1) You can hook this up to a TV. 2) Webcam isn't strictly necessary: You'll be able to "see" your teacher, type in chat, virtually raise your hand, etc. 3) This enables more advanced STEM (The "T" portion, really) not because it's a desktop but because of the built-in 40-pin connector opening it up to the massive catalog of projects that exist for the Pi platform already. 4) Perfect is the enemy of the good: You're c…
> 2) Webcam isn't strictly necessary Not in our school district (Mass), students are required to have cameras on and showing most of their face.
Yes, that's the sort of rule a school district makes once there's a minimum standard of technology access. I'm talking about school districts with large numbers of kids without those resources.
Here's an interesting idea: A build of KeePass that uses the OTG mode for autotype. You plug the Pi 400 into a USB port on your device (whether computer, console, or whatever) and the password file is never on the computer in the first place. Edit to add: Might work better with a tablet build of the Pi, though, and you'd probably still want it to sync the file to Dropbox or some other storage place for safety.
Hold on, so you could plug it in to autotype a password?
That's precisely the idea, yeah. It's entirely possible with the hardware, the software (e.g. KeePass) would need to be modified to send through the gadget mode USB device.
Think about scalability. We need a solution for more than just one person. We need a solution for 1,000 kids in my town, 5,000 in surrounding districts, and I have no idea how many state-wide. How many such laptops can you find? How much effort will it take to source a dozen here, and dozen there, from hundreds of different sources? Repurposing old hardware only works at a small scale. If there were 50 kids in the sc…
They are a commodity, sold by a truckload, come from replacement of big corporations' PCs. Might not be good enough to give a whole state the same model though.
That would work then, but the price is still high for some people, so that would be a decent option for school districts that haven't been able to get all the Chromebooks they ordered. That's my district: They received a grant to buy Chromebooks, couldn't get all they needed.
Think about scalability. We need a solution for more than just one person. We need a solution for 1,000 kids in my town, 5,000 in surrounding districts, and I have no idea how many state-wide. How many such laptops can you find? How much effort will it take to source a dozen here, and dozen there, from hundreds of different sources? Repurposing old hardware only works at a small scale. If there were 50 kids in the sc…
That was an example. $1600 ultrabook costs $230 after 6 years. It includes display and there are cheaper models. Computing power has not changed much in the last ten years (just stay away from Intel Atom), maybe add some RAM and good to go. Bonus point — compatibility with x86 and x64 software, SATA. Raspberry Pi 400 is fine, but it is not cheapest.
I'm not talking about the cheapest. Cheap is important, but overall accessibility is what I'm getting at. That's what I meant in my OP in my comments about people intimidated by the bare hardware of normal Pi. The normal Pi is cheaper. The form factor and convenience of the Pi 400 make it a more accessible platform, especially for an 8 year kid old with poor parents that aren't very technical. This family doesn't know to avoid Atom CPUs, they don't know anything about installing RAM. They need something easy, off-the-shelf, and decently supported. And yes, also cheap. You're saying it's possible to do better than the Pi 400. I agree! I'm saying it's not practical to try to scale your approach across thousands of families.
Actually there were differing qualities of these manufactured. I had one of the early ones and it was fantastic, I could run my fingers touching over the surface and lightly depress while dragging and the audible feedback had such low latency: joy. Sort-of regretted replacing it with mechanical keys. Later Atari 400s had barely registering keypresses that was a workout for your fingers.
I must have had a later one then. Where did you find a replacement mechanical keyboard for the 400? I never found one. I was so envious of the Sinclair owners because they had tons of options.
I think it might have been a local creation. It was ugly as hell, half of it rose above/outside the case showing the switch bodies and entire keycaps. It did have a good feel though. I wasn't much of a touch/speed typist so didn't gain so much. I got it because my father was a bit of a typewriter geek and didn't like me using the membrane keys. Ended up getting an 800 with expansion memory but the keys weren't as good--too springy/spongey no clickiness in it's motion.
Perhaps that was the case with e.g. vintage sports cars from the 50s and 60s. But I don't think the British manufacturing industry has been doing well ever since. I would love to be wrong, though.
According the uk official national statistics manufacturing product sales for 2019 was £396 billions.
The geek in me is very excited about this device; but on more practical terms, you could pick a nice, compact, significantly more powerful x86 device like [1] for $100 more, and that opens up the world of possibilities in terms of software compatibility.
It reminds me of what Apple does when it redefines a product category by "just" bringing together existing technology into a more convenient form factor and UX. That's a wonderful observation. The form factor is as clever as it is logical. Stuff like this makes me really optimistic for the future of Raspberry Pi (and widespread computing!).
and it is british. anecdotally in terms of longevity and development i have seen they do the best job.
I believe a CM4 module could fit in the same space. They were probably developed in parallel, so they couldn't afford to gate the Pi 400 on the CM4 timelines. Also, don't under estimate the performance of future SD cards. v0, get it shipped v1, improve
The issue with SD cards is not performance, it is longevity. I threw away more SD cards than I care to admit. :-/
I’m surprised there isn’t a market solution for long-life (SSD lifespan) SD cards. SD card is just a physical/electrical interface, couldn’t manufacturers put more resilient flash circuitry inside?