Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge • Hacker News Board

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#101

Post by claytonius » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

Aissen wrote: post #88

claytonius wrote: post #85

I had a minute to check it out over lunch - most of the floorspace is dedicated to demonstrating what the raspberry pi can do at a high level. They had stations for coding, gaming, sensors, etc. but only ~1/4th of the space was devoted to inventory. While they have a decent selection of Pis, sensor kits, and accessories, it's definitely not a replacement for Maplin. Additionally, Already__Taken seems to have been cor…

Did they sell the Pi at the $35 price (+VAT I guess) ? Because it seems that the brick-and-mortar stores I've been to strugle with this very-thin margin pricing. If you had a physical place where you could source sticker-price raspberry pis it would already be quit good.

The prices were very low -- if I remember correctly the zero was £4.50 and the zero W was £5.00. I went in looking for a motor so I didn't catch the price of the Pi B+ etc. Sorry!

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#102

Post by tomatotomato37 » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 3:10 PM UTC

folkrav wrote: post #75

ekianjo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Brand-wise, I would rather see the Raspberry Pi shop like a kind of bazaar where you find everything in all sorts of places rather than a very tidy and clean place where everything is in order. The "everything should look like what Apple does" is really tiring and generic these days.

The "RPi is for nerds" shtick is specifically what they're probably trying to get rid of with that store. Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Doesn't really look like an Apple Store either, unless wood and white is now reserved for Apple...

Isn't the primary users of RPi essentially nerds though? The average person isn't the type to hack one into a garage door to open via app or rig up a pi-hole to filter their smart TV, that's the domain of the stereotypical hacker nerd. I can see the appeal of widening the net to turn more potential nerds to the dark side, but if you just don't have any interest into this stuff to begin with than a shiny store isn't going to change that.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#103

Post by teekert » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

Every time I see that case it irks me that it can't close with dupont cables attached to the GPIO pins, not just the lid, the whole case is useless. Other than that... Love the Pi, love the idea of a store.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#104

Post by fsloth » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #84

fsloth wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The education aspect (particularly as a low-level programming platform) would have been made more accessible without such an opaque boot process." Not that I disagree, but as a counterpoint learning programming with Scratch has very little to do with getting to know the implementation details of the underlying computational substrate. I'm a software professional and I can't bother with that stuff! I'm far more inter…

I cant speak for anyone else, but I got into programming from using Linux. The fact that you have all these languages just there, and its all an open system etc really encourages you that yes this is something you can do, and not just toy examples. I've seen the same point made about boot to Basic, 8 bit computers also. I don't by contrast program on my phone because it just feels like a gimmicky toy. I'm not saying…

By the time person has moved on to C from scratch I find it likely they would have acquired a less restrained computer. Likewise, the fact you can't easily reverse engineer a rasberry does not stop one from getting a less restrained computer.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#105

Post by WrtCdEvrydy » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

claytonius wrote: post #101

Aissen wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they sell the Pi at the $35 price (+VAT I guess) ? Because it seems that the brick-and-mortar stores I've been to strugle with this very-thin margin pricing. If you had a physical place where you could source sticker-price raspberry pis it would already be quit good.

The prices were very low -- if I remember correctly the zero was £4.50 and the zero W was £5.00. I went in looking for a motor so I didn't catch the price of the Pi B+ etc. Sorry!

Probably just high profit margin on accessories but same price for raspis

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#106

Post by snazz » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 4:00 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #104

benj111 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cant speak for anyone else, but I got into programming from using Linux. The fact that you have all these languages just there, and its all an open system etc really encourages you that yes this is something you can do, and not just toy examples. I've seen the same point made about boot to Basic, 8 bit computers also. I don't by contrast program on my phone because it just feels like a gimmicky toy. I'm not saying…

By the time person has moved on to C from scratch I find it likely they would have acquired a less restrained computer. Likewise, the fact you can't easily reverse engineer a rasberry does not stop one from getting a less restrained computer.

Maybe this is true, but I would much rather work on my own operating system as an experiment on a small, simpler, inexpensive machine that I wouldn’t feel bad messing up. Although I applaud what the RPi people have done for computing education, this still feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#107

Post by adrianN » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

swebs wrote: post #96

adrianN wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a computer in the Raspberry Pi price range that has >=4gb RAM and can play full HD movies? The 1GB limit is basically what's keeping me from using a Pi as my main computer.

>and can play full HD movies Can you be more specific? "Full HD" usually refers to 1080p, which all Raspberry Pi models can easily handle for h264 video due to their hardware decoder. The Raspberry Pi 3 can handle most other formats through software just fine, though it may struggle with more intense formats like 10 bit h265. For that, an Odroid C2 may be what you're looking for. They advertise: >H.265 4K/60FPS and H…

Yeah, I'm looking for something that has some hardware support for h264 and a sufficient amount of RAM that is not too expensive and only uses a few Watts.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#108

Post by benj111 » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #104

benj111 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cant speak for anyone else, but I got into programming from using Linux. The fact that you have all these languages just there, and its all an open system etc really encourages you that yes this is something you can do, and not just toy examples. I've seen the same point made about boot to Basic, 8 bit computers also. I don't by contrast program on my phone because it just feels like a gimmicky toy. I'm not saying…

By the time person has moved on to C from scratch I find it likely they would have acquired a less restrained computer. Likewise, the fact you can't easily reverse engineer a rasberry does not stop one from getting a less restrained computer.

Possibly but if all your family have is a tablet, or a computer that they don't want 'experimenting' with.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#109

Post by tim333 » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #93

chrisseaton wrote: post #16

When did the British start calling shops ‘stores’?

Brit here. I'd personally never use "store" except for "department store", but it's use does seem to be becoming more prevelant.

Another Brit here. We are mostly familiar with the term 'Apple Store.' I imagine that's why the bbc are calling it a Pi store. English has always been a mish mash of words from different languages and cutures.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#110

Post by HeadsUpHigh » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 4:13 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #86

folkrav wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "RPi is for nerds" shtick is specifically what they're probably trying to get rid of with that store. Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Doesn't really look like an Apple Store either, unless wood and white is now reserved for Apple...

> Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Agreed, the other key component though is actually making their machine and software/hardware approachable, smooth, performant and reliable. Which they haven't really put any effort in to since they started. I really wanted the dream of an affordable computer for kids to be a reality but at the end of the day when the $35 just isn't as performant as a budget t…

Tinkering is not the same as consuming media/games. The kids who play with tablets and the kids who tinker with pis are completely different demographics( or the same person at different times). While I agree that the rpi leaves a lot to be desired( and other boards have left it in the dust hardware-wise) it is still the most accessible board out there and to say that they haven't improved on that is false( especially with software).