22 ms·
The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store
- tsumnia 8y agoBecause this headline demands a cynical response - this isn't cooler than Apple, its cooler than RadioShack. Also, why the couch? Unless there are some coding camps at the location, I can't imagine someone (even a parent) coming in and needing to sit down. Maybe an experienced sales associate that maps out the types of activities that can be done, but I doubt that as well.
- arkitaip 8y agoI think it's cooler for people who actually create and hack hardware. There's a level of play and tinkering that you probably never ever experience in an apple store.
- abhishekjha 8y agoThe problem is core CS subjects don’t train you enough to do that. You would have to learn that from somebody who already is an expert and that maybe a little out of reach for a lot of people. I have been wanting to hack hardware but I haven’t had any guidance yet about what/how to proceed and debug. Looks like abstractions have gotten complicated enough for somebody to necessarily ignore how it works under the hood lest modifying the behaviour.
- gambiting 8y agoWhy would a CS course teach you any of this? You want an EE degree to learn this, not CS
- collyw 8y agoCS must teach at least some hardware, no?
- crumpets 8y agoNot really. Hardware and machines that actually run algorithms are just an implementation detail. :)
- zimpenfish 8y agoAnecdata: Mine did (CS, Manchester, 92-95). First year a certain amount of hardware was mandatory, second and onwards was optional (and I opted out.) (Many people opted in because it gave you a chance to be lectured by Steve Furber and later work with him on 3rd year projects, IIRC.)
- C1sc0cat 8y agoAlso for years only Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UMIST where considered the truly good CS degrees.
- TickleSteve 8y agoManchester Uni CS certainly was partially hardware-based up until '97 or so. Was doing CS, but plenty of hardware topics were available, such as creating your own processor on an FPGA, etc. How can you possibly write good software without an appreciation of hardware??
- jki275 8y agoCertainly did in my program. Computer Org & Design has been a canonical part of CS for a long time.
- SiVal 8y agoThere are exceptions, but neither really teaches these things in most universities. My EE classes were about the skills needed to design a RasPi, not use one, which was "electronics technician stuff", not "serious electrical engineering". And CS is about lofty concepts of algorithms and type theory, where mere "programming" is a dirty business that sometimes can't be avoided. Hardware in CS? Oh, dear.... (Clutching my pearls, heading for my swooning couch.) Using a RasPi is in that middle ground of intellectual disrepute where hobbyists teach each other and have lots of fun. It's what you do after school.
- bunnycorn 8y agoDoubt. Do they have a LM7812? And a LM117Z for a fan? Do they have a NTC 100K with a beta of 3950? I'll also need a 40x40x20 fan at 24V, 3 pin. Plus some DIN562 M3 nuts, but it needs to be stainless steel. And I expect no to pay more than $10 for all of that. Not cool.
- nicky0 8y agoCall me crazy but sometimes it's nice to sit down.
- hinkley 8y agoYou’ve never gone clothes shopping with your SO? Remember the chairs by the changing room? These are the changing room chairs for the other half.
- clintonb 8y agoI've always found this situation weird. When my wife and I go shopping, we don't really do it together. I go to my stores. She goes to hers. No need for chairs. I can certainly understand why someone might shop with an SO, but it's never been a requirement for us.
- benj111 8y agoHow does that work? You go into the shop, see shirt, check size, buy it, bam, done. Spend 30 minutes ogling PCs, Cars, Bikes, (pick your poison), before going to to find your partner who is still in the first shop with 50 rejected tops outside the changing room. So you find a seat..... (This is a therapy session right?)
- collyw 8y agoWhen I rarely go clothes shopping it does seem to be pretty normal for couples to shop together.
- C1sc0cat 8y agoIts also why the mothership Games Workshop in Nottingham has such a nice café/bar. They also did a nice GW branded bitter
- gholling 8y agoThat's one of their uses... I had a chat with a couple of people sat down and they were just waiting for their SOs to finish browsing. So I gave them a MagPi and Hackspace magazine to read while waiting. I noticed that they bought the Hackspace! :)
- jayd16 8y agoIt does have a "Steve Jobs designs RadioShack" vibe to it.
- laumars 8y ago> this isn't cooler than Apple, its cooler than RadioShack. Arguably it could be cooler than both. You’re making an arbitrary distinction where one isn’t needed. Plus we never even had RadioShack in the UK (maybe Maplins might have been more apt? But I think the Apple comparison serves the authors point quite fine). > Also, why the couch? Plenty of shops in the UK have seating. It isn’t that weird at all. > Because this headline demands a cynical response No, it really doesn’t. You just chose to be negative for your own personal reasons.
- benj111 8y ago"we never even had RadioShack in the UK" We did kind of. Tandy was basically RadioShack, they even sold RadioShack branded products. I would like to say that it rebranded as RadioShack towards the end, but I cant find any evidence of that. So that's probably just my failing memory.
- stan_rogers 8y agoTandy and Radio Shack are the same company. On this side of the pond, Tandy was the brand for a leatherworking hobby shop run by the company, while Radio Shack was electronics; you'd usually find a Radio Shack and a Tandy store next door to each other in the sixties and seventies.
- jki275 8y agoAnd into the 80s! I remember them. I miss Radio Shack -- not the cell phone store they became, but what they were in the 80s.
- dpwm 8y ago> I would like to say that it rebranded as RadioShack towards the end, but I cant find any evidence of that. So that's probably just my failing memory. Many of them became Carphone Warehouse circa 2000 [0]. By 2001 the brand had been killed off. My last memory of Tandy was buying a RadioShack 14in TV. It didn't disappoint: it came with the schematic. But, I definitely remember seeing a shop with RadioShack written on it in Boston, Lincolnshire around 2004 – and that was a town that I don't think ever had a Tandy. I never checked it out as my component needs were satisfied by an independent electronics shop in Lincoln. I'm speculating that, after Tandy went, independent distributors of RadioShack products sprung up. There does appear to be a shop in Lancashire using the RadioShack logo.[1] Though unless they've got incredible warehousing, they can't sell much RadioShack stuff any more. [0] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/03/tandy_is_dead_long_live/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/03/tandy_is_dead_long_... [1] https://www.yell.com/biz/radio-shack-lytham-st-annes-2879625/# https://www.yell.com/biz/radio-shack-lytham-st-annes-2879625...
- darkpuma 8y ago> " its cooler than RadioShack." Such a headline would probably be misinterpreted as criticism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise
- Tor3 8y ago> Also, why the couch? I love shops with couches or comfy chairs. And every shopping mall should have them, spread around. If I can't sit down now and then I don't stay there for very long - I need to get out of there. Another poster mentioned that he never shopped together with his SO - he goes to his shops, she goes to her shops. That's fine when you're in your own town. That doesn't work so well when you're visitors to an unfamiliar city. And I hope to go to Cambridge reasonably soon. With my wife.
- jplayer01 8y ago> why the couch Are you American? Do your stores not have seating?
- Tijdreiziger 8y agoI'm not OP but I'm Dutch, our stores don't have seating.
- LeoPanthera 8y agoI wonder if they will sell you more than one Raspberry Pi Zero? The Zero is advertised as being $5, and it makes me angry every time, because it's not possible to buy it at that price. Every Pi retailer either has a one-per-customer limit, and charges shipping, or, charges up to $15(!) per Zero if you buy more than one. So it's essentially a $15 device being advertised as $5. I shouldn't be so annoyed about it, but I can think of so many cool uses for multiple Zeros, and I just can't get them.
- collyw 8y agoIt hardly unique in that sense. Flights to Europe 1 Euro (plus airport tax, and booking fees and cabin baggage). Restaurant prices in the States where you are expected to add on 15% tip. Prices advertised before tax. I guess you would need some sort of regulation to real prices up front.
- Symbiote 8y agoShipping isn't free, I don't see how it's wrong to exclude that from the $5.
- kortilla 8y agoBut it should go down per device significantly when shipping multiple. A one per customer policy and charging for shipping is usually a sneaky way to make money on the shipping.
- dietr1ch 8y agoShipping 10 together is not even nearly as expensive as shipping one 10 times. Free shipping and constant per item shipping costs are a lie that ends up with higher costs.
- steve19 8y agoNobody is selling to for $5. Adafruit sells it for $10 excluding shipping, ebay sellers have it listed for about $15/10 GBP with free shipping. The price really is a lie for consumers. Maybe $5 refers to the price they sell to distributors, who need to mark it up.
- pininja 8y agoThis is awesome! I remember when these first came out and meeting Eben and Liz at the Bay Area Makerfaire. Fun folks! They’ve started something really special.
- ytninja 8y agowhat do they sell?? actually I'm fed up with apple
- Arn_Thor 8y agoHeadlines that include the word "Apple" for no reason are much cooler than headlines that don't
- erikpukinskis 8y agoIs there another computer hardware store you think would be a better comparison?
- jaabe 8y agoI think the point might be that you don’t need to trash something else just to say the Pi store is cool. I personally think the comparison is silly. Because you get to play around in the Pi store I think it’s much more similar to a games-workshop or board game store than an Apple store. Even if the aesthetics are similar to the latter.
- darkpuma 8y agoMicrosoft has stores now too, don't they? But the apple store comparison is probably more appropriate.
- setr 8y agoThey failed to even make the comparison beyond the headline, and oddly, don’t really say anything about how the raspberry store is cool... just that it (might) make sense, contrary to popular intuition
- User23 8y agoAs far as I know since the demise of Radio Shack, Fry's is the only hardware enthusiast shop with a real retail presence.
- patrickg_zill 8y agoAlso Microcenter
- Arn_Thor 8y ago
- kristianc 8y agoCambridge native here - the store is super cool. The look and feel is very Apple store so that probably is the fairest comparison - but they’ve managed to retain the good bits without it feeling like the chaotic jumble sale that Apple Store’s have become. Dotted around the store are live demo machines showing Python code running on Pis powering sensors etc, and tutorials showing you how to run it etc. Was really interesting and heartening to see the number of young 11/12yos in there, boys and girls, either experimenting with the Pis or playing Minecraft etc.
- opless 8y agoDitto here. It's an almost worthy successor to Maplin/RadioShack. Much pleased.
- klmr 8y agoThe comparison to the Apple Store (just downstairs from the Pi store …) is both apt and misleading: Apple Stores are all shiny but in essence it’s a sales room. the Pi store, by contrast, has the potential of becoming a place to geek out, to learn something new¹, and to mingle. Let’s see whether this will actually happen. As somebody else said, with luck it might become a modern version of Maplin/RadioShack. ¹ I’m aware that Apple Stores also offer courses but as far as I understand these are more along the lines of “Here’s how to send emails” rather than “You’ll learn something cool about computers”. Both have their place, but they’re quite different in spirit.
- donarb 8y agoThe Apple Store has classes for kids that teach them to program robots such as the Sphero. With Swift Playgrounds for the iPad, kids can program Raspberry Pi as well.
- zwayhowder 8y agoTake a walk through Akihabara or DenDen Town in Tokyo/Osaka respectively and you'll find many stores that used to trade in 10 year old computers are now full of ARM based systems and paraphernalia. It was great to get a couple of new cases that I could touch before handing over my money.
- po 8y agoYeah I was surprised to find that on my most recent walk through as well. It seems like there are a lot more of both e-Sports and ARM-related stores now. It's a fairly recent thing. Wasn't that way even 2 years back. I still feel like the prices on the Raspberry pi stuff was high but it's because it's imported I guess.
- tzhenghao 8y agoThis is super awesome. Does anybody know if they have an analogous program like Today at Apple but for kids to actually experiment with code? Would be nice to have volunteers though. Just a thought.
- benj111 8y agoI would hope that would be their main thing. Not sure they could justify just a shop. Ps I hadn't come across today at Apple before, so checked the website. There were only 2 beards there, both well trimmed, and no plaid. Apple has called peak hipster!
- kbumsik 8y agoLook at the messy cables between the monitors. This is how DIY/hacker shop is meant to be.
- comex 8y agoSeems like comparing apples and... uh, raspberries.
- lacer 8y agoWhy can't fruit be compared?
- hrnnnnnn 8y agoThey can be, at least in the case of apples and oranges, and they are "remarkably similar" [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1120087/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1120087/
- tobyhinloopen 8y agohttps://youtu.be/NWWeQlXfSa0?t=520 https://youtu.be/NWWeQlXfSa0?t=520 ( 8:40 ) "Bitch that phrase don't make no sense why can't fruit be compared!?"
- mishurov 8y agoBy definition. Because it's tech for people, not for consumerist monkeys.
- owaty 8y agoHow are they going to afford the rent and salaries? Besides being very niche, their margins must be very low.
- gambiting 8y agoIsn't the whole raspberry pi company set up as a foundation/charity? They probably take a loss on the store to promote the idea.
- michaelt 8y agoRight, but resources they spend running a loss-making store are resources they don't get to spend on other opportunities that might better advance their foundation's goal. Staffing a shop with skilled EEs could get expensive fast.
- kingosticks 8y agoI don't mean any disrespect to anyone but I don't think they need to staff the store with "skilled EEs" to make the store a success.
- klmr 8y agoThey’re almost certainly not expecting for the store itself to be profitable. Rather, the store is a billboard for the company (the same is actually very much true for Apple Stores; except those are probably crazily profitable in addition). In a way, the store’s main purpose is to take the product out of the niche. Let’s hope it works.
- thedrbrian 8y agoWebsites that don’t waste half of the screen are much cooler than those that do http://imgur.com/b30LwxV http://imgur.com/b30LwxV
- setquk 8y agoI bet that’s shut before May. I genuinely think it’s a great idea but retail is dying on its arse here and that is way too niche.
- leadingthenet 8y agoI doubt they expect to make a profit.
- abrugsch 8y agoFully agree. This is less about the act of trying to sell more pi and make enough profit to run the store but to have a branded edu-zone promoting the scene. And Cambridge is pretty much the only place in the UK where this will work. I don't see them opening any others around the country. well maybe ONE other, possibly in the north (Manchester/Liverpool way) or Edinburgh maybe
- onion-soup 8y agoUpbeat ukulele music still in 2019? Really?
- Tsiklon 8y agoAtmospheric Black Metal apparently isn't whimsical enough to achieve mass market appeal. Jokes aside, in my opinion, this sort of music while twee and forgettable is appealing enough to not leave a bad taste in the mouth about the whole advert. Especially when the subject matter has to be seen as approachable to a wide audience of people across age boundaries.
- C1sc0cat 8y agoUkes have replaced recorders in a lot of uk schools music classes so might be targeting their demographic
- ekianjo 8y agoSo this is an article about a store, just based on the official video? Looks like the author did not even go there.
- coldtea 8y agoWith the news outlet margins (and pay) these days I'm surprised they could afford the connection subscription to stream the video...
- onhn 8y agoSlightly disappointed its not called the Raspberry Pi shop.
- keypusher 8y agoWould be really cool if they set some time aside for workshops, demos, or other interactive use of the space aside from just selling stuff. Without some serious guidance and help, many Pis just turn into an unusual way to play Minecraft.
- djsumdog 8y agoI wonder if they sell any water poof cases. I've had a hard time finding a case that can fit a Pi + battery and yet has grommet holes for wiring (so I can connect outdoor sensors). Most of what I've found are hacked together things or people drill into expensive pelican cases and then epoxy all the cables with a resin.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- 83 8y agoIf you aren't opposed to using your own enclosure search the term 'cable gland'. I keep a variety on hand and they work well, if a little chunky. Just be mindful of the sensor end of the wire, capillary action via the insulation can be a problem.
- t0astbread 8y agoNow that's where I'd throw my money out
- peter303 8y agoFewer do-it-yourself options with the demise of Radio Shack. In my town MictoCenter fills the gap with Raspberry Pi kits, Arduino and components.
- INTPenis 8y agoI have three pi zero cameras and one regular pi camera at home for watching my dog when I'm away.
- madengr 8y agoBarf; a clone of an Apple store. Thankfully I’m old enough to remember real electronics surplus stores. Mazes of electronics piled high, with interesting people working the counter.
- sangd 8y agoI have had 4 different RPi boards in the past including the latest and the pi zero, and every single of them failed to work reliably. The hardware design and quality are poor. One of my board had soldering issue, another has power supply issue, another has SD card reader issue. You would run into lots of tough ones. Software eco is mostly for playing around. There're lots of frustration around but no good answers. I like the idea, I like its motivation, but they need to focus on the core values and make it work well. I up-voted because I still think that it has good values for kids.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- elagost 8y agoCurious what you mean by "Software eco is mostly for playing around". They run full Debian, and despite the limited I/O throughput, there are a number of relatively high profile projects that are widely used. Most people I know with one run pi-hole, openvpn, a cacti system, etc. I personally run Syncthing, pi-hole, openvpn, and an internal webserver that hosts movies/tv from an attached drive. It's pretty decent as a NAS too. You can apt-get install and/or compile whatever you want on them. I've also used one to coreboot my laptop with the GPIO output.
- thinkmassive 8y agoHow do you know the problem is the boards? Many people have had issues with SD cards and power supplies, but I don’t recall ever hearing of a bad RPi before.
- jsight 8y agoI'm surprised to hear of so many issues. Like the other commenter, I have used a couple of them for everything from home automation and network storage, to an openwrt router. I worry a bit about the SD cards (especially with the zero, which is really being overworked), but overall I haven't really had any issues.
- classic959 8y ago
- Noxmiles 8y agoI really hope, that they spread this store into other countries. Also, RPi (coding) events or RPi exhibitions in this store would be an perfect way to promote it.
- snvzz 8y agoI lost faith on Raspberry Pi when they went anti-consumer by implementing some DRM bullshit[0] using their firmware blob together with a dedicated crypto chip in their camera accessory to prevent third party cameras from working. Nevermind the extracted key that's circulating through the net: The crypto chip is itself not cheap and totally unnecessary if not for the DRM. So, until they backtrack and apologize for their disgusting anti-consumer behavior, there's no way I will buy or endorse their products in any way. There's plenty of highly competitive alternatives[1] and absolutely no need to buy from these crooks. [0]: https://np.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/7npv6a/20_raspberry_pi_alternative_runs_android_and/ds3z7m7/ https://np.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/7npv6a/20_raspberry... [1]: https://www.hackerboards.com/ https://www.hackerboards.com/
- nexuist 8y ago....Can't you just use a USB camera? https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/webcams/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/webcams/
- jwr 8y agoI have done some hardware design work with the RPi Compute Module and two CSI cameras. There is indeed an authentication chip on the cameras you buy from the RPi foundation. From what I understand, the idea here is to limit the drivers, so that the auto-tuning software (adjusting color balance, brightness, etc) only works with the original camera, not with clones. There is nothing that prevents you from connecting other CSI cameras (there are plenty available), or writing other drivers. It's just that the auto-tuning functions of the original drivers will only be enabled for original cameras. The driver authenticates the camera(s) at startup, and if they are not the original ones, disables the auto-tuning. The Foundation says it is a way of securing a revenue stream and recovering some of the cost of R&D work that went into the drivers. I can see how that is a compromise that could be chosen. Personally, while I am not a fan of locked-down solutions, I find it hard to get as outraged at this as some other people apparently are.
- snvzz 8y ago>From what I understand, the idea here is to limit the drivers, so that the auto-tuning software (adjusting color balance, brightness, etc) only works with the original camera, not with clones. That's not nice, or is it now?
- nakedrobot2 8y agoI guess there a lot of stores in the world that are cooler than an Apple Store :) but OK, good headline writing.
- tombert 8y agoSince the goal of this might be hacking in general, do you think it's possible that they'd sell something like an ODroid in one of these stores? Most of my hacking in ARM land has been with an ODroid for the last couple years just due to the amount of power you get from them.