Raspberry Pi

[JoeC]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17547764

British ingenuity and manufacturing at it's best!

[JamesB]

They're manufactured in China. The original plan was to do it in the UK, but apparently price considerations came into play.

[JoeC]

Sorry, should have said British manufacturing management....

[bar shaker]

Sorry, should have said British manufacturing management....

Joe, we would have to know if the spec was at fault or if the manufacturer used the wrong part, before piling blame onto the designers... let alone burying them just because they are British.

If I come across as proud of our engineering and innovation companies it is, er, because I am.

[JoeC]

I am equally as proud of the British traits of humour and self-deprecation. And blaming foreigners when things go wrong. I like that one too.

[JamesB]

You can read Raspberry Pi's blog on the incident here and make up your own mind as to whom to blame ... http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/781

[Peter Pan]

Just got an email 16.01 saying I could order. Placed an order and got the email

When stock is allocated to your order, we will send you a full order confirmation including prices, availability and expected delivery date.

Can't wait! £29.26

[Colonel Panic]

In anticipation of a w/c 28-MAY shipping date I'm starting to think about peripherals. I will use an old USB keyboard and mouse initially (may upgrade to bluetooth & a USB bluetooth dongle later?), and an el-cheapo headset (3.5mm jack) for sound.

I'm very keen to keep costs down to a minimum on this project; the monitor that I would like to use only has a 15 pin VGA input; what would be the best way to get the Pi's video out in to my monitor? Is there such a thing as an HDMI to VGA converter? Or should I look for a Composite video to VGA lead?

Any ideas for which route would be OK quality-wise but cheap too? (AIUI the monitor has a max resolution of 1024x768@75Hz)

Would this do?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/S-VIDEO-ADAPTER ... pd_cp_ce_0

[Ian Melville]

From the Raspberry Pi FAQ

What display can I use?

There is composite and HDMI out on the board, so you can hook it up to an old analogue TV, to a digital TV or to a DVI monitor (using a cheap adapter for the DVI). There is no VGA support, but adaptors are available, although these are relatively expensive.

Since that adaptor is the wrong way round it won't work.
A quick search found a HDMI output to VGA input adaptor at £40, so I guess they are expensive as mentioned in the FAQ. Cheaper to buy a second hand DVI monitor and HDMI - DVI adaptor

[Colonel Panic]

Ian - thanks for that. Very helpful. If I can possibly avoid spending £££ on a new (or old) monitor so much the better. I've dug out an old TV which has ...

Scart
S video
Video input phono jack (yellow) and x2 audio (white and red)

Would this enable me to use a cheaper lead? Can I not connect the Pi's Composite video out port to the TV's S video in or the video input phono jack? I'm sure that I'll have a yellow RCA to yellow RCA video cable (from an old video camera) lying around somewhere.

Apols in advance for being a bit of a numpty

[Keef]

I'm going to wait till mine arrives to tinker with the plethora of leads, monitors, TV sets, etc in the workshop to find what will display. I'm sure something will fit!

Meanwhile, I went on the hunt for software. Two downloaded almost instantaneously - archlinuxarm-27-03-2012.zip and debian6-13-04-2012.zip
and while I was at it, I grabbed Raspberry-Pi-Schematics-R1.0.pdf

I don't know if I need RaspberryPi-Development-VM-v0.8.ova but it looked interesting so I decided to. It's 8.2GB and has been 14 hours downloading so far (albeit very slowly, so I suspect lots of people are doing the same). It reckons another 7 hours to go.
If anyone wants it and doesn't want to download it, send me a 16GB memory stick and I'll do the necessary.

[Colonel Panic]

What does the .ova do? Allow you to run a Pi OS in a virtual machine?

[Keef]

It's a tool to create a virtual machine for developing software for the Pi. It also allows data transfer between the Pi and the virtual machine.

The details I saw were a bit vague, but it seemed like something needed to do serious stuff with the Pi. I found the reference to it here.

There's also an expansion board for the Pi - called Gertboard. I'm going to hold off on that till I've got used to the basic device.

[Colonel Panic]

Meanwhile, I went on the hunt for software. Two downloaded almost instantaneously - archlinuxarm-27-03-2012.zip and debian6-13-04-2012.zip and while I was at it, I grabbed Raspberry-Pi-Schematics-R1.0.pdf. I don't know if I need RaspberryPi-Development-VM-v0.8.ova but it looked interesting so I decided to.

I've downloaded the debian6-19-04-2012.zip, but no doubt it will be superseded by the time my Pi arrives; the schematic is waaaaay above my head, and I'll pass on the .ova for now.

Should we set up a competition for the first person to be able to successfully code

10 PRINT Hello
10 GOTO 10

EDITED TO ADD ... I even managed to run a successful SHA-1 Checksum test on the download. Ooh err, I've done one of them before

[Jodelman]

I've dug out an old TV which has ...

Scart
S video
Video input phono jack (yellow) and x2 audio (white and red)

The yellow one will be ok. Lots of useful tips on this forum.