4 ms·

As I said in a previous Raspberry Pi thread[0], the comparison is supposed to be with high / school school textbooks, not college ones. School textbooks are che

by qxb 15y ago

As I said in a previous Raspberry Pi thread[0], the comparison is supposed to be with high / school school textbooks, not college ones. School textbooks are cheaper than those used at university. Raspberry Pi is a charity "to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level" and the device is aimed, in part at least, for use in teaching programming to children.[1] $25 (roughly £15 at current rates) is a good rough price for a school textbook in the UK. A quick Amazon search shows this.[2] Bear in mind, too, that the product is aimed in part at developing countries, where school textbooks may be cheaper. [0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2949932 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2949932 [1] http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=2 http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=2 [2] http://www.amazon.co.uk/school-textbooks-Books/s?ie=UTF8&rh=n%3A266239%2Ck%3ASchool%20Textbooks&page=1 http://www.amazon.co.uk/school-textbooks-Books/s?ie=UTF8&#38...

jodrellblank 15y ago
Raspberry Pi is a charity "to promote the study of computer science [..] By some HN comment standards, if that were really true, they'd be selling a $25 version of TAOCP. (All these mentioned people who have access to school/family computers they can't play with because of the risk of breaking? They could use QEMU or VirtualBox and Linux right now).
- mmavnn 15y ago
  "(All these mentioned people who have access to school/family computers they can't play with because of the risk of breaking? They could use QEMU or VirtualBox and Linux right now)." Except that if you're the kind of person who doesn't have enough knowledge to set that up for your eight year old, are you really going to let them try and do it themselves? There's a big difference between "Hey mum! My new teacher gave me this massive manual: can I install a whole load of programs you never heard of on the family computer?" and "Hey mum! My new teacher gave me this instead of a textbook. Can I borrow the tv to do my homework?" It also skips the whole 3rd world scenario.

by qxb 15y ago

jodrellblank 15y ago

Raspberry Pi is a charity "to promote the study of computer science [..] By some HN comment standards, if that were really true, they'd be selling a $25 version of TAOCP. (All these mentioned people who have access to school/family computers they can't play with because of the risk of breaking? They could use QEMU or VirtualBox and Linux right now).

mmavnn 15y ago
"(All these mentioned people who have access to school/family computers they can't play with because of the risk of breaking? They could use QEMU or VirtualBox and Linux right now)." Except that if you're the kind of person who doesn't have enough knowledge to set that up for your eight year old, are you really going to let them try and do it themselves? There's a big difference between "Hey mum! My new teacher gave me this massive manual: can I install a whole load of programs you never heard of on the family computer?" and "Hey mum! My new teacher gave me this instead of a textbook. Can I borrow the tv to do my homework?" It also skips the whole 3rd world scenario.