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I've now played with a Raspberry Pi 400 for a week and here are my conclusions

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Re: I've now played with a Raspberry Pi 400 for a week and here are my conclusions

#31

Post by umvi »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #24

I understand why the Raspberry Pi uses SD cards (cost, simplicity, ease of use) but the entire line would be so much more useful with onboard eMMC storage. SD cards are great for keeping cost down and getting started quickly by flashing OS images from a PC. However, enthusiasts spend so much time fiddling with external storage options and cobbling together messes of powered USB hubs, cables, external enclosures, and…

For those who don't know eMMC is basically an SD card that is soldered to the board

Re: I've now played with a Raspberry Pi 400 for a week and here are my conclusions

#32

Post by TonyTrapp »

mikehodgson wrote: post #22
TonyTrapp wrote: post #19

> Then I accidentally yanked a cable USB-C is so outrageously bad in this regard. I have a smartphone on my desk, connected via USB3 for debugging. At some point it started reconnecting if I just slightly touch the phone or cable, which is extra fun if it happens mid-deployment.

Check for pocket lint or other debris in the socket. This exact thing was happening to me, a minute with a toothpick fixed it.

Will check, but it's unlikely since both the phone and cable only ever sit on this desk. It's a pure debugging device.

Re: I've now played with a Raspberry Pi 400 for a week and here are my conclusions

#33

Post by lixtra »

abraxas wrote: post #27
jops wrote: post #15

I learnt to program on the ZXSpectrum with "Write Your Own Adventure Programs for Your Microcomputer" [0] The RPi400 with Pico-8 seems to tick the same boxes, so I got one for my 10yr old. He's loving it. Perfect use case. [0] https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Books/Write%...

I wish there was a bare metal option that boots RPI 400 into a BASIC or Python interpreter the way the 8 bit machines used to

What do you mean by bare metal? Booting into python (or basic) would probably take less than 1h for someone who knows what they are doing.

Re: I've now played with a Raspberry Pi 400 for a week and here are my conclusions

#34

Post by iddqd »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #24

I understand why the Raspberry Pi uses SD cards (cost, simplicity, ease of use) but the entire line would be so much more useful with onboard eMMC storage. SD cards are great for keeping cost down and getting started quickly by flashing OS images from a PC. However, enthusiasts spend so much time fiddling with external storage options and cobbling together messes of powered USB hubs, cables, external enclosures, and…

I agree. I have run quite a few Raspberry Pi over the years and so many of them died because of SD card corruption. Eventually I got a NanoPC T4 with built in eMMC and it’s been tugging along for a good 2 years with zero issues.

Re: I've now played with a Raspberry Pi 400 for a week and here are my conclusions

#35

Post by nottorp »

sorenjan wrote: post #26
TonyTrapp wrote: post #19

> Then I accidentally yanked a cable USB-C is so outrageously bad in this regard. I have a smartphone on my desk, connected via USB3 for debugging. At some point it started reconnecting if I just slightly touch the phone or cable, which is extra fun if it happens mid-deployment.

I think USB-C is designed to have the connector on the cable fail first, so maybe you can try to replace the cable?

My testing phones (that sit on the table like the OPs) eat cables like popcorn. I never buy less than 3 cables at a time.

Re: I've now played with a Raspberry Pi 400 for a week and here are my conclusions

#36

Post by fmakunbound »

tech5000 wrote: post #21

I have been debating a Pi400 vs a Pinebook Pro as an Xmas gift for a 10-year-old. The Pi400 looks great except that it doesn't support a webcam+microphone(+audio out?) out of the box and attempts to find an HDMI monitor with these things built in and supported by the Pi have thus far been unsuccessful. Is it odd to be considering a Lunux laptop for a 10-year old? The open source ethos of both machines, seems ideal fo…

I don't think a Pinebook Pro has a 40 pin GPIO header, so the possibilities for interacting with the outside world are limited and thus fun is severely reduced.

Re: I've now played with a Raspberry Pi 400 for a week and here are my conclusions

#37

Post by fmakunbound »

jops wrote: post #15

I learnt to program on the ZXSpectrum with "Write Your Own Adventure Programs for Your Microcomputer" [0] The RPi400 with Pico-8 seems to tick the same boxes, so I got one for my 10yr old. He's loving it. Perfect use case. [0] https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Books/Write%...

These Usborne (and other) books were fantastic!

Re: I've now played with a Raspberry Pi 400 for a week and here are my conclusions

#38

Post by notpygame »

abraxas wrote: post #27
jops wrote: post #15

I learnt to program on the ZXSpectrum with "Write Your Own Adventure Programs for Your Microcomputer" [0] The RPi400 with Pico-8 seems to tick the same boxes, so I got one for my 10yr old. He's loving it. Perfect use case. [0] https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Books/Write%...

I wish there was a bare metal option that boots RPI 400 into a BASIC or Python interpreter the way the 8 bit machines used to

There's a python/pygame/pygame_gui OS that does exactly this called snakeware. https://github.com/joshiemoore/snakeware Grab the rpi4 image and go.

Re: I've now played with a Raspberry Pi 400 for a week and here are my conclusions

#39

Post by MaxBarraclough »

taneq wrote: post #12
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #7

Sounds like a neat bit of kit. For anyone unfamiliar, it's essentially an ARM-powered PC, in the form factor of a keyboard. [0] > I was able to unbrick it I know it's a nitpick, but if it can be repaired, it's not bricked. [0] https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-400-unit/

Do we really have to have the “bricked is relative” argument again? Edit: To be more constructive, how about a definition for “bricked” as “unable to be recovered by the intended users of the device through reasonably expected efforts.”

Seems to me the word has a clear sense of permanence built into it.

The term arose because a brick cannot be transformed into functioning electronic equipment. A device is said to be bricked when it is no more useful than a brick. If you drop your smartphone into water, and it shows no signs of life even after a couple of weeks of drying, you've bricked it.

The average user is not competent at repair, as that's a specialized skill. They might not know what to do with a laptop if you blanked its SSD, but we wouldn't call that laptop bricked.

Re: I've now played with a Raspberry Pi 400 for a week and here are my conclusions

#40

Post by tylerchilds »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #24

I understand why the Raspberry Pi uses SD cards (cost, simplicity, ease of use) but the entire line would be so much more useful with onboard eMMC storage. SD cards are great for keeping cost down and getting started quickly by flashing OS images from a PC. However, enthusiasts spend so much time fiddling with external storage options and cobbling together messes of powered USB hubs, cables, external enclosures, and…

The Raspberry Pi 4 Compute Module has eMMC
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