Raspberry Pi - Who's gonna have a dabble?

[Mr Happy]

ajprice said:

New model 3A+, same processor, wifi and bluetooth as the 3B+, but 65mm x 56mm x 12mm, single USB and no wired network.

Half the RAM of the 3B+ though, 512mb instead of 1gb which will be fine for general headless usage, but I'd stick with the full size 3B+ for anything that you interact with directly.

[jesusbuiltmycar]

Stupeo said:

jesusbuiltmycar said:

Has anyone bought a "Kano" raspberry pi kit? At £150 it seams quite expensive but I am thinking about getting one for my son for Christmas as it should teach him a lot about computers.

I bought my son the Computer Kit for his 8th birthday in September. It's a really nice idea and the case, keyboard etc feel well made. The software has some good ideas - physics apps, hackable Minecraft etc but it's slow. He really enjoys it - I find it frustratingly slow compared to a non-Kano Pi. He's learning Python now and is doing OK at it.

I got a deal on ours, I think I paid £120 or so on Amazon.

Thanks for the info. I wonder whether I would be better off getting him a standard Pi as I get very frustrated when computers run slowly (probably as I sit in front of one 40hours a week for work)..

Python is fantastic language to learn - are you teaching him or leaving him to learn it himself?

[poing]

TonyRPH said:

Never mind dropping the wired network, I want to see one with dual Ethernet ports (and not shared with USB either!)

Would make a nice router.

I agree, I want one that is poe rather than removing the port completely.

[loudlashadjuster]

Dug my original B out of a drawer to set up as a PiHole DNS server. Tremendous stuff, even works on a Zero, apparently.

[Haltamer]

ash73 said:

A low power Pi microcontroller with all those electrical gubbins on board could be interesting, which you could connect to a Pi computer which acts as the brain.

Sounds like you're looking for an arduino; Programming is in fairly simple (Well libraried) C / C++ for the arduino, and there is more than enough GPIO / Variation in boards and hardware. You would need to work out Pi -> Arduino comms using serial or similar, but I'd imagine there is a library for that by now. Personally, I enjoy the different challenge of limited resources when working on microcontrollers.

[dcb]

ash73 said:

Revolutionary Pi 4 hinted at too.

Problem is people always ask for more cpu power etc, I'd rather they focused on better interfacing;

Interesting. I'd want more cpu power and more RAM. The interfacing doesn't bother me.

When they have enough CPU and RAM to make it into a lightweight ARM based PC,
then I'd buy it. Even the Pi 3+ isn't powerful enough to do much more than tinker with.

At least 4 Gig RAM, SATA, VGA and a dozen CPUs. Maybe Pi 5 or Pi 6 ?

[BigMon]

We had an ancient Zetafax server at work sat on an XP box and were quoted a ridiculous amount to replace it (several thousand pounds).

I bought a Pi, US Robotics USB Fax\Modem, and got my apprentice to faff around with the Pi and Hylafax . It took a while but we not have a fully functioning fax server which cost buttons.

[deckster]

dcb said:

Interesting. I'd want more cpu power and more RAM. The interfacing doesn't bother me.

When they have enough CPU and RAM to make it into a lightweight ARM based PC,
then I'd buy it. Even the Pi 3+ isn't powerful enough to do much more than tinker with.

At least 4 Gig RAM, SATA, VGA and a dozen CPUs. Maybe Pi 5 or Pi 6 ?

I think you're rather missing the point of the Pi.

[droopsnoot]

BigMon said:

I bought a Pi, US Robotics USB Fax\Modem, and got my apprentice to faff around with the Pi and Hylafax .

Interesting that Hylafax is still around - I used to use that on a standalone Linux box in the office, just to receive faxes and email them as PDFs.

[RizzoTheRat]

Adds to the cost for people that don't want to do that kind of thing with them though. My B has a Pi drive and OSMC for a cheap NAS media server, and my zero is probably going to end up as a Pi hole, so no need for additional connectivity.

[smack]

Has anyone used an RFID reader with a rpi? I've misplaced a passport somewhere in the house, and thought a cheap RFID board could help me find it. Reading up Passports use the ISO 14443 13.56 Mhz standard that contactless cards/proximity cards and fobs use so they should be detectable?

[loudlashadjuster]

smack said:

Has anyone used an RFID reader with a rpi? I've misplaced a passport somewhere in the house, and thought a cheap RFID board could help me find it. Reading up Passports use the ISO 14443 13.56 Mhz standard that contactless cards/proximity cards and fobs use so they should be detectable?

Perhaps, but AFAIK you'd need to be within 10 cm of the passport to detect it, and probably much closer than that, which kind of negates the point, no?

[smack]

loudlashadjuster said:

Perhaps, but AFAIK you'd need to be within 10 cm of the passport to detect it, and probably much closer than that, which kind of negates the point, no?

I suspect it has fallen into something, or the back of a drawer or shelf, so 10 cm would be fine. I took it out of my bag, as I didn't need it for a flight last week (It's a 2nd passport), but my mind is blank on what I did with it.

[JimbobVFR]

RizzoTheRat said:

Adds to the cost for people that don't want to do that kind of thing with them though. My B has a Pi drive and OSMC for a cheap NAS media server, and my zero is probably going to end up as a Pi hole, so no need for additional connectivity.

Agreed, for my use as a PiHole or as a hub for my smart home (hass.io) it would be unecessary expense for something I'd never use. Although a built in IR receiver and transmitter would be useful.

[ajprice]

Raspberry Pi store opened in Cambridge https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshi...

[ajprice]

Raspberry Pi 4 https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model...

Pi Hut said:

The ultimate Raspberry Pi! Raspberry Pi 4 has up to 4GB RAM, a faster quad-core CPU, support for dual displays at up to 4K resolution, Gigabit Ethernet, USB3.0, wireless LAN, Bluetooth 5.0, and USB-C power. That's desktop PC performance!.

Features
1.5GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 CPU ( ARM v8, BCM2837)
1GB, 2GB or 4GB RAM (LPDDR4)
On-board wireless LAN - dual-band 802.11 b/g/n/ac
On-board Bluetooth 5.0, low-energy (BLE)
2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports
Gigabit ethernet
Power-over-Ethernet (requires additional Raspberry Pi PoE HAT )
40-pin GPIO header
2× micro-HDMI ports (up to 4Kp60 supported)
H.265 (4Kp60 decode)
H.264 (1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode)
OpenGL ES, 3.0 graphics
DSI display port, CSI camera port
Combined 3.5mm analog audio and composite video jack
Micro-SD card slot
USB-C power

[LordGrover]

I bought a Pi 3 b+ kit thanks to the pi-hole thread. Most impressed.
Ordered another so I can play.

[dxg]

I was just here to point out the 4. Ordered one this morning. I'm thinking it can become a permanent, hopefully fast enough-to-be-usable linux machine for tinkering. Rather than a hardware project.

Either way - new pi to play with!!!

[ajprice]

The processor and RAM should be good for higher end emulators to run smooth games.

[Nimby]

dxg said:

... Ordered one this morning....

Same here (from Pi Hut). I expected to wait weeks but just received an email saying it's been posted.