Hi hi raspberry pi...

[fingertrouble]

I geeked out and ordered one of the new Raspberry Pi 2 computers. All of £27 with postage!

Planning to make it a NAS/media server and iPlayer download so I don't have to leave my laptop running or worry about VPN being switched to certain locations to get downloads as I do now...apparently Microsoft are going to make a free version of Win10 for it, but I will be running Raspian or Ubuntu most likely - a new version called Ubuntu Snappy Core is also supported.

Nice thing about the Raspberry is it's made in Bridgend in Wales, it's British, and given the shortages before, they made sure that 10,000 units were available at launch, and many more being made. Picking up a second hand LCD monitor tomorrow, which I need for other video devices generally and will replace my old CRT monitor which uses up FAR too much space...having a DVI-D capable monitor even an old one will help greatly in these HDMI/digital days (Although getting video from the Amiga might still be fun without a TV).

Unlike the Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator, which I ordered the drum machine one over a week ago, and now have been told it will be April before I get it. Britain 1, Sweden 0.

Comments

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I will have to grab myself on of the new quadpi things when they begin showing up on this side of the pond. I've mostly been monkeying around with a BeagleBone Black these days along with some noodling with Arduinos, I heed to put together a new SD card for my Pi, it got corrupted somehow. I got swept up in the BBB since and haven't gone back to fix my RPi. I wish I had a bit more time to muddle with the little boards these days, but even more, I wish I wasn't so foggy with the pain and the meds to fight it all in order to concentrate on the programming end of it. I've gotten attached to the BBB simply because I can carry it around and plug it into whatever PC I'm using at the moment with just the USB cable and be fully up and running, no outboard power supplies, monitors, etc. It's a tiny mainframe I can stick into my pocket.

You can easily find a composite video to VGA/DVI box to keep your Amiga in the mix! ;)

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

I have one of those, those little USB/5V powered boxes that go comoposite > VGA? Usually blue or black? Bit crap and very blurry...EDIT: one of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PC-Laptop-VGA-To-AV-RCA-S-Video-Composite-TV-Converter-Adapter-Signal-Switch-Box-/351088129050?pt=UK_Computing_Sound_Vision_Video_Cables_Adapters&hash=item51be7bb41a

I think for what I want to do - get_iplayer, DLNA server, NAS etc it's probably better that BBB - and cheaper! I will definitely need to use the video encode/decode capabilities.

Pretty sure the Pi can do that too - take 5V from computer, dial in from SSH etc? That's what I'm planning to do, VNC or Chrome Remote Desktop, but mostly be a server there for my music and video files. Only annoyance is the extra for MPEG-2 codec, but it's tiny amount and pretty sure I don't use anything MPEG-2 at all, it's all MP4/MKV/MP4 or MPEG-4 encoded AVI or MPEG-1 (MP3) now...MPEG2, how quaint!