Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: John Than Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you? As for myself, I'm
Speaker 1: a little under the weather. I'm struggling with a migraine
Speaker 1: which makes it difficult to function, and I'm working on
Speaker 1: an epic episode but it is not finished yet. And
Speaker 1: due to feeling a little under the weather, I thought
Speaker 1: we could listen to a classic episode of tech Stuff today.
Speaker 1: And there's a reason why I picked this one. The
Speaker 1: episode is called tech Stuff Samples Some Raspberry Pie, and
Speaker 1: the reason I wanted to talk about the Raspberry Pie
Speaker 1: at all is because I've been looking into going the
Speaker 1: Mame Arcade emulator route, using a Raspberry Pie as the
Speaker 1: brains behind it. I'll talk more about that at the
Speaker 1: end of this episode, but for now, let's enjoy this
Speaker 1: classic episode, which originally aired on February two thousand, twelve,
Speaker 1: more than a decade ago. Enjoy today. We're going to
Speaker 1: sort of discuss one of our favorite topics. But you're
Speaker 1: about to reveal. Longtime listeners will know why this is
Speaker 1: going to be a difficult one. Yep, yep, yep. First
Speaker 1: of all, this comes to us courtesy of a little
Speaker 1: Facebook feedback. This comes from Arthur. He says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could maybe do a podcast
Speaker 1: on the raspberry Pie computer. Pie. I love pie. Pie
Speaker 1: is awesome. It's both the number and the food, especially
Speaker 1: when the food in the number converge. Yes, because it
Speaker 1: is in this case raspberry pie is spelled p. I
Speaker 1: like the number, but it has raspberry, like the delicious
Speaker 1: fruity filling that we all love. So yeah, and it
Speaker 1: is not the next bild of Android. No. No, in fact,
Speaker 1: it's specifically not Android. But you know, Jonathan, where you
Speaker 1: do you remember that the episode we recorded not too
Speaker 1: long ago about Commodore sixty four. I do recall such
Speaker 1: an episode. We're laughing to ourselves because in recording time,
Speaker 1: we did that last week, so you know that the
Speaker 1: episodes will be spaced out, so it's not that close
Speaker 1: together anyway. But don't worry, we're already spaced out enough
Speaker 1: as it is. Absolutely now. One of the things we
Speaker 1: touched on in the Commodore sixty four episode was that
Speaker 1: this was that machine sold a lot of of Uh,
Speaker 1: computers to a lot of people. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that people did with those, especially young people, and
Speaker 1: it was fun to create your own programs, to learn
Speaker 1: exactly how programming works. In fact, the Commodore sixty four
Speaker 1: was the best selling computer of all time if you
Speaker 1: look at a very specific model of computer. Yes, so
Speaker 1: the Commodore sixty four sold I think it was seventy
Speaker 1: million units, which was pretty incredible for a single the ice,
Speaker 1: especially given the the time at which it was sold
Speaker 1: and uh um, the price at which it sold. Uh.
Speaker 1: That was not the heyday of computing, but it's really
Speaker 1: sort of started the whole snowball rolling and for a
Speaker 1: lot of people, uh, people who create your favorite software
Speaker 1: games and other programs. Uh, a lot of them sort
Speaker 1: of cut their teeth on the Commodore sixty four, which
Speaker 1: was because those were really big, bulky, heavy machines. He
Speaker 1: was going to say that, Uh no, they were. They
Speaker 1: got their feet wet programming. Let's use a different analogy,
Speaker 1: which by the way, I do not recommend when you're
Speaker 1: using electrical device. I knew he since I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: so actually the device we're talking about now, the Raspberry Pie,
Speaker 1: is created to do really very much the same thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's a great backstory to this device. That's
Speaker 1: that's what I think is the really compelling part of this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean the device itself is awesome too, but yes,
Speaker 1: but the reason behind it is fantastic. So over in
Speaker 1: jolly old England across the pond, and I promise I'm
Speaker 1: not going to do my terrible fake English accent today.
Speaker 1: A fellow by the name of even Upton, who worked
Speaker 1: in admissions at Cambridge University and also would do lectures there,
Speaker 1: he noticed a disturbing trend. Incoming students who are interested
Speaker 1: in studying computer science seemed to be to have a
Speaker 1: less of a grasp on the way computers work than
Speaker 1: previous generations of students. So, in other words, as time
Speaker 1: has gone on, people the incoming classes seem to be
Speaker 1: more ignorant of the way computers work than the previous class, which,
Speaker 1: you know, you'd think that's odd, because we're in a
Speaker 1: world where computers are much more pervasive than they ever
Speaker 1: have been before, to the point where you might have
Speaker 1: a computer in your pants pocket, as a smartphone or
Speaker 1: a tablet on your on your desk, or or even
Speaker 1: the device you're listening to right now might very well
Speaker 1: be considered a computer. Well, a lot computers are in
Speaker 1: lots of things. Computers are in your car and in
Speaker 1: your fridge and in all sorts of other stuff. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, uh, today's computers, the computer computer, the
Speaker 1: one that sits on on your desktop or a laptop
Speaker 1: or desktop machine. Um, those computers just work and doing
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah. Yeah, So back back when we're talking
Speaker 1: about the old Commodore sixty four days, those were days
Speaker 1: where you're using uh interface where it's all text based.
Speaker 1: You're typing stuff into the computer to get it to
Speaker 1: do things, and people were wondering, well, wait, how does
Speaker 1: this work? How does how does what I type in
Speaker 1: translate into this action? And how can I create my
Speaker 1: own programs knowing that there's this one language I can
Speaker 1: use to build something that that you know, when you
Speaker 1: execute command it does something kind of cool, and you've
Speaker 1: got a lot of people getting into it and sort
Speaker 1: of a hobbyist level. Right. Well, those people when they
Speaker 1: would go to school, some of them would say, you know,
Speaker 1: I loved tinkering with that stuff. I want to learn
Speaker 1: more about it. This is what I'm going to pursue
Speaker 1: as a career, and they became that generation of computer
Speaker 1: engineers and scientists. Well, the problem is that we've got
Speaker 1: these devices that are now so sophisticated and do so
Speaker 1: much for us that that level of tinkering has been
Speaker 1: taken out. It's really hard to tinker with a device
Speaker 1: that's running, say, a sophisticated graphics uh graphic user interface.
Speaker 1: You know you can You're not seeing the underlying programming
Speaker 1: that's making this all go, and you might very well
Speaker 1: not have very much exposure to it. And in fact,
Speaker 1: Upton's point was that he said that the students he
Speaker 1: was encountering, most of them had little to no understanding
Speaker 1: of any programming. If they had anything, it was HTML programming,
Speaker 1: which is not really programming h g MLS markup language.
Speaker 1: It changes the way stuff looks, but it's not truly
Speaker 1: a pro gramming language. Right. You know, if I may
Speaker 1: be permitted an analogy, I think it's sort of like
Speaker 1: somebody going to say, you know what, I want to
Speaker 1: become a mechanic, and somebody goes, okay, so you have
Speaker 1: a car. What makes it go? Well, I step on
Speaker 1: the gas and it makes it go. Yeah, But what
Speaker 1: about the engine. What about the parts of an engine?
Speaker 1: And you go, I don't I don't know the gas
Speaker 1: makes it move forward. I know that I put the
Speaker 1: groceries in the trunk and at the other end there's
Speaker 1: something exactly. And that was that was Upton's point, was
Speaker 1: that students only had a very superficial understanding of computers.
Speaker 1: They had nothing. It's it seemed like it was getting
Speaker 1: worse each year. Yeah. Now, I mean you you have
Speaker 1: computers now, um that come with programming language is built
Speaker 1: into the computer when you take it home and unwrap
Speaker 1: it and take it out of the box, it's got
Speaker 1: that stuff. But a lot of people don't even mess
Speaker 1: with it. And he wanted, um, he wanted people to
Speaker 1: be able to get started programming in a very inexpensive way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so Upton realized, and it's this is all stated
Speaker 1: on the Raspberry Pie Pie. It's it's stated on their
Speaker 1: on their web page. So if you go to the
Speaker 1: web page, you can actually read this whole story that
Speaker 1: we're summarizing here. But Upton's point was that he knows
Speaker 1: that access does not automatically solve a problem, right, but
Speaker 1: that without access you can't solve a problem. And so
Speaker 1: one of the things he thought would be important is
Speaker 1: to try and create a very very low cost computer
Speaker 1: that would give people the opportunity to really play with
Speaker 1: programming in a way that hasn't been seen since the
Speaker 1: days of the Common War sixty four and other computers
Speaker 1: of that era. And so he set out to try
Speaker 1: and create as an affordable a computer as possible. This
Speaker 1: is essentially it's a nonprofit approach. It's a charity approach
Speaker 1: to this, UM too, so that you can get as
Speaker 1: many of them into schools and into private hands as possible,
Speaker 1: so that people kids mostly could really get their hands
Speaker 1: on some programming, and perhaps this would inspire the next
Speaker 1: generation of computer engineers. In fact, they're talking about the
Speaker 1: possibility of a buy one, send one approach in the future. UM.
Speaker 1: They as at the time we're recording this in January twelve,
Speaker 1: they just started manufacturing these devices, probably within the last
Speaker 1: uh six to eight weeks from what I understand, So
Speaker 1: they're still pretty new and if you go to the shop,
Speaker 1: they are not actually in the shop. The only thing
Speaker 1: that's in the shop right now are stickers for keyboards,
Speaker 1: so they might they might send one later. A lot
Speaker 1: of the places like a one laptop per child do
Speaker 1: that where you can you can purchase a machine for
Speaker 1: someone else who may not otherwise be able to afford one,
Speaker 1: and they will send it out and help somebody get started,
Speaker 1: which I think is is a nice idea. And Raspberry
Speaker 1: Pie does the same thing where you can choose by
Speaker 1: where you can choose to actually send it to. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, instead of purchasing one for your yourself, you
Speaker 1: just spend the money in order for someone else to
Speaker 1: have this device. So let's talk about what the device
Speaker 1: actually is. Well, the device, Um, if you're looking for something,
Speaker 1: if you're one of those people who looks at a
Speaker 1: computer and it just works, uh, this device maybe kind
Speaker 1: of mystifying to you because it doesn't have a case.
Speaker 1: It looks like a circuit circuit board um with stuff
Speaker 1: on it. Yep, it's it's kind of interesting. It is.
Speaker 1: It is. It's the heart of a computer. But it's
Speaker 1: a tiny, tiny size. Actually, I think I have the
Speaker 1: the the diagram looks it looks like this. I'll hold
Speaker 1: it up to the mic and you can everyone can
Speaker 1: look at it at the Raspberry Pie site. Right now,
Speaker 1: I was gonna I was gonna actually give the measurements
Speaker 1: eighty five point six millimeters by fifty three point nine
Speaker 1: eight millimeters and that's length and width that for the right.
Speaker 1: So it's tiny. Yeah, it's it's about the size of
Speaker 1: a I don't know, smartphone, a fablet. Yeah, it's the slice.
Speaker 1: I hate that you did that. Just twitch in my forehead.
Speaker 1: It's um. It's got. It's got a few UM interfaces
Speaker 1: soldered onto the board. Um, of course it's got. It's
Speaker 1: got a process or chip, a Broadcom b C m
Speaker 1: ARM chip. It's seven mega hurts. It's not the fastest
Speaker 1: thing in the world. But it does have an r
Speaker 1: C A video out, an audio jack, UM USB too,
Speaker 1: an Ethernet jack on one of the two. They have
Speaker 1: an A and B model UM. They have an H
Speaker 1: B H D M I port, micro USB for power,
Speaker 1: and an SD card slot. It also will work on batteries. Yes,
Speaker 1: C S four double as I think is what it
Speaker 1: will work on. But you can also use the micro
Speaker 1: USB and plug in a cable and either plug that
Speaker 1: into another device or into a wall to power it.
Speaker 1: So it's got no monitor installed, though you can hook
Speaker 1: it up to one. It's got UM no, you know
Speaker 1: it's got networking capabilities, no WiFi. It weighs forty five
Speaker 1: grams or one tenth of a pound. It does have
Speaker 1: a few L A D s to tell you how
Speaker 1: it's working. Um and UM, yeah it's it's So essentially,
Speaker 1: what you would do with this thing is, uh, let's
Speaker 1: say that you have the model A. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: would use an h d M I out probably for
Speaker 1: you to go out to a television or a monitor,
Speaker 1: and then you would use a three and a half
Speaker 1: millimeter headphone jack. You would plug your headphones and so
Speaker 1: you can get sound. Although like with HDM I, that's
Speaker 1: gonna carry sound too, so you can actually have sounds
Speaker 1: straight through the monitor if your monitor has UM speakers
Speaker 1: in it, So if you're using a television, you could
Speaker 1: just use the TV speakers. Uh. You would also use
Speaker 1: a USB keyboard and plug that into it, and then
Speaker 1: you've got your keyboard user interface. If you want to
Speaker 1: have a mouse, then what you would need to do
Speaker 1: is get a USB hub, plug that into a keyboard.
Speaker 1: That right, what in which case the keyboard itself as
Speaker 1: a hub. Um, but anyway, you gotta have a USB hub,
Speaker 1: possibly in the shape of a keyboard. And then you
Speaker 1: can plug your mouse and to that. And the thing
Speaker 1: is that it doesn't have a hard drive on it,
Speaker 1: but you could get a have a clock on it either. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can get an external hard drive and and plug
Speaker 1: that into it if you wanted to. Um, so you
Speaker 1: would have the using a using a lot of existing technology.
Speaker 1: You might have to actually go out and buy the keyboard.
Speaker 1: Funny thing is the keyboard might actually cost more than
Speaker 1: the Raspberry Pie. It depends on because yeah, the two models,
Speaker 1: the Model A that has no Ethernet is twenty five dollars.
Speaker 1: The Model B that has eithernet is a Princely. Bringing
Speaker 1: the Princely back. There was a Model T and you
Speaker 1: could get it in any color as long as it's black.
Speaker 1: We'll be back to talk more about the Raspberry Pie
Speaker 1: in just a moment. The two models dollars. That's incredibly
Speaker 1: affordable for a fully functional computer. And you might wonder, well,
Speaker 1: what does this computer run? These are designed to run
Speaker 1: UH specific Linux distros. Yes, so we're not talking Windows
Speaker 1: or the mac os or or even certain Linux distributions
Speaker 1: like a Buntu do not work with it. Yet. It
Speaker 1: doesn't run Android the moment. Originally it was going to
Speaker 1: run a Buntu, but then Buntu realized the people behind
Speaker 1: a Buntu realize that they were not hitting their schedule properly,
Speaker 1: so they knew that they were not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to build in support for Raspberry pie uh they did
Speaker 1: the top. It did sound like that it's something that Canonical,
Speaker 1: the company behind one too, and other distributions of Lenox
Speaker 1: are are working on, but it's not currently available. The
Speaker 1: specific ones that are available at launch are Debian, Fedora,
Speaker 1: and arch Linux. Those are the three that can work
Speaker 1: right at the top of the as soon as it's ships,
Speaker 1: and there's been some beta once sent out already. It
Speaker 1: also sounded like it's possible that they that that the
Speaker 1: maker of Raspberry pie pi would be willing to accept
Speaker 1: uh Android, but they're not going to apport it themselves
Speaker 1: somebody else. If somebody else does it, they'll be cool
Speaker 1: with that. But in other words, this this is a
Speaker 1: very open source kind of approach where the community is
Speaker 1: going to provide a lot of the actual content and
Speaker 1: functionality beyond just the basics that the that the foundation
Speaker 1: that has been created to do this well will do. Also,
Speaker 1: the Model A and Model B I should mention they
Speaker 1: also have different amounts of memory. Yes, sal A is
Speaker 1: a tight megabytes of memory. Model B is two hundred
Speaker 1: fifty six megabytes of memory. And uh, I think I
Speaker 1: think the Model B actually has two USB ports, which
Speaker 1: could be good because you could plug in a WiFi
Speaker 1: dongle into uh, you know, one of the Raspberry Pie
Speaker 1: devices um to to give it WiFi connectivity, but it's
Speaker 1: not built into the to the board. Yeah. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the nice thing about USB, right, is that the they're
Speaker 1: so so many different peripherals that use that standard that
Speaker 1: can really extend the functionality of any computer, but particularly
Speaker 1: for something like this, where it's just a very creative
Speaker 1: approach to solving this problem. So yeah, the whole goal
Speaker 1: here is that you get this device in as many
Speaker 1: hands as possible, and the Linux distros are designed in
Speaker 1: such a way that that they do kind of harken
Speaker 1: back to that commonore sixty four day where it's it's
Speaker 1: it requires a certain level of investment on the part
Speaker 1: of the user to learn how the system works and
Speaker 1: and to really kind of explore it um And that's
Speaker 1: the whole purpose of this is not you know, it's
Speaker 1: not just that it's a cheap computer that can get
Speaker 1: into the hands of people. The the ultimate purpose is
Speaker 1: to inspire people to really look into programming and learn
Speaker 1: more about it and and possibly become the next you know,
Speaker 1: genius programmer. Um. And so mainly they're going to be
Speaker 1: working with the Python programming language, but there are also
Speaker 1: other languages supported, including Basic, although it's from why I
Speaker 1: understand it's a form of Basic called BBC Basic. There's
Speaker 1: also the C programming language and Pearl. Okay, so, um,
Speaker 1: there will be other languages probably added in support will
Speaker 1: be added in later. Uh. And uh, it's any programming
Speaker 1: language that the limitations that the program gramming language has
Speaker 1: to have support for Linux because that's the obering system
Speaker 1: and for ARM processors, because not every programming language works
Speaker 1: with every processor. It's one of those tricky things about
Speaker 1: computers is that, you know, you just when you think
Speaker 1: you got it all figured out, you realize that there's
Speaker 1: a hardware limitation. Yeah. But those those languages that you mentioned,
Speaker 1: for the most part are process are neutral. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean those uh, you know, Python, C, Pearl, those are
Speaker 1: they're all you know, cross platform. Um. And you might
Speaker 1: be saying, well, you know, you guys, that sounds pretty
Speaker 1: cool and all. But uh, you know, for the general public,
Speaker 1: why is that interesting? Well, for one thing, it gives
Speaker 1: more people a chance to try out computer programming inexpensively.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is something that if you've always wanted
Speaker 1: to do, this could be a cool way to get
Speaker 1: into uh uh to hacking and learning how to write
Speaker 1: your own software and how computers work. And this is
Speaker 1: this is an inexpensive way to get your your not
Speaker 1: your feet wet, you're you're you could dive into you
Speaker 1: could try programming. But um, but yeah, there there's also
Speaker 1: another audience that again the Raspberry Pie people are not
Speaker 1: discouraging at all, And those are the people who already
Speaker 1: know how to do this stuff but want to try
Speaker 1: and making something else out of this little computer. And
Speaker 1: one of the things I've already seen them do is
Speaker 1: messing with x MBC, which is a media center at
Speaker 1: an open source media center. Um and uh it's available again,
Speaker 1: this is cross platform you can build your own. Remember
Speaker 1: now is a podcast from a long time ago, building
Speaker 1: your own uh media media center. Um. But this and
Speaker 1: this operating system works for existing machines Lenox, Windows, mac
Speaker 1: os ten um works on all of them. But they've
Speaker 1: seen XNBC running on a Raspberry Pie. We've got a
Speaker 1: little bit more to say about the Raspberry Pie after
Speaker 1: these messages. So the question is what can makers do
Speaker 1: with this device. We talked about the Arduino and the
Speaker 1: micro controller board. This is another device like that, exactly
Speaker 1: in the way that you can I would say, this
Speaker 1: is this is two computers, is two circuits. Yes, so,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I've already heard about people who are interested
Speaker 1: in robotics using this as a component in in uh
Speaker 1: their next robot. I also saw a video online of
Speaker 1: a I who had created a essentially what what amounts
Speaker 1: to an Apple TV using this, where he could he
Speaker 1: could push video from an iPad to a television through
Speaker 1: the Raspberry pie Pie. So yeah, so, I mean they're
Speaker 1: the applications are numerous. So and and the nice thing
Speaker 1: is at twenty five or thirty five dollars a pop,
Speaker 1: it's a really affordable component. I mean, you're talking about
Speaker 1: hobbies that you know, hobbyists in these areas are sometimes
Speaker 1: accustomed to spending multiple hundreds of dollars on on projects.
Speaker 1: So when you suddenly have like the brains of your
Speaker 1: project is twenty five or thirty five dollars. That opens
Speaker 1: up a lot of opportunities. I mean, even if you
Speaker 1: went down to the computer store you said, I wanted
Speaker 1: to build a computer, use for my computer, to have
Speaker 1: a computer cheaper than now, And um, I believe they're
Speaker 1: also talking about a case. So if that that's putting
Speaker 1: you off, Yeah, there's no case right now, but that
Speaker 1: there are plans for that in the future. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it's uh, because that's that's one thing some folks have said, like, well,
Speaker 1: it looks a little cluji. It looks a little like,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got this hardware showing that to some
Speaker 1: people just seems a little weird, like it looks like
Speaker 1: you naked circuit board. Yeah, it looks like looks like
Speaker 1: someone went crazy and took a radio apart or something
Speaker 1: and now there's just the pieces sitting around. So there
Speaker 1: is talk about creating a case, although I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: gonna be plenty of people out there who are going
Speaker 1: to The folks that I think really this appeals to
Speaker 1: are the same ones who will go out and build
Speaker 1: their own cases. Who will you know, you'll end up
Speaker 1: seeing like some really crazy interesting variations on cases for
Speaker 1: the Raspberry Pie pie. Uh and I've already seen a
Speaker 1: Lego based case. Yeah, yeah, it makes perfect sense to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course you don't want to completely steal it off,
Speaker 1: because you've got to not only provide access to the ports,
Speaker 1: but also provide a little cooling, um, make sure little
Speaker 1: Eric can get to it. But um, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean for considering, it will take wired or wireless connections,
Speaker 1: and I'm including power in that. Um. You can do
Speaker 1: all kinds of things with this little device, um and
Speaker 1: possibly get a whole new generation of people interested in
Speaker 1: what it takes to uh to learn programming and learn
Speaker 1: what you can do with computers of all kinds. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I think this is an excellent opportunity and
Speaker 1: i'm a great idea. UM. And the nice thing is
Speaker 1: too that all the hackers will who are buying up
Speaker 1: the machines will also provide money for the charity side, um,
Speaker 1: who can then possibly distribute these two people who are
Speaker 1: just getting started who may not necessarily have the money
Speaker 1: to to get involved. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a really cool idea. And I all that I can
Speaker 1: predict already that I'm gonna pick one of these up
Speaker 1: as I can, because I mean for thirty five dollars,
Speaker 1: how can I not? And Uh, it would be just
Speaker 1: be cool to have something where I could, you know,
Speaker 1: have a device specifically where I'm learning to program, maybe
Speaker 1: do a couple of these hacks, uh and uh and
Speaker 1: just sort of experiment with it, you know, use it
Speaker 1: for what it was intended for, really, to to to
Speaker 1: learn about programming. And uh, frankly, I've I've while I
Speaker 1: know about programming, I've never really gotten into it on
Speaker 1: a deep level back when I was a kid. I
Speaker 1: started getting into it with basic but but you know,
Speaker 1: I never went far beyond the program that when you
Speaker 1: tell it to run, it prints out a picture of
Speaker 1: a cake or something, maybe a pie. But I was
Speaker 1: trying to avoid it because I think at this point
Speaker 1: of people have been counting up how many times we've
Speaker 1: said pie. They've got to be exhausted by now. Well,
Speaker 1: you know we'd have to stick with that because the
Speaker 1: cake is a lie. Yes, So this is this is
Speaker 1: seriously nifty, stuffy, um, and and these the things that
Speaker 1: you're learning are not just applicable to uh, this computer,
Speaker 1: but also to other computers and can start to other stuff.
Speaker 1: It's really good because it will give you the foundation
Speaker 1: the basics that you need to be able to to
Speaker 1: build more complex programs. And uh and once you get
Speaker 1: that that foot in the door, where you've got that understanding,
Speaker 1: then it's really all it's just up to you about
Speaker 1: how far you want to go. So yeah, I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to see how this develops and whether or not
Speaker 1: it ends up being a successful program. I certainly hope
Speaker 1: it is, because it's clear that that the people who
Speaker 1: are part of this foundation, their hearts are in the
Speaker 1: right place. And uh and again, you know, they recognize
Speaker 1: that creating an accessible machine is just part of the problem.
Speaker 1: You can't, you know, you can't just give people access
Speaker 1: to stuff and expect that to solve everything. But uh,
Speaker 1: it's a good first step. So hopefully maybe maybe in
Speaker 1: a generation or two, maybe maybe less, but maybe like
Speaker 1: in in ten years, when Cambridge is looking at the
Speaker 1: people the students that are are applying to study computers,
Speaker 1: they're going to find that, uh, they're much more um
Speaker 1: knowledgeable about the field than the folks who applied this year. No,
Speaker 1: no slight against anyone who's at Cambridge, by the way,
Speaker 1: I have I have nothing but respect for your comedy programs.
Speaker 1: But I mean that produced half of money python okay,
Speaker 1: but um yeah. And and another nice thing is since
Speaker 1: it is a charity organization, I feel comfortable giving out
Speaker 1: their address on the podcast, which is raspberry Pie with
Speaker 1: you know p I not the with an e um
Speaker 1: dot org Now dot com is also also belongs to them,
Speaker 1: but that's the store specifically. If you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about the device and the and the group that
Speaker 1: that is making it and all of that, go to
Speaker 1: the raspberry pie dot org site and they won't uh
Speaker 1: provide you with all the information you need there. And
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what kind of craze the
Speaker 1: hacks come out of all this, because you know, there
Speaker 1: are gonna be people out there who are going to
Speaker 1: apply this in ways that we just can't even conceive
Speaker 1: of at this moment. And uh, and those are going
Speaker 1: to be really awesome. It's gonna have an instant following,
Speaker 1: I think, just because it's so affordable and people are
Speaker 1: gonna want to mess with it, even people who are
Speaker 1: not necessarily uh you know, the people you would consider
Speaker 1: makers or hackers. Now I think they'll go you know,
Speaker 1: and I can afford that I'm gonna try it. I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed that classic episode. Like I said, I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about creating a main machine, a multi arcade
Speaker 1: machine emulator, and emulators are all about using hardware or
Speaker 1: software to replicate some other form of hardware or software.
Speaker 1: You are emulating it, so you're trying to replicate the effects,
Speaker 1: but you're not necessarily following in the exact same. You know,
Speaker 1: UM structure as the original piece of technology, and with
Speaker 1: main machine, you're talking about a device that is capable
Speaker 1: of playing arcade games on it. So the first thing
Speaker 1: you have to do is build a main machine. And
Speaker 1: the Raspberry Pie has proven to be a very popular
Speaker 1: choice for people who are in that hobby. UM right now,
Speaker 1: the Raspberry Pie four is the divisive choice, but we
Speaker 1: do expect to have the fifth version of Raspberry Pie
Speaker 1: released sometime this year, so I've been holding off a
Speaker 1: bit waiting for that before I kind of dip my
Speaker 1: toe in and try and do this just to kind
Speaker 1: of future proof it a little bit. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: whole idea is that you you get the machine, you
Speaker 1: program it, you get a a memory card reader, and
Speaker 1: you get a memory card that has what they're called
Speaker 1: images of games. On it. All of this can get
Speaker 1: a little tricky, like there are ways to go about
Speaker 1: this in a legal way, because, uh, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of folks out there who have images of these games,
Speaker 1: but they didn't actually have permission to do it, so
Speaker 1: it's gonna be tricky. I want to make sure I
Speaker 1: do this, you know, in an upright, straightforward way. I
Speaker 1: don't believe in just cases it may just be that
Speaker 1: it's abandoned game, where like the there are no entities
Speaker 1: that own the rights anymore for some of these games,
Speaker 1: and in those cases it gets a little you know,
Speaker 1: fuzzy about whether or not it's ethical to download an image.
Speaker 1: But that's pretty far off for me. I still have
Speaker 1: to actually get the device itself and then get all
Speaker 1: the other components together to make an arcade cabinet. Uh.
Speaker 1: This was just one of those projects that I think
Speaker 1: would be kind of neat to do, and I've looked
Speaker 1: at a lot of videos online about it. So that's
Speaker 1: why I thought it would be fun to go back
Speaker 1: to this classic episode and learn about the Raspberry Pie. Now. Granted,
Speaker 1: things have changed quite a bit since that original Raspberry Pie.
Speaker 1: There have been multiple versions that have come out since
Speaker 1: then with more advanced capabilities, but the purpose is still
Speaker 1: the same. It's a simplified computer device that allows for
Speaker 1: programming experience on a level that otherwise would probably be
Speaker 1: prohibitively expensive. So very interesting, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: use raspberry pies for all sorts of projects, not just
Speaker 1: you know, arcade machines, but there are people who use
Speaker 1: it in robotics and other interesting technological applications that really
Speaker 1: show an incredible sense of innovation. So I highly recommend
Speaker 1: you check into raspberry pies if you have any interest
Speaker 1: at all on that, even if you just want to
Speaker 1: see what people have done with it and what is
Speaker 1: possible with it. There's an entire community out there that
Speaker 1: is incredible, and I encourage you to check it out.
Speaker 1: If you have suggestions for topics we should cover on
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out to me.
Speaker 1: Best way to do that is on Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: for the show is text Stuff HSW and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again relea soon. Text Stuff is an I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.