Not to totally change the subject, but that's why I'm kind of more excited about the 0x10c game than Raspberry Pi.
RPi claims it will get kids interested in programming again, but in the end it's just a supercheap Linux box. I think you'll see more kids want to make their spaceship do something really cool and really efficiently on the virtual in-game CPU. The instruction set is small and tight and very easy to learn. I know everyone wants to build compilers for every language under the sun for DCPU, but just like in game programming the tighest code will win.
On the same note... Maybe RPi got it wrong (ie building super cheap linux box). Maybe, just maybe, they should have built a supercheap six-legged bot, with a DCPU-like real CPU and a set of touch-vision sensors? It might be interesting to program virtual CPU of a virtual spaceship, but making a real, tangible thing move and obey your commands is way-way cooler, IMHO...
Something simpler and cheaper than Mindstorms, yet more open and easier to experiment with.
I dunno how the modern stuff works, but you don't need to get much simpler or open or easy to work with than the original LEGO Mindstorms. My introduction to programming was BASIC -> PERL -> JavaScript, all on the family PC, and then C on on the Hitachi 8-bit processor in the LEGO RCX. LEGO was very good about providing resources and documentation for working with the Mindstorms hardware, and enough simple tools were built around that that a 10-year-old could get set up to, e.g., run a FORTH environment on the RCX using a PC as a terminal in half an afternoon for free. And then you get to build your own six-legged robot...
I credit this exposure to 8-bit low-level programming at a young age for my easy experience in computer architecture and operating systems classes later on.
Aha, but there's the catch! RPi was supposed to be in the spirit of the BBC Micro. Cheap, accessible, in every school. But the Micro had a ready to go built-in programming language, didn't it? It was pretty simple to teach a kid to write 10 PRINT "HELLO" / 20 GOTO 10 and see their eyes light up within a few seconds of turning the thing on.
10 PRINT HELLO is slightly more obscure on a Linux desktop. This is where I see RPi falling down in the educational market and it turning into another hobbyist breadboard.
Not only that, but the serial port, user port, Econet etc were incredibly simple to use, both as hardware, and how you addressed them from BASIC. The RPi has USB and Ethernet...
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Not to totally change the subject, but that's why I'm kind of more excited about the 0x10c game than Raspberry Pi.
RPi claims it will get kids interested in programming again, but in the end it's just a supercheap Linux box. I think you'll see more kids want to make their spaceship do something really cool and really efficiently on the virtual in-game CPU. The instruction set is small and tight and very easy to learn. I know everyone wants to build compilers for every language under the sun for DCPU, but just like in game programming the tighest code will win.
Just throwing that idea out there.
On the same note... Maybe RPi got it wrong (ie building super cheap linux box). Maybe, just maybe, they should have built a supercheap six-legged bot, with a DCPU-like real CPU and a set of touch-vision sensors? It might be interesting to program virtual CPU of a virtual spaceship, but making a real, tangible thing move and obey your commands is way-way cooler, IMHO...
Something simpler and cheaper than Mindstorms, yet more open and easier to experiment with.
I dunno how the modern stuff works, but you don't need to get much simpler or open or easy to work with than the original LEGO Mindstorms. My introduction to programming was BASIC -> PERL -> JavaScript, all on the family PC, and then C on on the Hitachi 8-bit processor in the LEGO RCX. LEGO was very good about providing resources and documentation for working with the Mindstorms hardware, and enough simple tools were built around that that a 10-year-old could get set up to, e.g., run a FORTH environment on the RCX using a PC as a terminal in half an afternoon for free. And then you get to build your own six-legged robot...
I credit this exposure to 8-bit low-level programming at a young age for my easy experience in computer architecture and operating systems classes later on.
They should have resurrected the BBC Micro, that's what they should have done. Kids these days...
Aha, but there's the catch! RPi was supposed to be in the spirit of the BBC Micro. Cheap, accessible, in every school. But the Micro had a ready to go built-in programming language, didn't it? It was pretty simple to teach a kid to write 10 PRINT "HELLO" / 20 GOTO 10 and see their eyes light up within a few seconds of turning the thing on.
10 PRINT HELLO is slightly more obscure on a Linux desktop. This is where I see RPi falling down in the educational market and it turning into another hobbyist breadboard.
Not only that, but the serial port, user port, Econet etc were incredibly simple to use, both as hardware, and how you addressed them from BASIC. The RPi has USB and Ethernet...