You might try Kano. I gave a Kano kit to our local 4th grade (it’s intended for kids. You know – the humans that are smarter than us) but I have not yet heard back.
Windows on the Raspberry Pi is an interesting idea, but I think it makes the whole arena a little less exciting overall. I might feel differently about it if windows was hacked onto it by some amateur, but I sort of wish Microsoft would keep clear.
Windows in a Rasberry Pi is just about totally missing the point. Indeed so is a full functioning Linux build.
A Pi isn’t about getting cheap PC. (Whereas you can get Windows, there is no Office, so it isn’t what most people consider a PC anyway.)
If you just want a PC, buy one. If you just want to write code, use a PC with your operating system of choice. The exciting thing about the Pi, Arduino, Beagle Bone/Board, is that you can hack hardware and software. What really makes them interesting is the range of add on boards, and the ability to make seriously cool cheap devices that do interesting stuff.
I agree with the sentiment that Arduino and Beagles are worth a look too. The Pi has the problem that it is built to arguably too low a cost. It compromises a few things that the Beagles don’t. I also hear a bit about poor reliability, with quite a few failing rather too soon. But you get what you pay for, and for the money it is hard to beat. But your time isn’t worthless, so it may be, for some, just a tiny bit too cheap.
The Pi was aimed for use in schools - that being the case, it did need to be a jack-of-all-trades. Giving schoolkids a device capable of running a gui with a browser means they can research, design, build and run all on the same device, no matter whether the project is a video kiosk or a robot.
For an embedded application, may I put in a word for the PIC series?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIC_microcontroller
Delightfully easy to program in assembler if you wish; they can then be very fast.
That’s a solution to a different kind of problem in an entirely different market.
PIC microcontrollers don’t have the built-in audio-video decoding hardware the Raspberry Pi SoC ships with, for one thing. They can’t reasonably become a simple file server or an emulation system host (two things people are using Pis for now) because they can’t really run most commodity software in a reasonable fashion.
More to the point, they’re not usually sold to people who don’t know much about programming or system development and who therefore need lots of tutorial information on how to do basic stuff. Even if you sidestepped a lot of the hardware complexity by buying an evaluation board or similar, you’re still looking at data sheets and maybe some example code instead of the massive amount of newbie-friendly documentation the Pi culture has produced to this point.
They’re great for their world, but that’s not the same world the Pi was made for.
I noticed that CanaKit has Pi 2 kits available on Amazon. So I ordered one yesterday afternoon. (And the price has gone up $5 in the meantime. Hmmm.)
Arrived before 11am this morning!
Spent a little while setting it up this afternoon. After dealing with Android devices for a while, it’s maddening to go back into full Linux management mode. NCurses based config programs run from the command line, etc.
Yeah, it’s fast … for some things. Web browsing is slow, even over Ethernet. And there’s so much stuff to figure out. The fonts are double plus awful. Etc.
Now I gotta figure out what to do with it. Most stuff I was planning to use a Pi for a while back I’m now using a FireTV Stick. Some things I wish I could do easily are going to be a problem. E.g., HDMI input.
It still surprises me these little computers. Quad-core, 1GHz, etc. in a case the size of deck of cards. And unlike the FireTV Stick it’s “all mine”. I can run anything I want on it.
Delightfully easy and program in assembler are not concepts you see linked together by many. 
Just an update on what I’ve been doing with my Pi 2.
I gave up on trying to run a regular Pi distro. The software is just too …, well, you know how these Linux things are.
I’ve downloaded and have been running OpenElec for Pi for several weeks now. It’s a Kodi (XBMC) variant that strips out the unnecessary stuff. Boots straight into Kodi screen of your choice, etc.
So it’s a media player now. And I’m okay with that.
For remote control, I stripped an infrared receiver out of a junk thing, wired it up to the appropriate pins on the header, configured it (partially) using LIRC stuff, etc. Using a $1.50 remote from Goodwill that has a lot of buttons.
But this part is the usual Linux nightmare. 3 seperarate config files, two of them in XML, kept in different locations based on the distro, app, etc. And of course no one place online that clearly explains it all for any distro, let alone yours. (There’s a Kodi app to configure keys, but it doesn’t do anything at all on its own.)
If I ever get the remote configured right, this will work out a lot better than my Amazon FireTV stick for watching stuff from my server. Jumping/FF/etc. works much nicer.
Videos of all types seemed to play quite well at first but then I started running into some mpeg programs from my DVR that jittered and got out of sync. Had to go into the core config file to try and fix that, better, but not great. Finally paid for the mpeg key from the Pi Foundation so that decode is in hardware. Much better.
One thing to note: When playing with configs files via ssh, it would take about 16 seconds from issuing a reboot command to back to OpenElec running. Nice.
Another note:
Windows 10 as you know it will not run on the Pi 2. Just a stripped down, command line like, version. It needs a host computer running full Windows 10 if you want a real (remote) interface. The version running on the Pi 2 is an “Internet of Things” type OS. Nothing fancy. Ditto if Google gets Brillo (stripped down Android) running on it.
I’ve signed up for the Windows 10 Pi trial, but I can’t download/test it until I set up a spare PC for the Windows 10 developers edition. Don’t have the time, etc. for that now.
Easy to use and powerful?
I think he means unnecessarily arcane and complex.
That’s a UNIX man! So, since the composite video port is out for the new model, do you use a USB-serial adapter to attach a teletype or a serial terminal for your I/O? I have an ADM-3A you could buy.
With the Wi fi plug in, a Pi 2 makes a dandy little web appliance.
Music or movie serving also works cleanly.
I’ve got a barometer chip hooked up for high freq pressure logging. That path is easier than barometr to arduino to Mac.
Libre Office runs nicely on the Pi, so data slips into a spreadsheet nicely, without having to fight it’s way thru kludgy Mac “serial ports”.
You can run the things headless, but 10 year old LCD from Goodwill for $5.00 works nicely to.
Raspbian, a Debian mod, runs smoothly, and is remarkably civilized compared to the old (2010) Linux distros.
I went with a Canakit, look it up.
Old TV with an HDMI port might be a better display choice, so as to avoid having to get an HDMI to VGA adaptor; which I had, but which also tend to be pricey, and a little fickle.
The analog video’s still there – it’s just part of the 3.5mm jack. (Like that weird four-pole headphone cable that might’ve come with your digital camera.)
Sweet, since I have nothing with an HDMI port. Next problem is figuring out what to do with it. That’s the same problem I have with a bunch of BASIC Stamp stuff I may still have that I got from my boss 15 years ago. I get an idea, then decide it would be easier to do it with a TRS-80 Model 100.
Thought I’d revive this thread since this one seems like the “main” recent Raspberry Pi thread.
Anywhoo, MicroCenter has a sale on Raspberry Pi Zero boards for 99 cents for the first one. These are the newest 1.3 camera connector ones. (They use a different ribbon cable than the other Pis, so be aware.)
The price and availability of these is interesting. Apparently a lot of them are being sold. While the “official” price is $5, good luck finding one on Amazon, for example, for under $20. Might as well get a Pi 3 instead.
So this was a nice little deal and I got one. It is so small, even compared to my 2B. Less than credit card size doesn’t do it justice. Think of 4 quarters in 2 stacks side by side. The width, length and height are about the same.
I had most of the stuff needed to use it: PS (a phone charger), USB hub, WiFi adaptor, wireless keyboard/pad and adaptor, SD card, etc. Except for the bleeping mini-hdmi thing. I got a cheap “kit” on Amazon that had it, a “case” (sandwich style covers), headers, etc. (The Zero’s header slot is unpopulated. You have to solder in your own if you want to use those.)
So, I set it up like a regular Pi. Downloaded and installed the OS onto the card. Plug it all in, powered it on, booted up. Slow the first time due to initialization. But still kinda slow even after that. Apparently the X/desktop stuff takes its toll on a single core device.
The usage window in the corner was interesting. Apparently 1-4% when idling then wham 100% to do anything. No in-between.
So I set up the networking and stuff. I want to run this headless over USB so I set that all up. Then plugged it into my PC’s USB port. Just a micro-to-regular USB cable and the PS. (Only the Zero can be configured to use this mode.)
Connected to the Zero via PuTTY and SSH. With X/SSH enabled, I can start up an X app on the Zero and have it appear on my PC. (I use Cygwin and its X server stuff.)
One headache was getting the Zero to see the rest of my network and then the Internet (for updates and such). Windows network bridging is the solution, but I kept having problems. Turns out I had disabled a bunch of services I hadn’t needed (till now), so once those were running, it works.
I unplug the PS from my power strip after I shut it down. But then I noticed that it boots back up when I turn the PC on in the morning. It was getting power via the USB port! This isn’t as good as it sounds. The USB power isn’t reliable enough.
This will complicate things. I want a simple “real” power swtich for it. Press a button and it comes on. Press it again and it shuts down properly and off. There’s things like this for $15 out there.
Which is the problem with buying a 99 cent (or even $5) computer. I don’t want to spend 15 times more on a power switch than I paid for the device. Trying to keep things at the same cost plateau for the Zero is impossible.
I’m thinking about getting another one. Cloning the SD card and tweaking a couple settings will ease the setup. And since they also have a sale on Pi 3s, maybe it’s time to replace my Pi 2B.
There’s now an Android for Pi 3s in development. Would like to test that out.
Speaking of OSes. I downloaded and installed Window 10 IoT for the Pi 2B. Don’t have a Windows 10 PC so it took some tricks to get the SD card set up. Yawn. Couldn’t find any apps that would interest me to run on it.
Next up: blocking a whole lot of startup stuff I don’t need for a faster boot. Bluetooth? C’mon.
I just got a Pi3. I also purchased a USB audio interface with midi.
Project A is a midi synth (sampled piano and layered synth pads/bass etc) for my keyboard controller - I wanted the Pi touchscreen as well but I spent enough on the interface so I might get that later if it works. This project will be pretty straightforward.
Project B is more complex. I want to build a non-linear midi/audio player for dynamic backing tracks. So the backing track (drums and bass, mostly) is split into phrases - intro, verse, chorus, bridge, extro. The audio has midi associated, which controls my effects unit (vocal, guitar and looping effects).
A midi footpedal allows selection of the path through the song, looping the bridge, extending the solo, shortcutting the last verse, etc. I can do this in Ableton Live on Windows, but I’d rather use a cheap and dedicated Pi3 in a pub, than my expensive laptop.
This project will involve significant programming effort, although I think have found some code to base the development on.
We will see …
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I did indeed do this. Even created a homemade “case” for the 2nd Zero. I needed a special one since I soldered a right-angle header to it and wanted a wider cover to shelter that.
I am terrible at soldering. Just a generally clumsy sort. But soldering in 44 pins turned out to be quite easy. Checking them under a large lens showed perfect little cones at the base of each pin. (44 pins since I also soldered in a 4 pin header for the reset/video connectors.)
As to the Pi 3 (technically a 3B despite there being no 3A). Yeah, it’s fast. Sweet. Still not 2-3GHz PC fast, but plenty good enough for a lot of things. Makes me wonder what it will be like using these in a generation or 2. How many people will need something still more powerful?
Anyway, as threatened I installed Android on it!
There are more options than I thought. I mentioned RTAndroid previously. There’s also RaspEX which supposedly is also for the Pi 2B. However, it costs money to get.
Geek Till It Hertz has two versions. A basic AndroidTV and a general Android 7 version.
(Google is rumored to be doing a real Android for the Pi based on newly created directories in the source archives. But it might just be their IoT version.)
The first hurdle is installation. In particular partitioning and imaging. The standard Raspian type OS uses just 2 partitions: A small FAT32 boot and and the rest is one big /root. So a single image file that contains both and a large enough mSD card will do. There’s a simple way (if not automatically done) to expand /root to fill the card. And if you use NOOBS, you can choose an OS and it will take care of things for you.
But the Android standard is 4 EXT4 partitions. boot, root, data and cache. The latter two are blank at first. So some of the above require manual partition creation and copying of the first two. Which can best be done on a Linux box.
Luckily, the GTIH versions are a simple disk image that you can write using Win32DiskImager or other programs. OTOH, you need a mSD big enough to hold them and expanding the cache/data partitions is a big pain.
But anyway, I tried those out. AndroidTV booted and ran but didn’t seem to work right. Their Android 7 does seem okay.
The first boot is supposed to be slow as the OS optimizes apps and such. But I get the optimize screen on each, slow, boot. It also doesn’t automatically reconnect to WiFi. I have to go to the WiFi settings screen and then it decides to connect.
The settings stuff is quite minimal. It needs more. Hardly any basic apps, but you can add more and it also comes rooted so you can really do stuff.
The big headache is resolution. It comes with settings my TV can’t handle. I had to run wm to change the overscan settings to get it set almost, but not quite, right. (The settings icon was off screen. I had to tab and open to find out what icons were off to the left until I found it.)
To load apps, I use adbLink. (Previously adbFire for Amazon Fire devices but it works for Android in general.) It also gives you a remote command prompt window on the Pi.
So I installed some of the usual stuff: BusyBox, ESFileExplorer (the last good free version), VLCPlayer, etc.
I wanted to test video playback as that’s a good measure of performance. But neither VLCPlayer or ESFE’s built-in player worked. So I loaded Kodi 16. (Don’t really need it since I’m not going to use it as a home media hub.) That worked. Some tweakings and such and my heaviest duty stuff played. (E.g., the post-“Tears in rain” bit in Blade Runner. All those raindrops strain a decoder.)
I started using a Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse (with USB dongle). That worked. I then tested an Windows Media Player compatible remote, with IR USB reciever and that worked in too! (These can sometimes be really hard to set up.)
I then tested the Pi 3’s built-in BlueTooth (which is apparently a weak spot for some of these Android OSes). I have a spare Amazon Fire TV remote. It paired and works just like on my Fire TV devices running Kodi.
Fast skipping and such is a pain since I’m using the Pi 3’s built-in WiFi rather than Ethernet port. But I have only one cable at this location and it’s taken up by my Fire TV Stick. Don’t want to install Yet Another Hub on my network … yet.
(Some of these Android OSes do work with the official Pi touchscreen. But such a do-it-yourself tablet isn’t financially favorable to just getting a cheap Amazon tablet.)
But like I said, this isn’t going to be used as a media player. I want to do Android programming. So, time to download the lastest SDKs and such. It will be nice to have a non-emulated device to test on without worrying about botching something. Maybe even do some native C++ stuff instead of Java. Not sure how to access the Pi’s hardware like the GPIO pins, etc.