I just ordered a Raspberry Pi 4, along with the rest of the stuff that I'll need to put it together. If you're not familiar with the Raspberry Pi computers, these are the ones that were originally selling for $25 and are about the size of a credit card. Of course, that was for the computer itself and didn't include any of the stuff to go with it, including the case. They have gone way up in price now, though. The newest model (4) costs $35. I bought the kit, so I paid just under $100, plus a small monitor for it. The kit that I bought comes with a case, but I can also just attach it to the back of the monitor if I want to. There's no hard drive. Everything is on an SD card. The kit comes with a card preloaded with Raspbian OS, LibreELEC OS, and an installer for a selection of alternative operating systems that are downloaded from the Internet and installed. LibreELEC is a Linux distribution. The SD card comes with some other open-source software, as well as a couple of programming language packages, web browser, and so on. It includes a lot of programming stuff, I know.
I'm getting a tiny monitor for it but the Raspberry 4 will accept up to two large monitors so, if I wanted to, I could get a regular-sized monitor and just attach the computer to the back of it.
You sound like my husband did whenever he got new electronics or another gun. The thread title made me think you just spelled 'pie' wrong and was enjoying a raspberry one.
Actually, I found out that when they first came out with the Raspberry Pi computers, they were charging $5 for them. They are not the most powerful computers in the world but you can do pretty much everything with them than you would with any other computer, probably short of intensive video gaming. The main idea for them was to encourage young people to learn about computers and computer programming since they're not exactly plug-and-play, and they come only with open-source software, much of it having to do with programming compilers, editors, and so on. I've used Linux before, although never as my main computer. I was pretty good at programming in BASIC before Microsoft came along and ruined everything with Windows. I was just starting to learn Visual Basic when I took a job at the college and got busy with real work, and never got back to it. I'm playing around with the idea of trying to learn Python, but maybe that's just because that's the category I'm working on now. I was thinking of writing a text adventure when I was working on that category.
WOW....amazing tech....i will admit i got lost pretty much after the word raspberry....inventing never stops. Very slow on the learning of tech stuff, about 10 years ago, i think i was still saying no to computers, shortly after that i invested in one, against what i used to say, i'm really enjoying it, i have Macs, probably always will, love having fun with the jigsaw puzzles, colouring, visiting the rest of the world, like the Macs, Applecare because they do the updates, and keep things clean and with Norton security i'm good to go, feel safe. I'm in total awe in people like yourself, Ken and others with the intelligence of this stuff. Hope some rubs off on me from all of you.....How many " Brownie Points " do i get for this one.....
This is the kit that I ordered. The biggest box is the keyboard, and I believe it's a smaller-than-usual keyboard. I know that a lot of people replace it with a larger one. I hope it gets here soon. I'm looking forward to putting it together and playing with it. I like this idea too.
Before I decided to buy the Raspberry Pi 4, I ordered a reconditioned Dell computer with Linux Ubuntu installed. I don't know how old it is but Dell has them on their site so it's not ancient or anything, although it is used. So I have that coming too. I ordered the Raspberry from one of the companies referred to on the Raspberry site. Although they are for sale at the same price from Amazon, it's a third-party sale and, while it was identified as a Raspberry Pi 4, the description referred to it as a Raspberry Pi 3B, so I didn't want to take a chance of buying an earlier model.
The monitor for my Raspberry Pi 4 should be here tomorrow and, although I don't have tracking on the computer itself, I expect it anytime now. It's a 7-inch screen, enough to get me started with it; then, depending on what I decide to do with it, I might hook it up to a larger monitor.
My monitor came the day before yesterday and the Rasberry Pi 4 kit came today. I'm not sure how long it will take me to get it going because, as I said earlier, it's not plug-and-play. The computer is even smaller than the mouse. The keyboard is the same size as the Mac keyboard so that will be nice. I haven't used a mouse in years but I can always get a trackpad for it if I want one. The monitor did not come with a case, which surprised me, although it shouldn't have. It's a touch-screen monitor, but it's only 7 inches. They make a 3.5-inch one that comes with a case that fits the monitor and computer so I might get that at some point, and then connect a second, larger (non-touch-screen) monitor to it so that I have something that I can actually see.
This reminds me that recently I was cleaning out a cabinet in the study filled with outdated software and about 4,000 power cords/supplies of indeterminate origin. I found a Dell "pocket PC!" OMG. I don't believe we ever used that thing.
The instruction book that comes with the Raspberry Pi 4 kit is very precise. Even so, two-thirds of it covers programming (Scratch, Python), as that is one of the things that people get Raspberry computers for, apparently. The Raspbian OS is a version of Linux made for the Raspberry, so I'll probably go with that one, although I can install pretty much any OS on it, including Windows 10, although I don't know why I'd want to do that. I already have a perfectly good computer with Windows 10 on it that I almost never use.
I decided to get a 3.5" touchscreen instead, the same size as the computer so that they can all be in one case. I can attach it to any other (non-touchscreen) monitor for regular viewing. However, it's not like buying a monitor at BestBuy and plugging it in. Here's my new monitor, which includes a computer case. It's not a good picture but I don't feel like laying it out again. No instructions, by the way.