|
As it stands they're trying to pass it off as the BBC Micro of the future! Get kids coding at school again! It's an open circuitboard with no drive connectors, and a processor so old that most versions of its operating system no longer support it. Speaking of it's operating system, is linux really the way to go here? If you want to get kids interested in computers on a technical level a unix-like is probably the worst place to go. You like scooters, kid? Here have a jet engine. Really the device itself is wrong for the marketed purpose. They're supposedly beeb inspired, even going as far as to take the naming scheme, but where is the case? Or keyboard? The BBC had connectors all over it, you could hook up anything up to and including second and third processors. This has some usb, serial, and a composite video jack for some unearthly reason. It's telling that it seems to be being picked up by people who are already technically inclined - or so they think. It seems to be being used as a big arduino, which is an LED blinker for people who've never heard of 555 timers. The BBC Micro introduced computing to millions of people. It could do anything any micro could do at the time, and more. The Pi is an uncased pcb with an outdated linux install you can squint at over the composite video. "You don't have to use composite!" you say? Then why is it there instead of a sata port or something useful? As it is it's a £20 ARM board. It's not a BBC Micro. It's not even a KIM-1, at least those had a screen. doritos fucked around with this message at Jul 25, 2012 around 23:05 |
| # ? Jul 25, 2012 23:01 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2013 03:39 |
|
|
First off, I don't get the impression that they're trying to introduce computing, at least not to Western cultures. Most kids get plenty of exposure to computing. I think this is for taking it to the next level, so to speak. In terms of the OS, what's wrong with Linux? What would you suggest? The connections they chose are pretty appropriate IMO. Serial is deprecated for consumer use, but there are a lot of hobbyist applications. It has composite out, but it also has HDMI. I'm guessing it could run a stripped-down GUI of some sort, but just like you said, it's a souped-up Arduino. People are using it for robotics platforms and whatnot.
|
| # ? Jul 25, 2012 23:20 |
|
|
doritos posted:As it stands they're trying to pass it off as the BBC Micro of the future! Get kids coding at school again! They're working on a case for the school version, and it does have a drive connector. USB. Just because they're using multipurpose serial buses instead of single-purpose serial or worse, antiquated parallel buses, doesn't make it any less of a drive connector. Debian linux is just fine as an OS. Plus, it's also supported by Fedora, Arch, Slackware, Gentoo, and Puppy linux. So it doesn't run Ubuntu or CentOS? Big loving deal. Plus, the foundation-endorsed Debian image comes with several beginner-oriented programming tools that run under X preinstalled. Just because it doesn't dump you to a blue screen that reads "BASIC 32K FREE OK >" doesn't make it any less of a tool for teaching beginner programming. Composite out was an afterthought - the SoC supported it, so they put the connector on the board. An ESATA port would be retarded even if it wasn't expensive to add - who the hell even uses it when USB 2.0 is available on everything? thelightguy fucked around with this message at Jul 25, 2012 around 23:33 |
| # ? Jul 25, 2012 23:30 |
|
|
Kynetx posted:First off, I don't get the impression that they're trying to introduce computing, at least not to Western cultures. Most kids get plenty of exposure to computing. I think this is for taking it to the next level, so to speak. It's been hyped constantly as something to bring us back to the days of kids tapping in code in IT lessons. Kynetx posted:In terms of the OS, what's wrong with Linux? What would you suggest? Linux is wrong because it's a unix clone. UNIX is a 40 year old minicomputer OS that's been hacked together willy-nilly with no real overarching design. It took Apple releasing parts of OSX as open source before it got a standardized printing system, of all things. If you're going to encourage kids to code, don't hand them an operating system built for and by 1970s lab researchers. It gets real tiring when gcc spits out an error that amounts to "I won't compile your code or tell you why". Kynetx posted:The connections they chose are pretty appropriate IMO. Serial is deprecated for consumer use, but there are a lot of hobbyist applications. It has composite out, but it also has HDMI. If it has HDMI what is composite for? Chroma (monochrome) would have been more appropriate. Colour composite can't generate 80 columns without colour bleed all over the place, never mind be sharp enough to read. Kynetx posted:I'm guessing it could run a stripped-down GUI of some sort, but just like you said, it's a souped-up Arduino. People are using it for robotics platforms and whatnot. That's not what they were selling it as. thelightguy posted:Debian linux is just fine as an OS. Is that debian out of date or debian unstable? thelightguy posted:Plus, the foundation-endorsed Debian image comes with several beginner-oriented programming tools that run under X preinstalled. Just because it doesn't dump you to a blue screen that reads "BASIC 32K FREE OK >" doesn't make it any less of a tool for teaching beginner programming. What the hell 8-bit did that? What was great about 8-bits was that you got the basic prompt at boot. You could type in 2+2 and get an answer, even if you'd never even seen a computer before. I hope junior likes watching bash poo poo itself when he types 2+2 INTERNET or YOUTUBE. Still, explain how linux is something good for someone to learn to code on vs windows, the OS already on the computer they already have. Or explain why spending £20 on a charity shop PIII wouldn't get you more computer. thelightguy posted:Composite out was an afterthought - the SoC supported it, so they put the connector on the board. An ESATA port would be retarded even if it wasn't expensive to add - who the hell even uses it when USB 2.0 is available on everything? You know they could have saved 20p a unit (or, shock horror, charged the same but saved the profit for designing the next model) without that afterthought. As is it's pointless. doritos fucked around with this message at Jul 25, 2012 around 23:50 |
| # ? Jul 25, 2012 23:41 |
|
|
doritos posted:If you're going to encourage kids to code, don't hand them an operating system built for and by 1970s lab researchers. It gets real tiring when gcc spits out an error that amounts to "I won't compile your code or tell you why". 1) That's why you set them up using Scratch and not C. You're really stretching for arguments here. 2) Because it was built in to the SOC and it cost pennies to put the connector on the board. And if you want monochrome, there's a config setting for that too! Do your research. (sdtv_disable_colourburst) 3) You have two options. Debian Squeeze (current stable) or Debian Wheezy (current testing) Nobody is endorsing Sid builds for the RPI, and there are no builds older than Squeeze out there in the wild. Once again, do your research. E: Obviously you have some personal grudge against the Raspberry Pi. Nobody is saying that the kids would use bash. That's why the foundation image boots into X by default and includes Scratch as the programming environment for kids. So please, just stop it unless you have a real argument that isn't "I want my CLI and seventeen proprietary interface ports WAHHHH" thelightguy fucked around with this message at Jul 25, 2012 around 23:56 |
| # ? Jul 25, 2012 23:51 |
|
|
thelightguy posted:1) That's why you set them up using Scratch and not C. You're really stretching for arguments here. You're advocating a programming language nobody has ever heard of and has zero real world use. But I'm stretching for arguments? Hell, I didn't even mention C specifically. Just that getting things to build on linux is a horrible nightmare from beyond unless you've already got a neckbeard. thelightguy posted:2) Because it was built in to the SOC and it cost pennies to put the connector on the board. And if you want monochrome, there's a config setting for that too! Do your research. (sdtv_disable_colourburst) "because it cost pennies" yes I covered that, pennies that have a better use. thelightguy posted:3) You have two options. Debian Squeeze (current stable) or Debian Wheezy (current testing) Nobody is endorsing Sid builds for the RPI, and there are no builds older than Squeeze out there in the wild. Once again, do your research. So both debian outdated and debian unstable. thelightguy posted:E: Obviously you have some personal grudge against the Raspberry Pi. Personal grudge. Against an inanimate object. Because I point out the flaws. OK. thelightguy posted:Scratch as the programming environment for kids. I googled that just now (because it's an also-ran) and it looks like kismet. This is just drawing flowcharts. Psudocode. So basically you're advocating a learning experience that's equivalent to a copy of the free UDK installed on every computer at school, except it costs £20/student, and there's no "this is how videogames work" learning incentive. Yay? thelightguy posted:So please, just stop it unless you have a real argument that isn't "I want my CLI and seventeen proprietary interface ports WAHHHH" Aren't you a little embarrassed that you have a purely emotional defense for the Pi? I'm saying what I don't like about it, you can do no better than to argue against a strawman version of me you created in your head. Well done. doritos fucked around with this message at Jul 26, 2012 around 00:31 |
| # ? Jul 26, 2012 00:28 |
|
|
^You're trolling, I hope. But on the off chance that you aren't, I just posted my response in the RPI thread. Please feel free to continue the discussion over there. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Classic Mac discussion. thelightguy fucked around with this message at Jul 26, 2012 around 00:51 |
| # ? Jul 26, 2012 00:40 |
|
|
thelightguy posted:^You're trolling. I just posted my response in the RPI thread. Please feel free to continue the discussion over there. I disagree with you so you're a troll!!!!!!!111eleven.
|
| # ? Jul 26, 2012 00:51 |
|
|
I've got a problem with my Plus. It dings like it passes the self-test but all it displays on the screen are perfect diagonal lines, separated by about four pixels. Should I still look at RAM, or is this more likely an analog board failure?
|
| # ? Jul 26, 2012 00:54 |
|
|
Oh, hey and old Mac/Apple thread. I've recently been setting up an old Apple IIGS and I've been having a bit of trouble running games/programs from GS/OS. In certain games/programs that are graphics heavy, I get a white mouse trail that doesn't disappear. Anybody got any ideas on what is causing this? It's a Rom 3 with a CFFA3000 that I'm using to boot into GS/OS. This is my first real foray into old Apple stuff so I'm not really sure where to start with troubleshooting this and most GS dedicated forums seem pretty dead.
|
| # ? Jul 26, 2012 01:32 |
|
|
thelightguy posted:I've got a problem with my Plus. It dings like it passes the self-test but all it displays on the screen are perfect diagonal lines, separated by about four pixels. If you've got some spare RAM I'd try swapping it in, but I'd bet by now it's going to be caps. You're popping it open either way so take a visual inspection while you're in there.
|
| # ? Jul 26, 2012 02:27 |
|
|
EgillSkallagrimsson posted:Oh, hey and old Mac/Apple thread. If you said Apple II+ I would have said 'push all the chips down' because that sometimes happened with my older 64K II+. Does it happen //e graphics mode or native //gs mode? Do you have a copy of the Immortal hanging around?
|
| # ? Jul 26, 2012 04:11 |
|
|
Binary Badger posted:If you said Apple II+ I would have said 'push all the chips down' because that sometimes happened with my older 64K II+. Does it happen //e graphics mode or native //gs mode? Do you have a copy of the Immortal hanging around? GS mode, I think. The games were hard drive installable and seemed to be better looking than a IIe game. Yeah, I have the Immortal.
|
| # ? Jul 26, 2012 20:43 |
|
|
Does the same graphics stuff happen if you play the Immortal?
|
| # ? Jul 26, 2012 22:45 |
|
|
Binary Badger posted:Does the same graphics stuff happen if you play the Immortal? Nope, but as far as I can tell it doesn't use the mouse.
|
| # ? Jul 26, 2012 23:42 |
|
|
So it's only the mouse cursor that leaves a trail? That's weird.. I think this clears hardware problems, must be software..
|
| # ? Jul 27, 2012 03:26 |
|
|
Olivil posted:So it's only the mouse cursor that leaves a trail? Yeah, so I downloaded somebody else's GS/OS hdd file and ran it to see if I had the same problem and that solved it. I was using the default GS/OS setup previously so I have no idea what could be different between the two.  I might have to lug out an old mac to convert the gs/os .sea files on Apple's site to floppy images and see if something was wonky with my original OS floppies sometime in the future.
EgillSkallagrimsson fucked around with this message at Jul 27, 2012 around 23:47 |
| # ? Jul 27, 2012 23:37 |
|
|
EgillSkallagrimsson posted:Yeah, so I downloaded somebody else's GS/OS hdd file and ran it to see if I had the same problem and that solved it. I was using the default GS/OS setup previously so I have no idea what could be different between the two. Yeah well, as long as it's working there's nothing to worry about I guess. 
|
| # ? Jul 28, 2012 15:46 |
|
|
I finally got around to fixing the headphone port on my Pismo. A while back my dog ran into the power cord, dragging the laptop onto concrete, which loosened the power connecter from the board it sits on (it landed right on that corner where the power cord plugs in). That board also controls sound in and out, and I bought a replacement board that turned out to have a broken audio out port. So today I soldered the power port back on the original board, and replaced the one with dead audio. It works great now, which I am glad about because I wasn't looking forward to spending another hour and a half taking apart the computer again if my soldering job didn't do it.
ShadeofBlue fucked around with this message at Sep 3, 2012 around 18:26 |
| # ? Aug 29, 2012 21:12 |
|
|
I hope this is ok to post here but I've thrown my GS setup up for sale in the SA Mart, if anybody here is interested. Click here to see.
|
| # ? Sep 11, 2012 08:44 |
|
|
I just got a working SE/30 with an Ethernet card that's running System 7.1 (without Open Transport), and I'm wondering what the best way to exchange files/software/data with my modern computer is? In the control panel, my network options list LocalTalk and EtherTalk, if that's useful. I'm currently using a Macbook Pro with 10.6.8. I've been Googling this for days, but most explanations assume I'm running 7.5.
|
| # ? Sep 22, 2012 00:36 |
|
|
Where can I get a Mac serial to MIDI adapter? I just bought a Roland MT-32.
|
| # ? Sep 26, 2012 06:29 |
|
|
eBay or craigslist. I like the opcode ones, cheapest will likely be the 1x3. Others to look for are midiman and mark of the unicorn.
|
| # ? Sep 26, 2012 08:20 |
|
|
I figure this is about the newest this thread can get- I got a Power Mac G5 today for $50! It's got dual 2 Ghz processors, 2.5 GB RAM, and a ~160 GB HD, running 10.4.11. Now, time to load up Deimos Rising and some of the other cool OSX games! 
|
| # ? Sep 27, 2012 02:29 |
|
|
ultimateluigi987 posted:I figure this is about the newest this thread can get- I got a Power Mac G5 today for $50! It's got dual 2 Ghz processors, 2.5 GB RAM, and a ~160 GB HD, running 10.4.11. Now, time to load up Deimos Rising and some of the other cool OSX games! A good deal for 50$!
|
| # ? Sep 27, 2012 13:39 |
|
|
So what graphic card did it come with? Radeons were better supported than GeForces. I remember that this one guy managed to burn out two 5200FXs (with a whopping 64 MB of VRAM) by using this old program called Chimera 3D; it had a screensaver module that showed a beautifully rendered Enterprise (Conny Refit edition) approaching a starbase.
|
| # ? Sep 27, 2012 14:37 |
|
|
Spoderman posted:I just got a working SE/30 with an Ethernet card that's running System 7.1 (without Open Transport), and I'm wondering what the best way to exchange files/software/data with my modern computer is? In the control panel, my network options list LocalTalk and EtherTalk, if that's useful. I'm currently using a Macbook Pro with 10.6.8. I've been Googling this for days, but most explanations assume I'm running 7.5. You need a go between. Something like a beige G3, ethernet built in and also a floppy drive. Other old computers have multiple ways around this problem, but nobody makes anything for old macs.
|
| # ? Sep 28, 2012 01:55 |
|
|
Binary Badger posted:So what graphic card did it come with? Radeons were better supported than GeForces. Fortunately for me, it came with a Radeon 9600! It didn't come with a OS9 System Folder, but that wasn't too hard to get ahold of. EDIT: ultimateluigi987 fucked around with this message at Sep 28, 2012 around 05:12 |
| # ? Sep 28, 2012 04:24 |
|
|
Good that you didn't get the 2.7 GHz model, that was the liquid cooled noisy-as-hell model. And that's one of the best G5's you can get since it has a dual core G5 instead of the dual processor G5s, the dual core is more efficient.
|
| # ? Sep 28, 2012 14:56 |
|
|
The PCI-E slot means that you can grab a cheap second hand 7800GTX and flash it for Mac use as well. One of the few times in history that Macs were rolling on top-end GPUs.
|
| # ? Oct 1, 2012 01:16 |
|
|
Against better judgement, I just bought an old iMac G4/700 (the first iLamp) to play old games and run After Dark on. The internal HDD is throwing smart errors, so i replaced it with another old WD drive and now it sounds like an angle grinder. New IDE drives are ridiculously expensive, to the tune of nearly $100 for 160GB from the one store that still has them. Any suggestions for a compatible CF to IDE adapter? Or maybe I can get a cheap SSD and a SATA to IDE bridge?
|
| # ? Nov 17, 2012 19:00 |
|
|
Binary Badger posted:Good that you didn't get the 2.7 GHz model, that was the liquid cooled noisy-as-hell model. Wait, Apple made liquid-cooled Macs?  Goddam...
|
| # ? Nov 17, 2012 22:47 |
|
|
I have one of them sitting in my office right now. Sounds like a jet plane.
|
| # ? Nov 17, 2012 22:49 |
|
|
awesome-express posted:Wait, Apple made liquid-cooled Macs? Not really so cool now, we're seeing these same G5s being brought in for service / dumpster fodder as the gaskets in the cooling systems are reaching the end of their working life. The coolant, usually a greenish liquid, leaks out right onto the power supply and totals the machine. Binary Badger fucked around with this message at Nov 18, 2012 around 03:48 |
| # ? Nov 18, 2012 01:39 |
|
|
I'm about to buy a non-turbo non-color NeXTStation (25MHz) with 8MB of RAM and keyboard/mouse/monitor for 100$. The seller states it's missing a hard-drive, any 50-pin SCSI drive will do? Also how can I get/make the disks to install the operating system to the hard-drive? What's the "best" version for a 25MHz 68040 with 8MB of RAM? Never had a NeXT before. Olivil fucked around with this message at Nov 27, 2012 around 01:27 |
| # ? Nov 27, 2012 01:19 |
|
|
Olivil posted:I'm about to buy a non-turbo non-color NeXTStation (25MHz) with 8MB of RAM and keyboard/mouse/monitor for 100$. Can you use a CF card + adapter instead of a SCSI drive
|
| # ? Nov 27, 2012 01:33 |
|
|
Yeah sure, is there a particular adapter I should look into?
|
| # ? Nov 27, 2012 01:53 |
|
|
I believe there is no such thing as a SCSI-CF adaptor, but chaining SCSI-IDE and IDE-CF adaptors works fine and is surprisingly fast. fake edit: not quite right. Although the SCSI-CF adaptor is ~$100, and SCSI-IDE adaptors aren't as cheap as I thought anyway.  A few links for you: http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=17047 http://synack.net/~bbraun/se30disks/ http://68kmla.org/wiki/Using_flash_memory In terms of getting it up and running first, a cheap SCSI-1 disk might be best.
|
| # ? Nov 27, 2012 02:43 |
|
|
So I finally did manage to get a 1024x768 screen into my Clamshell iBook. My first attempt ended in a botched soldering job, and it looked like some of the data cables got shorted together; the blacks all flickered red. So over Christmas break I had time to re-do the whole thing, with help from my brother who, being in audio engineering, has soldered all sorts of stuff, big and small. It looks great! Well, it looks great compared to the old 800x600 screen, which is basically unusable nowadays. My plan is to put Panther and OS 9 on it (Tiger is a bit too slow, especially with just 576 MB of memory). I just ordered Rhem and Rhem 2 from Amazon, games that are supposed to be like Myst. I plan on playing them on the Clamshell . Here's some mediocre photos of my failed attempt:  The new screen, it was $15 on ebay.  The soldering job. I am not good at such small connections. A proper cable does exist, actually, but it is impossible to find. Places that even bother to list the price when it is sold out suggest that it would be like $50-$100 if I ever did find one. This is the part that had to be redone properly over the holidays.  This is what it looks like all wired up. The old connector is intact, so this mod is fully reversible. The only thing that is permanent is that I cut up the metal shield with all the holes in it that is partially in this photo on the right. When I redid everything, somehow the wires bunched up more than my first attempt, so it added too much thickness for me not to. On the old screen, the colorful wires hooked up directly to a connector at that position. As you can see, on the new screen the connection is at the top.  This is what it looks like behind the metal shield. The pink and white wires you see at the bottom right are for the backlight of the LCD. On the old screen, they connect at the top right. On the new one, at the bottom right. Luckily the wires are long enough that it is not problem to hook everything up. The screen is almost perfectly aligned in the shell; it could use being like half a millimeter to the right, but there isn't any room to shift it over. To secure the screen, I just used a bunch of tape. If it doesn't hold it's not a big deal to just open up the top. After my first failure, I realized I didn't actually have to take apart the whole computer to get at the screen, which is really nice. You can do the whole mod without even popping off the keyboard. A simple firmware edit (changing the display family to the same one used on the G3 icebooks) was all that was needed to get it to recognize that it's using a 1024x768 screen. Unfortunately, it does kill dvd movie playback. I'm not sure why, but there you go. The mod also only works with the 466 MHz boards, apparently. It looks kind of scary while it's booting up, it shows 800x600, kind of tiled with black bars between the tiles, but once it's booted it's like it was always using the higher resolution screen. My Pismo will probably be relegated to being used to play with Linux, something I've never done outside of some physics and astronomy lab courses at University. On that note, any suggestions for a flavor of Linux that would be suitable for an old G3? Anything that's not much slower than Panther would be fine with me. On another note, I'm kind of pissed off my old 80 GB hard drive bit the dust just as I was about to clone my Pismo's drive to it and use it. I guess it's better than having it die after I installed it, but it looks like I'm stuck at 40 GB. I don't know how much more money I want to spend on these old machines, but while we're on the subject of using CF cards as hard drives, how are the speeds compared to the old parallel ATA stuff? I saw some brackets that let you put 2 CF cards in place of a single HDD, which I thought might be nice for a dual boot system. Obviously I could just partition my drive, but if they are also faster, it might be a nice way to upgrade.
|
| # ? Jan 2, 2013 21:01 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2013 03:39 |
|
|
It depends a lot on what CF cards you buy, the cheap ones are fairly slow even if they support fast sequential transfers. Those CF adapters are so cheap it's well worth giving it a try. I got it to work in a 400mhz titanium powerbook and an old 366mhz g3 clamshell. I could not get my adapter to work in a 500mhz dual usb ibook. I haven't tried benchmarking it, but I'd say my old clamshell ibook boots a little faster with the CF card than it did with the 20gb hdd it had. I didn't really care about that as much as the fact that the machine became dead silent once the spinning hdd was gone. I imagine if you plan to use OSX without a ton of ram a CF card will choke on all the writing to swap that OSX likes to do. Classic MacOS hardly writes anything to disk in comparison.
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 10:27 |
|
