Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education

#41

Post by DanBC » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 1:42 PM UTC

zxcdw wrote: post #35

I can almost relate. Consider comparing Raspberry Pi to say Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum. Anyone familiar with programming 8-bit home computers of the 80's knows how simple they were by their hardware and how easy it was to grasp them. What was(and still is) great about them, is that any kid(regardless of age, as long as they can read) was and still is able to learn how the computers work . How many kids these days ge…

>These days there is just simply no suitable platform to actually play around with

Have you seen the Maximite computer?

(http://geoffg.net/maximite.html)

Searching HN shows several references (a couple from me) about this interesting device.

It should be really easy to emulate a Z80 / 8080 era CPU with nice graphical outputs for address lines and everything else. And being emulated means that single-stepping this device is easy. Toggle switches for input are optional.

Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education

#42

Post by rwmj » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 1:46 PM UTC

hermanhermitage wrote: post #22

rwmj wrote: post #18

All this is pretty much the same as the BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Vic-20, C-64, Archimedes and other successful teaching platforms. Sure, third parties disassembled the ROMs, and there were some schematics, but by and large these systems were closed and incompatible with anything else. Edit: Which is not to say, I don't think more openness would be a wonderful thing. But it's not necessary for it to be a success in sch…

This is an excellent observation. Might I also suggest that having some things closed or out of reach is also a fine way of encouraging people to dig in. Some of the best young minds will search behind doors they are told not to look. Its about getting the height of the hurdle just right!

This actually happened on the ZX81: some very smart programmer reverse-engineered the ROM, ULA and display circuitry and worked out that you could implement high resolution graphics in software. Here is an interview with him:

http://jdanddiet.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/crl-feature-extras-i...

Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education

#43

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 2:02 PM UTC

It cost thirty bucks. My students (who wrote their first computer program last semester) had it up and running within the first hour after it was delivered. Two weeks later and they have a wifi controlled skid-steer robot prototype running using the Rasp. Pi, Arduino, some proprietary motor controllers, a PS3 controller and PyGame. Now they are refining their code/design, improving it. They spend so much time working/playing with it, that they are slacking off in their Communication Theory coursework. What a tragedy.

Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education

#44

Post by judofyr » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 2:02 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #33

judofyr wrote: post #31

Please note that this guy's blog has a subtitle of Has someone just said “lowlevel”? . whitequark is discussing the Raspberry Pi from an embedded point-of-view. If you only intend to use the Raspberry Pi to teach Linux and above (or anything that's built upon an OS), then this article is not for you. This is for people who intends to use the Pi to teach lowlevel, embedded programming; teaching how a computer works on…

He said "education" with any further qualification. I'm not even sure that the pi was developed with the intention to teach "low level" stuff.

> He said "education" with any further qualification.

Sure. And the Hacker News crowd loves people who point out statements that are not strictly true. Hey, who cares what the author actually meant, this line here is wrong!

Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education

#45

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 2:13 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #33

judofyr wrote: post #31

Please note that this guy's blog has a subtitle of Has someone just said “lowlevel”? . whitequark is discussing the Raspberry Pi from an embedded point-of-view. If you only intend to use the Raspberry Pi to teach Linux and above (or anything that's built upon an OS), then this article is not for you. This is for people who intends to use the Pi to teach lowlevel, embedded programming; teaching how a computer works on…

He said "education" with any further qualification. I'm not even sure that the pi was developed with the intention to teach "low level" stuff.

There are a lot of old guys who are mad because kids don't have to punch hex into an 8085 with a keypad anymore.

Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education

#46

Post by devicenull » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 2:22 PM UTC

> Oh, and before calling this a conspiracy theory, take a look at the sister site of Pi Foundation. That’s right: instead of promiting free, open and royalty-free standards like WebM, the Foundation sells licenses for two proprietary and obsolete video encoders.

The Pi has picked up a pretty big following in the HTPC crowd. When you're using it as a HTPC, you need GPU acceleration to play any sort of HD content. Without these licensees, it's far less useful as a HTPC. Apparently "promoting" WebM means "make every reencode all their content into an open format".

Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education

#47

Post by oceanician » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 2:41 PM UTC

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #43

It cost thirty bucks. My students (who wrote their first computer program last semester) had it up and running within the first hour after it was delivered. Two weeks later and they have a wifi controlled skid-steer robot prototype running using the Rasp. Pi, Arduino, some proprietary motor controllers, a PS3 controller and PyGame. Now they are refining their code/design, improving it. They spend so much time working…

Sounds like a great success story. I'd hope it's a great cheap device for getting kids into programming (a bit) with other resources they have lying around like a tv. I'd think those kids can probably teach us something by now :)

Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education

#48

Post by gaius » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 2:54 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #18

All this is pretty much the same as the BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Vic-20, C-64, Archimedes and other successful teaching platforms. Sure, third parties disassembled the ROMs, and there were some schematics, but by and large these systems were closed and incompatible with anything else. Edit: Which is not to say, I don't think more openness would be a wonderful thing. But it's not necessary for it to be a success in sch…

I dunno, they came enough schematics that you could interface anything you wanted to the user port and read/write to it with what we now call memory mapped I/O. RS232 was a universal standard, the most you would have to do is physically make up a cable. Both the Beeb and the C64 came with a manual that explained to you how to patch the OS (via vectors). On the C64 you could even switch the entire OS out and get its entire 64k of address space, just you and the hardware.

Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education

#49

Post by gaius » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 2:58 PM UTC

flyinglizard wrote: post #26

The part about the ARM core not being open source is a joke. Would it be better to teach children and students about esoteric open source architectures with no applications in the real world? The real problem of the Pi, and not just as far as education use is concerned, is the crap Broadcom chip. After working with Broadcom, I would never-ever-ever consider them if there is an alternative. They strangle open source (…

Right, but after designing the first ARM (on a BBC Micro), and ARM was spun out of Acorn into a separate company, Sophie Wilson went to work for Broadcom on their Firepath DSP chip. So all these guys are connected.

Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education

#50

Post by grimboy » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 3:04 PM UTC

flyinglizard wrote: post #26

The part about the ARM core not being open source is a joke. Would it be better to teach children and students about esoteric open source architectures with no applications in the real world? The real problem of the Pi, and not just as far as education use is concerned, is the crap Broadcom chip. After working with Broadcom, I would never-ever-ever consider them if there is an alternative. They strangle open source (…

>esoteric open source architectures with no applications in the real world

Why does an open source architecture have to be esoteric? It could just as easily be conventional. We don't know for sure that ARM will be as popular in the future. Presumably aim isn't to teach individual intricacies but rather the overall concepts.