STICKY: Introduce yourself!

[Thib]

Hi!

I'm Thibaud, from Belgium!

I study economics and I've a lot of interest in informatics

I'm interrested by the Raspberry Pi to make an home NAS with a lot of features to take the place of my SnakeOS NAS ( a bit the same gadget: arm box with debian but poor perfs…)

I guess it will be my first goal but after I wanna play with it and try to install a multimedia box and other stuff

As english isn't my first language, I've made a simple board about the RPi in french with some news and a forum where i hope, i could help the non english speakers to make work their RPi as they want… It's on http://raspberrypi-fr.com/

I don't know if it's a problem or if an official french website is planned, if so, just send me a pm

Have a good day!

Thib

[adlambert]

Low cost computer for kids? What about us oldies?

Well, I still am a kid in many ways. I was involved in the first micro explosion in the UK around 1980, cutting teeth on Sinclair kit and setting me on the road to a long career.

The Raspberry PI seems like an opportunity to get some of that fun back and work again with a computer, instead of a user interface. Sure, I've built microcontroller boards, but you can't beat a big productive community interacting.

I only hope I have enough time in my life to sit down with the new PI when it finally arrives.

[leds]

Hi

my name is Fernando Almeida im from Lisbon, Portugal and i dont work on anything related to computers or whatever.

But the concept of RPi made me register and with some luck i will be able to buy one so i can play with it.

While i wait i entertain myself reading the forum, even though on like 70% i have no idea of what people are talking about.

will eventually learn something

sorry for the bad english

[Flyingdreamz]

Hi, my name is Dakoda and I am from the US, I am 17 and been in to technology in general for as long as I can remember. My dad was a computer tech. since punch cards and Disk packs I grew up around odd ends and parts. I taught my self how to solder at 10, I build a aviation band radio, and that started the seed for a few things, at 11 I started flying and that same year I build my first computer (which as of about 2 years ago my PSU caught on fire and fried just about everything but the hard drive). I then taught myself, HTML, and CSS when all of my friends where our playing ball.

I know am a registered developer for the Windows Phone platform and are working on a few apps which are done in C# with a Sliverlight shell, and I working on Windows 8 Applications. linux has never really been something I was interesting in due to the fact that I never had a computer that would run it correctly, it always seems to be a lossing battle with my computers, HP ZD7249cl- no wifi because of a locked bios and a broadcom 43xx card that is TOTALLY unsupported, random desktops- some drivers would never work, and my current desktop- my ATI HD5770 is not supported by any Gnome 3 distro or with mint, fedora, fusion, Ubuntu, Debian, the list goes on and on...

So this will be my first true working linux computer and I would like to put it inside of my HD TV as more of a web browser and media center. My desktop would be fantastic for watching movies but its to loud and heats up my room WAY to much, it runs cool but it can heat a room.

I have been following the Pi for a while now and have gotten a hand full of my friends to look in to this, and the 10 of us are going to buy one the day they come out. I in fact have 50 dollars set a side to buy one.

Dakoda Neilson

http://www.flyingdreamz.com

[treczoks]

Hi!

My name is Christian Treczoks. I'm 43, married, two kids. I'm torturing electrons for a good 30 years now, and design and program embedded systems for a living.

I started off with the TI99/4A, moved to the C64, which I modded to death over the years (256KB of RAM, 256KB of EPROM, harddisk, pre-emptive multitasking - it went far before it died), and then to the Amiga (which' OS I still consider one of the best around). Over the years I did games, programming languages, two OSes, a bunch of applications, databases and networking systems. DOS/Windows never was my world, I went straight to Linux when it came (on a 386/40).

I do C and VHDL most of the time, and my targets usually work without an OS under the code (we do have devices with 256 bytes of RAM...).

I want to use the RPI as an "everywhere computer" in the house, for listening to web radio in the kitchen or basement, or to look up some web page in the living room without the hassle and noise usually connected with a "computer". At the moment I'm infecting my coworkers with the RPI virus, and we'll do a collected order when it is available.

I also thought about using the RPI as a conference controller system here, so I might even use it at work.

Off work, I am an AFOL (Adult Fan Of LEGO) and build models for exhibitions, and a fan of Dwarf Fortress (the only remaining challenging game) - which I hope will will be ported to the RPI, too, one day.

Yours, Christian

[russ wall]

Hi, names Russell, 54, and apart from tring to find a job I collect used books and send them to the Philippines to create free public libraries. I see the RaspberryPi as a real opportunty to get IT into these libraries. Now, where's the Electonic paper to act as display. Once thats sorted then we will have the perfect tool. No consistent power source is the real problem with "third world" IT provision, but the Pi is one hell of a step forward.

Thanks again Pi makers, love it!

[Tetsuo]

Hi I'm Jorn,

I've been using Debian for about 7yrs. I'm a non-programmer, mobile phone tech, hardware wrangler and member of Adelaide.au Hackerspace.

http://hackerspace-adelaide.org.au/

I'll be buying 10-20 model B boards for our members and their friends to play with.

I'm looking forward to mounting my Model B in an old 14K4 modem case

[Clair]

I muck about with all sorts of things. For pay, I teach graphic design and web design at a community college, and design web sites for artists.

I got involved with computers in 1980 when, as a graphic designer I was asked to design ads and collateral for a small start-up company in Chicago: U.S. Robotics. I didn't even know what a modem was. Went out and bought all the computer magazines I could find, and the very next day ordered a computer -- Kaypro. Fond, fond memories of that A> prompt.

But, I was a graphic designer and so I also acquired a Timex-Sinclair and went to town on that and BASIC. Been through Atari, DEC Rainbow as well. Wrote of couple of geek articles to do with computer graphics for DEC Professional in the '80s. Now have a Linux laptop and would get ride of Windows absolutely if I didn't have to have it for teaching. I'm a dedicated believer in Open Source.

In my current teaching I've been absolutely appalled at how little the students know about computers. Sure they use them, all the time in some form or another, but they really know nothing about them. And the schools are remiss there. These students have never known the absolute thrill of typing a program in and having something happen. Of having a machine where NO choices are made for you when you turn it on. It's a blank, a tabula rasa waiting for you to do something.

This is why I'm nuts about the Raspberry Pi. I got some money for Christmas and this is where it is going. And the first thing I'm going to do is get a version of BASIC and write "Hello World!"

Thank you all so very much.

[Tarek]

Hello There,

I'm a 40 years French man whose first love were Sinclair ZX81, Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga ...

I want to fell in love again with the sensation of being able to code close to the metal like in the 80's ...

And hopefully teach my kids how to program using a cool & lean platform,

maybe we could even write some commercial games for this baby

Best Regards,

Tarek

[fatjonnie]

Hi, as my username suggests I'm John from Kent. Now in my 7th decade and a scientist by profession (before I retired) and a serial tinkerer with digital machines.

Started by doing some least squares curve fits on an Elliot 805? using Algol back in the sixties and then progressed by way of IBM 360/DEC PDP11/ ICL ME29/ CC3202/Unix,  for the latter part in parallel with a variety of micros, PC's etc together with their associated OS's. Programming was a necessity as it was easier than trying to explain abstract Science/ideas to "Programmers". Initially, most of the stuff was done in Fortran - wonderful for number crunching but not so hot on the UI . There was some intermediate tinkering with COBOL, PL1 and ADA but latterly any home projects now tend to get done in C ( tried C++ but never liked it - not sure why. Python might work well but its so sloooow - why write something that bogs the hardware down if you don't have to.)

Linux is my platform of choice - ( being old, I get very Grumpy and frustrated when someone hands me an MS machine to fix, I find the UI philosophy maddening) .

I have a couple of projects in mind for the RPi - mainly involving boats and navigation (note to self: must check if OpenCPN will compile on ARM)

Fatjonnie

[Mike Levin]

Hi, I'm Mike Levin, I'm 41 and a new father. I started on computers with the Coleco Adam, but my passion kicked in with my Amiga 1000. I worked for Commodore as a co-op student from college, and have been trying to recapture that magic feeling ever since. Here's hoping Raspberry Pi is it.

[borismonster]

Hi, my name's Simon Roberts though I tend to go by Borismonster in cyberworld. I've been dabbling in one sort of programming or other since using the school's Commodore PET in about 1981. I later had my own ZX81, C64, Atari ST, Amiga 1200 then moved onto PC's.

I'd like to get my children aged 8 & 5 into programming and hope the Raspberry Pi might help enthuse them like those early machine's did to me.

[OregonJim]

Hi there. I have been following your development and am really going to be happy when I can get one of these cool little devices. I am an Amateur Radio Operator (Extra-Class KI7AY) and want to use software developed by my fellow had Ted Weir (WA0EIR) to run digital mode communications on one of my HF radios.

His site is at http://wa0eir.home.mchsi.com/

Keep up the good work! Got a kick out of the video where you were doing micro-miniature repair to the prototype board.

Sincerely, Jim Darrough KI7AY, Springfield, Oregon, U.S.A.

[emilio]

Hi, I'm Emilio. I'm from Spain
I'm a technology teacher.
I think RaspPi is a great idea.
I want to use it in class with my students next year.
Sorry for my English

[Bluebird1927]

Hi my name is Dean, im 29 and im from Wales. I've been following this project over Christmas and am eagerly anticipating the release of the R-pi. I have absolutely no experience of programming or electronics apart from slotting parts together when building my PC back in 2008. I'm hoping to make up for a misspent youth and lack of practical IT education to teach myself basic programming, and I'm also looking to combine this with the Arduino to teach myself some electronics.

I think this is a very commendable project that can enable people, young and not so young, to experiment and learn. It has certainly fired my imagination and I wish everyone involved in this much success.

[zag]

I'm from the UK here. I'm a network manager in a school and very interested in the coding for kids projects. For many years I have been shocked by the lack of programming taught in secondary schools and its great to see others who clearly have the same views. Even more heartening is to see people doing something about it!

I see the Raspberry PI as a breakthrough product in education (and other industries) with almost throw away pricing.

I also run a Raspberry Pi dedicated forum(check my sig) on education. Look out for more content over there soon.

[ErmannoA]

HI Everyone,

my name is Ermanno I'm 42 (Italian living in Amsterdam) and I'm electronic engineer.

Nowadays electronics is just an hobby for me, life took me through a different career path, but I still enjoy it as when I was a kid.

I think you're initiative is great.

I still remember when I was young playing with a 6502 and Z80 in assembler and getting informations and tips was complicated...

A lot has changed since than and thanks to the internet we can now collaborate on projcts like this very easily.

I will surely get my hands on one of the boards when available and provide my humble contribution.

Cheers.

[jimfowler82]

Hi guys,

Im Jim from England 29years old.

I found this site through a friend on Facebook and was very impressed straight away. I have been computing since about 1987 when i was 5 Back when you needed some brains/patience to play/load computer games rather than disc in and go...

I'm really interested all electronics, I started to write some 6502 assembly code a while ago for the 10dollar computer but run out of talent

I think its a great idea for children, As i said above i grew up with proper computers rather than games consoles kids are used to now days, I loved playing about with different things on the computer as a child, Writing simple basic programs, Typing in basic code from computer game magazines & changing it to suit myself, I would spend hours doing it, All the time wanting to learn more and more about how it worked.

Im really looking forward to getting started with one of these, I might take up some python programming for it, I do know Java & C++ pretty well so if i can i shall stick with them.

Id really like to see a good open source community for this project, Because for me looking at other peoples code and "copying" sometimes really improved my programming skills, You can build upon what you already know that way.

J

[purpledarkness]

Hey, I'm Guido, I'm 26 and I'm from the Netherlands. I'm very eagerly awaiting the release of the Raspberry Pi. I'm also really fond of the leaders of this project who come over to me as very kind and sincere. I really respect your decision to build this project upon a philosophy of making the world a better place rather than solely pursuing monetary profit, which could have been a very realistic alternative with your grand ideas and skills.

As a seemingly obligatory "curriculum vitae" of my experience with electronics and computers I'll say that I started out with electronics at around age 6 when I took apart machines and built new things from the parts. Just basic stuff, no solder involved. I got a 486 in 1995 when I was 10 and started programming in QBASIC on day one. I soon got heavily interested in the demoscene and hacker subculture through shareware CD-ROMs and BBS's. Aside from programming I started making music (mostly chiptunes) for demoscene productions. After that I got heavily interested in x86 assembly, self-modifying code, viruses and anti-virus (including things such as metamorphism in viruses which at that time still was a fabled subject in the scene as barely anyone had succeeded in applying it). I'm still fairly passionate about anything related to (x86) assembly and the amazing things that are possible through it. After that my interest in technical computing slightly diminished and I subsequently got heavily into art house movies, music, beer and women. As for my currently activities, I'm almost finished writing the CLI version of the (to my knowledge) fastest RAR archive password cracker in existence and I'm working on an x86 emulator which is currently about 3700 lines of C++ code, (almost) 286 compliant and can almost make it to the DOS prompt . Eventually I would like to upgrade it to 386 compliance and port it to PHP so one can run Linux in PHP (for no real practical reason), but there's still a lot left to do.

Although a further dissection of my persona is beyond the scope of this forum and post I will mention that music is a huge passion of mine. My taste tends to gravitate towards sixties psychedelica and other assorted curiosities, soothing electronic music, French chanson and ye-ye (such as Gainsbourg) and cyclic folk music (old and new). Goes to look for music threads in the off topic section of this forum..

[Nic Bunting]

Isaac Newton said this in 1676:

"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."

I'm pretty excited about Raspberry Pi and I'm really looking forward to the view!

I think it's going to be spectacular.

[simonIOW]

Hi

I am a 36 year old professional geek living and working in the UK.

I was raised on the BBC Micro, and then fell in love with the commodore PET and then the C64.  Many days spent with the commodore magazine typing in programs, and then working out which line had the error so the program didn't run...  I couldn't bugfix today without that experience!

Currently I work building quick and dirty web based 'live prototypes' (mainly using PHP and javascript) which fill gaps in systems which are more carefully developed and managed.  These are then used to get the "proper" list of requirements out of the users before handing the whole lot over to the C# peeps to do properly...

Looking forward to my slice of the Pi.

[ChrisPM]

Hi, I'm Chris , 52 from Todmorden, UK.

I have been following the Raspberry Pi Project since around November and finally got around to signing up. I am very excited about the project and can't wait to get hold of at least one the boards (I have plans for a few more !)

I have been involved in IT for some 25 years now having started programming on the good old zx spectrum many years ago in Z80 assembler and BASIC. Went on to learn Pascal, COBOL (yuck !) at evening classes and eventually did a Degree in Computer Science at Sheffield where I got really interested in AI and Neural Networks. Spent early career in robotics using C/C++ , Lisp and Prolog and then went into Finance and all sorts other stuff using C/C++ and Java on various Unix platforms as a freelance programmer. I now make a living providing freelance services as a Solution Architect/Technical Consultant and enjoy developing Web and Android Apps as a sideline.

I am really impressed with the Raspberry Pi project and the way it has evolved and its goal of getting more young people involved in programming. It has inspired me to start thinking about robotics again along with the excellent Arduino stuff that has been recently developed , also keen on using the Raspberry Pi in some kind of musical context as I play guitar and various other instruments and do lots of sound engineering/production using computers.

I can see from the posts that the Raspberry Pi has got all sorts of people of all ages excited about programming and this is a great thing. The It industry is sorely lacking in technically minded young people so I think the work done by all of the people involved in this project is fantastic. Well done all !

@Liz ,As an aside I am also a bit of a foodie and really enjoyed reading your excellent blog ! , especially the Cornish reviews as I have been staying around the Porth , Mawgan Porth, Watergate Bay area for many a year.

Cheers - Chris

[strollingchimp]

I"m Matt, a 15-year-old who is highly interested in computer hardware and software. I have been using computers since the age of 4 when my Dad brought home our very first PC. In the past couple of years I built my first PC and have started to write my own system specifications application in C#. After I have finished that project I hope to produce a simple, easy-to-use IRC client that I can distribute to my friends.

I"ve been following the Raspberry Pi for quite a while now. I am very excited for its release, hopefully I can get my hands on one .

I hate ICT at school. We are only taught how to use Office. I really hope that the Raspberry Pi is able to change this, hopefully it will show teachers and pupils how fun and rewarding computer science can be.

Keep up the amazing work!

[zeroxp]

Hello everyone,

I want a taste of raspberry.

[PhilS]

Hi everyone,

I'm Phil, I'm currently studying Computer Systems Engineering in Cardiff.

I've been watching this for a while (and pestering the team on twitter a bit) but haven"t had a chance to sign up to the forum!

I can"t wait to get the RasPi, I haven't had much luck with Linux in the past (if I had a penny for each time a graphics driver has given me a "not supported" message on my monitor…), but I"m hoping I"ll get on a bit better with this bit of kit!

Cheers,

Phil

PS, I should add that I like to do odd things with stuff. For instance, here"s my lunch box: