meant that The Son could be let loose on the machine with a jam sandwich in one hand and some of the jam from the sandwich in the other; nothing that a wipe with a cloth couldn’t resolve later. It wasn’t too long before he was writing “Hello World” programs of his own; and as we migrated to a more powerful Atari 800 (which I still have in a box somewhere) we even undertook some joint game writing projects which tended to be heavy on the initial graphics screen and not so hot in the gameplay department.
The Son went on to be the coding colossus that he is today, and I didn’t. What happened instead was that Windows came along and access to immediate, easy programming became less evident. So I stopped pretending I could write code and pretended to continue working in an oil company.
There was a brief resurgence about fifteen years ago when Sony released the CLIÉ range of PDAs, and someone else released a basic compiler that would run on them. This was more like the old times! Knock out a bit of code and run it on a handheld device. My major successes was “Bullshit Bingo” which generated a grid of management bullshit words which you then had to listen out for in management meetings and try and get a line of bullshit. I shared this with the Drilling manager and we lifted the boredom of lengthy management team meetings by seeing who could whisper “bingo” first. We later progressed to playing “Bluetooth Battleships”; but this had to stop when I whooped with excitement after sinking his destroyer and not surprisingly aroused the suspicions of the managing director.
The Clie disappeared, and it was not until a year or so ago that I tried programming for the iPhone. After a struggle, I gave up; I just couldn’t get my head around the logic. If only there was something really simple I could play with….
And now there is:
It’s a Raspberry Pi, and it was born out of the “progress” of computing which stifled my own coding desires. Staff at the computer laboratory at Cambridge University noticed a continuing decrease in applications from students. In the days of the Atari and the BBC Micro, people learned coding with their computers, and stars like The Son were born. But current operating systems and gaming consoles do not encourage hobbyist programming and those joining computer courses would have had little experience beyond perhaps building a web page. What was needed was an accessible, cheap computer that was fun to play with; and the Raspberry Pi was born. The initial proposal limited application to within the university itself and potentially within some UK schools, but this was soon overtaken by public enthusiasm and the device has been a huge success with more than 1.75 million sold, a million of which were manufactured in the UK.
Why so successful? First of all, it is cheap, with the better specified of the two models costing around $35. Secondly, it is compact, here it is next to my phone:
Finally, it is easy to operate with massive quantities of on-line guidance available, and the potential projects for this little thing are unlimited.
Before you can use it, there are a few things to put in place; most important of which is installing an operating system onto an SD card which then plugs into the Pi and boots when you switch it on. There is also a plug for a power supply, an HDMI port for connecting to a monitor, a port for a network cable and two USB ports, initially used for a mouse and keyboard which I have since discarded as I have now set up the Pi to be operated via my Mac. There are also video and audio ports and some hardware connectors which I have yet to figure out but are the passport to some interesting external hardware control projects.
Having the OS on a removal SD card means you can have your Pi perform different basic functions merely by unplugging it, replacing the SD card, and turning it on again. So far I have an SD card which turns my Pi into torrent download machine, an SD card that turns it into an XBMC media machine, and an SD card which turns my Pi into an error message generating machine because I am using to learn the Python programming language.
My Pi was a gift from neighbour Nik after I sold a camera for him on eBay. He is way further ahead than me and has now migrated to an Arduino and has a selection of esoteric pieces of hardware on the way from Chinese manufacturers in pursuit of a machine which will be pretty damn cool if he can get it to work. Personally, I am just basking in the pleasure of having my Pi print “Hello World” on my monitor.
Comments 🔗
2013-10-09| Ivo H. saysAs XBMC hooked to the TV and Stereo it would be a very good replacement of a Mini-Mac as media centre, that I still have the idea of buying.
2013-10-09| Spike saysCertainly much cheaper! Here’s a guide: http://mymediaexperience.com/raspberry-pi-xbmc-with-raspbmc/
2013-10-11| Jock saysAha the Atari 400 … I recall half of the Finance management team being engrossed every Wednesday night on some game you all used to play … but I´m buggerred if I can remember what it was !!
2013-10-12| Spike saysMe too! I can’t even remember being a member of the Finance management team; just a low-level sprog trying to manage a noisy new recruit called Jock.