Tuesday video grab bag
First up, here’s our friend Pete from RS talking about the Raspberry Pi’s potential in education. When he talks about Christmas, Pete is joking, so please don’t spam the comments in horror.
Meanwhile, in America, the guys at Adafruit have been busy making add-on boards (they’re calling them “plates”) for the Raspberry Pi. We think this is really exciting stuff. (Eben shouts from across the room: “It’s awesome!”, and I agree.)
Dave Honess has compiled Open Transport Tycoon for his Raspberry Pi, following the instructions at http://wiki.openttd.org/Compiling_on_Linux – he shares the results here. I now expect global productivity to take a slight dip while everybody with a Raspberry Pi drops what they’re doing to play Open TTD.
Dave says in an email:
Yeah, the binaries can be downloaded from here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14125489/openttdpi.zipI think Hexxeh’s version will be better when he’s finished it though – as he’s porting it to work outside of the X desktop and also to the the gpu acceleration. Mine is just a straight svn checkout and build with no code changes. So we should tell everyone to use his one when it’s done!
Thanks Dave! [Update, 1400h PST – Dave would also like me to draw your attention to a blog post he’s written on the subject, which contains some more instructions.]
36 comments
Colin Durrans
It’s ok Liz, he didn’t say which Christmas!
Andius
Given he talked about 250,000 on back order plus the ones needed to teach with, getting them made and have enought left for general sale before christmas is in my mind quite impressive.
With Element 14 that is a 400,000 back order, without thinking about educational ones.
Looks like fun times ahead, you do not like setting easy goals do you :D
Andreas Eriksson
I really like the idea of “plates”.
Jaseman
They remind me of stickle-bricks but also…. custard slices.
Rat256
raspberry pi and custard? I feel a new nomenclature coming on…
Liam Jones
The idea of adding simple modules to the Raspberry Pi to specialise it is a good idea. Once these things become easily available, i plan on automating certain things in my house.
Hans Harder
There is already something like this available now.
A GPIO breakout board which fits nicely over the GPIO pins and stays within the boundaries of the pi pcb and it is cheap.
I already ordered 2 of them
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/projects-and-collaboration-general/slice-of-pi-gpio-breakout-board
pictures :
http://openmicros.org/images/piparts.png
http://openmicros.org/images/pixrf1.png
Andreas Eriksson
Thanks for the tip.
AndrewS
There’s *much* more info about this kind of stuff on the wiki:
http://elinux.org/RPi_Expansion_Boards
http://elinux.org/RPi_Low-level_peripherals
http://elinux.org/RPi_Hardware
PeteW@DesignSpark
One of our Designspark members TonyD has designed a breakout board in our DesignSpark PCB tool you may be interested in, http://www.designspark.com/knowledge/raspberry-pi-prototype-board-files
Whoop John
Brambles and plates. I wonder how long before people get grafting?
Davespice
Re open transport tycoon. You need to supply some of the original data files from the retail game yourself. This is basically the game data/ folder with the GRF files.
I recommend turning off two detail settings to improve performance. These are Full Detail and Full Animation and they can be found under the Spanner Icon at the top when in game. I would also suggest to create a fairly small map, maybe 64×64 or 128×128.
plugwash
“Re open transport tycoon. You need to supply some of the original data files from the retail game yourself. This is basically the game data/ folder with the GRF files.”
You used to have to but that is no longer the case. Transport tycoon now has it’s own set of graphics though they are distributed seperately.
http://www.openttd.org/en/download-opengfx
“I would also suggest to create a fairly small map, maybe 64×64 or 128×128.”
Agreed, large openttd games can be very CPU intensive.
Davespice
FYI all. This build of OpenTTD has an annoying bug. When you want to destroy some track you’ve put down by mistake it costs several hundred million bucks. My mistake is that I built the trunk and not a release branch. I’ll do that asap and repost the binaries.
Davespice
Fix is now up.
Drew Fustini
I believe Limor and Phil from Adafruit will be out at Maker Faire Bay Area, too (and the Hardware Innovation Workshop), so hopefully y’all will meet.
Adam Baranek
Hexxeh is pretty hardcore.
Crenn
I still like the phrase I came up with on IRC yesterday, Pi Toppings!
Why? Because if you put a topping on sometime (like ice cream) you’re making it more awesome than it was without the topping.
Scott
I really hope someone comes up with an add-on board to connect multiple raspberry pi’s together.
PeteW@DesignSpark
At the London Raspberry Pi meetup last week, I spoke with someone who is working on Networking up Pi’s, so “watch this space on that one”!
@Storris
He doesn’t sound like he’s joking Liz. I would like mine before Xmas as my son’s birthday is on Friday and I’ve already wrapped the keyboard, mouse and cables! But should it come later than expected I guess we can make do with VirtualBox on my PC.
PeteW@DesignSpark
Thanks liz
Yes I was joking about Christmas!!!! We are frantically building Pi’s to fulfil the demand as quick as we can… as Santa would never have enough room in his sleigh for all the Pi’s we have to ship :0) @storris, fingers crossed you get yours soon. scott, at the London Raspberry Pi meetup last week, I spoke with someone who is working on Networking up Pi’s, so watch this space on that one! Hans Harder, One of our Designspark members TonyD has designed a breakout board in our DesignSpark PCB tool you may be interested in, http://www.designspark.com/knowledge/raspberry-pi-prototype-board-files
Pete
Dan
I am just loving all of these developments, it feels like an old school console launch.
wombat
One “PI Plate” i really want is a box with a screen and say 6 buttons and a couple of leds and lots of exposed IO pins.
If the box was big enough to house some other electronics including relays! (ie a min of say 8 by 6 by 2inches) all the better with a 6*4 or so screen.
But the BIG thing is the box, screen mounting and buttons should ideally be splash/air tight.
This boxes would fly off the shelves as making contollers, in fact they would be a custom electronics dream. What has put me off lots of existing screen shields is that are impossible to mount in a box do the complete unit is a non starter.
Liam
I do like the idea of the add-on boards being called “Plates”: I think “a Plate of Raspberry Pi’s” sounds quite good for describing a Pi with add-ons :)
roli
What I would like is some addon board that would enable me to connect a small LCD screen (4″ or 5″) for a low price. Or even a better idea – addon board that has a connector for the iPhone display – those ones are cheaply available around the internet and it would be nice to have something like that. Of course we still need to wait for the drivers that wil enable the DSI port :-( .
wombat
And a case for the board! with most display “shileds” of other pic systems it near impossible to mounth them in a case.
shane higgins
ahhh transport tycoon!!!! I loved that game
what a game, just a shame the AI is smarter in the open version lol
Tony
Love the plates, nice screw connectors, well thought out with surface mounts as well, I wonder if then Pi foundation might get them in bulk for UK or will we have to order from US?
Thanks as always to the Pi team
Stephen Downward
Hi! I am 11, and with the help of some friends, I am building a JwomBox gaming console that connects to a TV. My friends are helping me. One of my friends, Nathan, thought of the Jwom video game and asked me to program it. I am currently almost programming a mini-game. I was wondering if you could give me permissions to sell the JwomBox since it will have a raspberry pi in it?
Thanks ;)
Stephen
http://www.stephendownward.ca
Problemchild
Just got our design for our laser cut acrylic cases for the ‘Pi sorted out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rlYz2wI7hY
A poll to give us some kind of mad idea what people like :
http://shropshirelug.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/colour-your-pi/
Also shout up if any one wants the Prototype shields for the ‘Pi
http://shropshirelug.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/piduino-expansion-for-the-raspberrypi-8/
http://shropshirelug.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/mopi-a-prototype-board-for-raspberrypi/
Problemchild
BTW myself and a friend are going to the Derby Mini Makerfaire,
who else is going?????
Problemchild
Sorry Forgot …Derby Website
http://makerfairederby.wordpress.com/
Doh!
Gregor Korelc
Hey,
When can i expect an order for Slovenia? I really dont get any reply on mail with dates or anythign alse? :/ im in such delay with my project in school…now i will have to buy CottonCandy i guess instead of this RaspberryPI module? :((
problemchild
RS/Farnell were indicating that they were endevouring their orders to that date (a couple of weeks ago???) would be fulfilled by end of June. So I must assume you wouldnt expect delivery until July or latter unless you were luckey enough to get your order in earlier than this.
Chris Cutmore
As soon as I get hold of my Pi, I shall see if I can’t get ScummVM running on it!