Law Practice Management Tips & Tricks
| Publication year | 2013 |
| Pages | 13 |
| Citation | Vol. 82 No. 2 Pg. 13 |
Law Practice Management Tips & Tricks
A Taste of Raspberry Pi
By Larry N. Zimmerman, Valentine, Zimmerman & Zimmerman P.A., Topeka, kslpm@larryzimmerman.com
Many, many computers ago I found my first — a Commodore Vic-20 — under the Christmas tree. I still recall the thrill of a "real" computer capable of so much more than my Atari 2600 (a mere toy by comparison). My excitement tempered a bit when I turned it on to just a blue screen and flashing cursor. No apps, no start menus, and nothing even resembling an operating system to guide the way.
Though daunting at first, it became a game to guess commands hoping for a response. I transcribed pages of code from computer magazines honing debugging skills because finished programs never worked on the first go. I was learning the linear logic necessary to program, to troubleshoot, and to maintain computer systems in a wide-open universe. That pedagogical approach to teaching computing is the basis of a new computer — the Raspberry Pi.
A $35 Powerhouse
A Raspberry Pi is a capable computer the size of a credit card that costs just $35 from Element14 at newark.com. It arrives in a tiny cardboard box with no case, no cables, no keyboard or mouse, and no operating system (or even a hard drive). It is, however, exceptionally well supported online by a burgeoning user community of tinkerers happy to guide newbies through a variety of projects.
The Test Subject Tests
The test subject, my 16-year-old son, was a bit hesitant to dive in. The first hurdle for Pi users is getting an operating system loaded to an SD memory card. It is barely more complex than copying a file to an SD card but that first step proved too much to combat the easy allure of firing up Halo 4 on the Xbox.
Hardware presented his next challenge. He grabbed the first USB keyboard and mouse available and then scrounged an old phone charger for power. The Pi booted fine but could not see the mouse or keyboard. A few minutes online narrowed the issue down to a power problem. His gaming mouse was drawing more power than the phone charger could deliver. He scrounged a new charger for power and swapped out a new mouse to get up and running again. Success! He had learned to observe, experiment, and solve a persistent computer issue and no worries about damaging anything but a $35 computer.
An operational Raspberry...
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