I was trying to get the little Raspberry Pi experimenter's computer going Thursday night... I had purchased that at Dayton last weekend, but never had enough energy to plug all the little pieces together.. Well they didn't have one of the pieces because they sold out... A powered four port USB hub...
Before I left Kansas City, I drove to my local computer parts store and bought one... But....... promptly when I hooked it up to the rest of the experimental pieces, it got too hot..... Scratch one hub.. I was worried that it might have taken the rest out..
Maybe I should explain that Raspberry Pi is an educational organization over in the UK... And this little credit card sized computer is designed to be cheap and teach about all things computer...
The little chip in the center is a cell phone computer on a chip and the other chip is 500 meg of memory... The rest of the stuff is connectors to plug other peripherals into... You know little minor details like a keyboard and a mouse and little necessities like the HDMI port for a screen...
The USB hub connects to the USB port and breaks that out into 4 more ports... I also bought a little memory stick sized gizzy that is the Wifi connection... Well I didn't have a TV that small, so on Friday I was off to Jefferson City....
They had a little TV on sale that had the HDMI input... at Best Buy... And I picked up a more expensive hub, which didn't burn up... And just like that I had a computer... of course by the time you get all of these pieces and the TV, you could have purchased a tablet, or maybe two of them...
This thing runs Raspbian as an OS, which is a limited version of linux debian... The programs are mounted on an SD card which plugs in on the bottom of the board... The one I have has 8 gigs of memory which replaces the need for a hard drive...
I purchased the $20 book that has a lot of instructions on programming and such in Dayton... This is very educational... Folks are using these little boards for all kinds of dedicated computing tasks, but you can even browse the internet and do lots of regular tasks as well...
Enough of that, we were talking about Lake Ozark... where Chris and Melissa came to be with me over the holiday... And they have two daughters which keep me busy answering questions... Sunday turned out really sunny and nice...
But our dock was grungy... So we took turns on the power washer and brushes cleaning up the pontoon boat and all the chairs... The bugs think the place belongs to them, and aren't too happy when we try and take it back...
We rode way up into the North end of the Lake at dusk on Sunday night, and the kids are out with the grands as I write this right now... We also had a bunch of weeds to go after to reclaim the yard, so this trip has been about work more than anything else..
This afternoon we will have to turn the lock and go back to KC... After all tomorrow is Tuesday and that is motorcycle club lunch day....!!
Retired Rod
Glad you guys were at the lake and had fairly decent weather! I hope you guys didn't work too hard! At least, you have the place ready for summer fun! :)
ReplyDeleteThe problem I have with tiny devices and screens is that my eyes aren't good enough to read that small. I would never get an iPhone for that reason - what's the point of me accessing email on a phone but not being able to read it.
ReplyDeleteThe TV I am using for the monitor is a 19 inch flat panel.. Not at all small...
DeleteFun stuff with the Pi. I kinda wish I had one, but don't play with all my toys now.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a fun little gizmo to play around with Rod. Most folks never even see the inside of a computer case.
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