RE: [ukha_d] Raspberry Pi - £15 computer

["Alex Monaghan" <ha@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim, I spent hours as a youngster in my bedroom learning Z80 machine
code,
I'd already learned an early dialect of BASIC from my Dad's Open University
course material, so quickly outgrew my ZX81 meaning it was use Z80 or no
computer! There days there's just none of the excitement of learning about
registers or manipulation of numbers by flipping bits and such like.

I did try to convince my kids of the benefits of learning about the PIC
processor, but the "joys" of Facebook and the Xbox seem to be
more
interesting to the current generation than assembler and binary maths.

My real concern is that there's no low level understanding of technology
being taught, yet they insist on telling the kids that they are being
taugh=
t
about computing. Our kids believed that Excel was a database tool as they'd
been taught this at school. Unfortunately people come out of education
believing that they can run their business on Excel, the hours I've seen
spent on complex Excel systems because the employees don't know any better.
The correct answer to the helpdesk question of "how do I get more than
65K
rows in Excel" is not to use multiple pages, it is build a proper
database
based system that can be supported when you leave the department!

The most extreme case I've come across was a helpdesk admin team who used a
custom written set of Crystal Reports to extract data from our helpdesk
database to Excel, then spent hours importing data into different
spreadsheets each day to then run this into Access to run other processing
that was too complex for Excel, then export back to Excel. When I analysed
the process, the data could have been reduced to a few SQL views and a
couple of select statements, I even offered to set up a scheduled job to
export the data over night and email the management reports so the data was
on the management desk when they arrived for work, however, as this would
have done away with about 3 team members, they remained manually cranking
data!

On the other end of the spectrum, I've worked with some electronic
engineer=
s
who would take their PC's to bits and do board level repair rather than
calling the IT dept, try explaining that to the Compaq repair man on a
warranty call-out :)

Alex

-----Original Message-----
From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Jim Franklin
Sent: 19 May 2011 00:12
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Raspberry Pi - =A315 computer

Alex,=20

I had to read your post to the board a couple of times then, to make sure
that I hadn=92t actually posted it myself!!

=20

That sounds very much like me of the late 70=92s early 80=92s.=20=20

=20

And these days I am currently working with IT =93technical=94 people who
do=
n=92t
know how to configure a serial port in windows, let alone actually know
wha=
t
it does and heaven forbid I ask what goes on inside the PCs,

The good thing about it is that I have an almost unlimited supply of
=93dea=
d=94
systems that they =93throw-away=94 because the =93system is dead=94

=20

(I missed a full sized skip full of complete PCs (minus the hard disks that
were sent for secure destruction) that were scrapped due to
=93miscellaneou=
s
faults=94 whilst I was on holiday though).

=20

Jim

=20

_____=20=20

From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Alex Monaghan
Sent: 16 May 2011 21:58
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Raspberry Pi - =A315 computer

=20

=20=20

Glad it's not me, I found the school teachers seemed to have no idea what
was under the lid of a computer, even A level didn't seem to have any
programming content.

Good to know there were others programming the cassette port of their ZX81,
I had mine able to recognise different sounds and do actions dependant of
the frequency! I initially worked in assembler converting to hex, but then
found myself actually coding directly in hex direct into a hex loader
missing out the assembler stage completely. The joys of looking up the Z80
references to find the number of clock cycles to decide what instruction to
use for optimum performance :-)

This does look an interesting little gizmo though, lots of potential HA use
for a little device like this!





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