Got a Raspberry PI 3

[BirdDog]

Bought the kit with pretty much everything other that mouse/keyboard. What a fun little computer in a small box. There is even a Ubuntu Mate image for it. Using it as an OSMC/Kodi media player for now. At least 4-5 OS variations for it. Hashtag Fun/Nerd. 

[BirdDog]

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@MarkJFine wrote:

@BirdDog wrote:

A very fun micro computer that is much more powerful than my first 8088 based computer. Things sure have advanced since then.

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Wait... more fun than one of these?

Yes, it's stowed safely under the equipment table. I just can't bear to part with it.

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Tech has advanced so much, hope it continues.

Wife did a cancer fundraiser back in '88 and cell phones looked like this. She pulled some major strings to even get them to use. Was much more expensive back then for the phones and airtime.

[GabeU]

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@BirdDog wrote:

Wife did a cancer fundraiser back in '88 and cell phones looked like this. She pulled some major strings to even get them to use. Was much more expensive back then for the phones and airtime.

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That's an understatement.  LOL.  

[BirdDog]

Is funny how as one gets older and the more they've seen, done and experienced, we start to pull away and enjoy the simpler things in life. Our dogs and gardening are giving us more pleasure these days. I still like tech and play with it but not like I used to.

This site is my only real tech oriented  online indulgence anymore. Hoping the younger tech folks have the same passion my sphere of nerds had back in our prime. Guess the difference is I was in the military with a bunch of electronics tech oriented folks back in my prime years. We fed on each other.

Really doesn't seem like tech is "in" right now, more about social status and posting the next viral thing on the Internet. Nothing about actual knowledge and advancement.

Did I just do an old man rant? Lol...yes I think I did!

Oh, the Raspberry PI is a cool thing BTW.  

[C0RR0SIVE]

Don't go having high hopes for this generation or the next...  While I know a LOT of people getting into software development, I feel most of them are doing it for the wrong reasons, and will, or are already making stupid decisions.  Decisions similar to how the software industry as a whole is moving.

That aside, more and more schools seem to be abandoning technical related classes.  The vocational school I went to totally got rid of all my favorite classes... PC Repair, Intro to Networking, Intro to Java, Intro to C, PCB Design Basics, Logic Theory.

It only took one guy to teach those classes over the course of a 2 year program.  I was in one of his last large classes, shortly after that it went from 20 or so students a year signing up to one, maybe two if he was lucky.  The state has even pulled funding from those programs and is redirecting it to AG classes...  

There's a major, and rapid shift between the two groups.  Usually you see such things change slowly over time, kind of how you saw yesterdays computer club slowly evolve into a major hobby.  Today anyone can easily build a PC, everything is pretty much the same, then they have Amazon returns which accepts their screw ups! -.-

[debbie.jean.bro]

Don't give up all hope. My son went to community college and took many of those classes. Then went to MIT. Now he's a programmer and he's a good kid. I work and go to school at Gonzaga University and there is a group of kids who are really interested in all this stuff. One young lady immigrated from Viet Nam and could probably build a supercomputer from an old box of spare parts. She's going into the military and we're lucky to have her! They may be few and far between, but they're out there.

[debbie.jean.bro]

Gabe, keep updating us on the Raspberry! This is the most interesting thread on here. Your story about the bar reminds me of when my now ex-husband and I were first married. We were both in college and dead broke. We'd go hang out at this pizza place because it had Space Invaders. We couldn't afford pizza, but we'd buy a pitcher of Coke (free refills!) and a roll of quarters and spend half the night playing. As we got better, we had to use fewer quarters! We got tips from this kid who couldn't have been more than about 9 but who was always there. Good times!!

[GabeU]

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@debbie.jean.bro wrote:
Gabe, keep updating us on the Raspberry! This is the most interesting thread on here. Your story about the bar reminds me of when my now ex-husband and I were first married. We were both in college and dead broke. We'd go hang out at this pizza place because it had Space Invaders. We couldn't afford pizza, but we'd buy a pitcher of Coke (free refills!) and a roll of quarters and spend half the night playing. As we got better, we had to use fewer quarters! We got tips from this kid who couldn't have been more than about 9 but who was always there. Good times!!

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I definitely will.  I haven't really done anything more with it this week, as it's been a busy week, but I did order a Pi Zero W on Tuesday.  I don't need it, but it was cheap and will probably be fun to fiddle around with.  

When I was a kid we got an Atari for Christmas one year (1980?), and the two games my folks got myself and my brother were Donkey Kong and Space Invaders.  The game Combat came with the system, but my brother and I would play Space Invaders for hours and hours.  I just now downloaded it and will add it to my game Roms on my Pi and give it a try when I next use it.  🙂  

[MarkJFine]

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@BirdDog wrote:

Is funny how as one gets older and the more they've seen, done and experienced, we start to pull away and enjoy the simpler things in life.

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I tried getting back into radio until my lawn service 'mowed' my antenna coax. Been meaning to fix it.

[GabeU]

Well, I got RetroPie set up and added a couple of Roms.  I noticed when setting up the game pad that it seemed to be jumping to the next or previous input option, but I though that maybe it was supposed to do this.  I started a game and noticed that, at about every six or eight seconds, my character would turn or move just a little bit. 

Well, it turns out that this particular game pad has been known to have ghost pressing issues with the D-pad.  That's the problem, and there's no way to fix it, so I have to look for another game pad to buy.   

Unfortunately, I went to Amazon to set up the return, but this is a non returnable item, as it's one of those "Fulfilled by Amazon" items, but sold by someone else through them, and this seller doesn't allow item returns.  With that said, I called Amazon, and they were nice enough to give me a refund, so that's good.  

For the time being I'm going to use my keyboard, but I'm looking at a cheap two pack of USB SNES controllers.  They're probably not the greatest, but what can you expect for $17?  LOL.  I just want to play Zelda and Final Fantasy IV (or II, as it was originally released in the US).  Plus, I'm looking at some old Arcade games like Donkey Kong and Galaga.  This should be fun!!!

I also found out that my wireless Logitech keyboard and mouse work with the Pi, so that's great.  The less cables laying around, the better.  I know that they work with Raspbian, as that's what I tried it with first, and I just wrote Ubuntu MATE to one of the new sd cards I bought, so I'll try them with that, too.  I expect that they'll work with the Ubuntu MATE, too.  🙂  The RetroPie?  I don't know.  I'll try it, though.  

[GabeU]

Well, I ended up getting an 8bitdo Bluetooth controller (SNES30) and it works perfectly.  No issues.  

I was playing Galaga tonight.  In my home.  On my couch.  I haven't played Galaga for nearly 30 years, and that was on an arcade machine at a local bar.  I wasn't old enough to drink, so it was a lot of quarters and a Coke.  LOL.  I loved that game.  It's a bit different with a controller like this, but it's still fun.  

Have about ten games now.  As I remember more I'll probably download them and add them.  

I'm seriously contemplating getting a Pi Zero W kit next week.  I don't need it, but it'd be fun.  Plus, I can take advantage of the few days left of my Amazon Prime trial before I cancel it (which I'm not sure I'm going to do).  I'm going to try RetroPie on that.  It'll be a little different as I will be forced to use it with my TV due to the Pi Zero W not having audio out other than through HDMI (until I get a Bluetooth headset), but it will be fun, nonetheless.  Conversely, I can use my Pi 3 B+ with my TV or my monitor and speakers/headset.   

[BirdDog]

Sounds like you're having fun and turning into a real Pi head.  

[GabeU]

@BirdDog

I'm on my way, that's for sure.  I joined the main Raspberry Pi and RetroPie groups on Facebook, too.  😛  

[debbie.jean.bro]

I so agree! I used to be an early adopter. Nowadays I'm more or less a Luddite, lol, with a landline and no cellphone service. I honestly can't remember the last time my TV was on.

[debbie.jean.bro]

BirdDog, I remember those "mobile" phones! Wouldn't even fit in my purse! I used to carry it around, probably looked like an idiot, haha! Now I live in a rural area with no cellphone service. Reminds me of the first VCR we bought, $400! And my first microwave, which weighed approximately three tons, took up half my kitchen counter space, and was also around $400. I think the last microwave I bought was $35 at Target, lol! I also remember the first color TV my parents bought--it was like magic!! I specifically recall watching a STOS episode in color and thought, between the color and the "special effects," it was amazing, haha!! The next time I was that blown away was some years later, when I was 17, and Star Wars came out.

[MarkJFine]

@debbie.jean.bro

If you were 17 when Star Wars came out, we're roughly the same age.

I will openly admit I was more into Close Encounters at the time, if you remember the debate.

Of course, I've come to my senses in the past 40-odd years.

[GabeU]

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@MarkJFine wrote:

@debbie.jean.bro

If you were 17 when Star Wars came out, we're roughly the same age. 

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I was a month shy of 5.  😛 

[GabeU]

Well, I got the Pi Zero W today.  It's so tiny and cute!  LOL.  And I thought the Pi 3 B+ was small.  This thing is barely half the size.    

I'm going to "play" with it this weekend.  🙂  🙂  🙂  

These things are darn near addictive.  The other day I had to take my cat to the vet and I felt terrible.  Instead of getting the sleep I should have gotten the night before I was up playing video games.  😛 

I keep thinking about, one of these day, learning how to program with Python.  I guess that's the go to programming thing with these.  I don't know of what advantage learning to program with Python would be, but it might just be fun to learn how to do so.  

[MarkJFine]

I've not messed much with Python, but it's much like Perl and PHP in that they all have a C-like syntax to them (aside from all starting with 'P'). Python is probably more disciplined than the others, due to how it can use specifically installed libraries/packages to expand how it's used.

Personally, I prefer doing quick and dirty scripting in PHP. It, like Java, can be confusing if the correct base version isn't used you end up with a lot of depricated stuff that used to work well, but no longer does. I've done things in Python and Perl, but mostly modifying things that already existed.

I have written several PHP scripts for years. Years ago I wrote a script that interfaced with the VOA's frequency database in Oracle for a portable frequency management system I was writing in Borland Delphi (Pascal-based). Also have something that displays whether posts were correctly scheduled in WordPress (it's actually a very small WP plug-in). Also have a script that takes the web site's RSS feed, embeds the titles of the last ten articles on an image (like a magazine cover), and then Tweets it to the website account - cron'd to occur three times a day. I even use a PHP script that runs as part of an Excel macro (via a shell) to generate a weekly Injury League table that gets posted.

So you can see it's pretty versatile. Not sure why I turned this into a sales pitch for PHP, but there you are.

[GabeU]

Well, for the Pi Zero W I set up Raspbian from NOOBS on the microSD card it came with and used the microSD that came with my original Pi 3 B+ to install RetroPie.

When setting up Raspbian on the Pi Zero W I immediately noticed how much slower it is than the 3 B+, and when it finished installing it took a lot longer to personalize it.  It's funny, but even moving the mouse pointer causes the CPU usage to jump up into the 30% range.  But, it's a $10 computer, so what can you expect?  LOL.  

As for RetroPie, it set up just fine and I was able install the Roms I wanted more easily than I did with the 3 B+, as I did transferred them via WiFi this time.  So much easier.  I didn't actually play any of the games yet, but I did start Final Fantasy III, and I noticed right off the bat that the resolution was automatically lowered.  I guess RetroPie is recognizing how much "weaker" the Zero is and adjusted the resolution so the games would still be playable.  Again, I haven't actually tried playing them.  I'll try a couple over the weekend.  And I've got to get a different mini HDMI to HMDI adpater, as the one that came with the kit is "touchy".  It would be fine if the thing never moves, but if there is any movement at all, like even the cat walking by and brushing up against the HDMI cable, it might twitch out.  I've already chosen the new adapter I'm getting, but I'm waiting until Prime day as there is a two pack of cheap SNES type controllers I'm going to get, too, as having to re-pair the Bluetooth controller each time I switch to the other Pi is going to be a pain and I don't really feel like buying another Bluetooth controller (unless it has a REALLY good price on Prime day).   

So, the Pi Zero W is definitely slower than the Pi 3 B+, which I already knew would be the case, but it's very noticeably slower.  But, again, for $10, what can you expect?  It's still pretty darn neat.  🙂  

[MarkJFine]

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@BirdDog wrote:

including Ubuntu MATE.

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MATE would be perfect for it. Extrememly lightweight and efficient. And, very very retro.

[GabeU]

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@BirdDog wrote:

Have fun @GabeU, I've been using mine as a media player with OSMC/Kodi installed, works great. Lots of OS's and packages for it including Ubuntu MATE.

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With this particular setup I'm going to play around with the stock OS for a while, just to get used to it, but I'm also going to set up a gaming machine, though not as fancy as Corrosive's.  For the time being I'm just going to get a second micro sd card for the gaming OS, then later get a more bare bones kit (minus the things I already have/don't need) to use for the gaming machine (using the already set up, second micro sd card).  

I'm really itching to spark it up, but I want to do it when I have a bit more free time, and that's not until tomorrow afternoon.  

And I do like Linux Mint in MATE, so maybe Ubuntu MATE would be something I'd like, too.  There's definitely a lot to choose from.  🙂