VERAULT
Veteran Member
I hear you. But its what i need.
Heck even just a simple monitor/keyboard/mouse with USB & HDMI leads(basically a micro crash cart) would be a really fun tool.
Well that's a neat little thing whatever it is. Would definitely work for a really janky pi laptop or a number of other uses. And actually looks well-made for the price!Something a bit like this?
(Looking at it I'm actually badly torn myself whether it's a dumb toy or potentially super useful. It has an internal SSD slot in it, so for the "crash cart" role I could imagine loading that with a Linux distribution set up to do diagnostics and OS imaging. Just plug this thing into a new server, boot it off the SSD, and go to town imaging it from a library of software you're carrying around in in your goofy keyboard dingus.)
Downside: apparently its mechanical switches are linear, not clicky. Boo. Consider this deal BROKEN.
It actually might work for an unrelated application I've been looking for.I hear you. But its what i need.
Here is my take. I dont need anything substantially great. I just want to take a good raspberry pi and have it in an enclosure with a decent resolution screen. Im not going to be gaming really no watching video (to any extant it would impact me that is). A decent laptop keyboard and touchpad would fine. Some USB and IO routed somewhere convenient and thats it. I have a nice linux terminal I have take anywhere. I cant believe China hasn't done anything like that considering all the parts I just mentioned cost very little on aliexpress. Bundle them in a Chassis for $115 to $150 and the competition will have to lower thier prices to something affordable (yeah affordability is subjective...... but then again no it isnt).It actually might work for an unrelated application I've been looking for.
So here's the rub - my wife is, for better or worse, a "laptop gamer", infofar as she prefers to play reclining on the couch. That's fine for now but even a halfway decent gaming laptop costs 3 times as much as a good gaming desktop, and I can engineer a working system for even less.
My solution? Find a laptop-like package(like the CrowPi, but better?) that's just monitor/keyboard/mouse with a USB and HDMI cable I can take to a nice desktop sitting on the floor. Kinda surprised such things aren't more common, but meh.
I mean a real POS unit for $50 would be fine with me too. I can throw a raspberry pi original in it and load up retro PI and use it for classic games and the cost is worth it.
Instead they use taxpayer money to buy chromebooks and Ipads... So stupid!
So that kind of "hand holding" was fine for us in the 80s but not for kids today? Honestly if you cant tach kids basic computer skills now when can you? Why do you think we have so many nuckleheads out there who dont even have the faintest idea of what file management is.Raspberry Pi's are great for robotics class and other STEM courses, but having the kids build and maintain their own stand-alone laptops to use for all their other classes just wouldn't scale at all. Just imagine the level of hand-holding it'd take to get everyone's machine working in the first place, and *then* think of what a nightmare it's going to be to get them all locked down so the kids are actually using them to do what they're supposed to be doing most of the time. (A thing Chromebooks make absolutely trivial.) Not to mention the fact that Chromebooks' real-time backups are amazing at eliminating any "the dog ate my laptop" excuses.
You would have to disinfect them, not worth the effort.My kids got chrome books. They were given no reak instruction on it.. and st the end of the year most of the kids kept them and they never asked for them back.. seemsa waste to not give them to the next years kids.
I spent $20 on a 5" touch screen, $10 on a keyboard, and another $30 on a good external battery pack that could run the pi and the screen for 4-5 hours. And of course $40 on the pi itself. That's all paying retail. A mass-produced plastic clamshell case capable of holding all that should cost about 12 cents a unit to manufacture. The keyboard could also be made much cheaper since mine was by necessity wireless(and thus had to have its won battery, transmitter/receiver, etc).Im really surprised in all the years the Raspberry PI has been out this hasnt been made to fill some niche.... And made cheaply. Am I one of the very few who thinks this would be useful? Imagine giving these to kids to construct and load up in schools! Instead they use taxpayer money to buy chromebooks and Ipads... So stupid!
So that kind of "hand holding" was fine for us in the 80s but not for kids today? Honestly if you cant tach kids basic computer skills now when can you? Why do you think we have so many nuckleheads out there who dont even have the faintest idea of what file management is.
I always found it odd that high schools will teach advanced subjects most people will never use, like chemistry. But not "survival skills" like changing a tire, plumbing and electrical repairs, etc.There aren’t “computer skills” as we used to think about it anymore. As fun as it is to me, I don’t think kids should understand how to assemble their own computer to survive, just like not many people really understand how car engine works, which was requirement for car ownership not so long ago. It’s sad that we have less and less knowledge to survive an apocalypse when everything either just works or in the cloud, but that’s how it is now.