[akritrime]

I think this is more common than people realize. Especially in the Indian subcontinent, where most people have a smartphone but only few have a PC. I learnt programming on pen and paper first and then on those phone IDEs even before I had access to a pc. And even after a PC, I used to use my phone as a display for my desktop via chrome remote desktop because my monitor got damaged and only showed shades of green. And my case wasn't even that extreme, I was just not that bothered to get a proper setup until I really got into programming. The situation is way more difficult who are constrained by their financial situation and have to find a way around it.

[hannofcart]

Yeah, I wish the governments in India and Nepal would provide some subsidies to incentivize companies to manufacture boards like to RPi which as far as I understand have open specifications.

Giving a RPi to a family without resources in India is a force multiplier. They typically have a small television set and letting them access a proper computer vitalizes learning for the children of that household.

I only have anecdotal evidence of this though, from when I handed an RPi I wasn't using to my housekeeper's daughter and also got her a 3g dongle with a cheap data plan for her to connect to the internet. It got handed down from her to her brothers as well.

[valleyer]

Sadly, Raspberry Pi can't be manufactured by third parties, since Broadcom doesn't sell the SoCs to the public.

There are some other ARM SBCs listed here, but I'm not familiar with them enough to know whether they're good substitutes. (Hopefully the "Banana Pi" is?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_computing_...

[soneil]

I was going to explain that the only difference between the raspberry pi & generic pi is the support that comes from having the mindshare/marketshare. But honestly, I think in the scope of the real issue it's mostly bike-shedding.

If you want to deliver a million Pi to the subcontinent, the real problem isn't the dollar difference between the various SBC. If you compare a Pi to a phone, you also have to bring ..

- Power; not just the obvious, but also that the onboard battery on a phone brings a high tolerance for supply issues.

- Screen; preferably enough of a screen to make the outlay worth it. If you just put a phone screen on a pi, what did you really gain?

- Connectivity; particularly the last mile where the phone has near-infinite flexibility.

Of course none of these are remotely difficult (although connectivity can be difficult remotely), but they're all BOM cost that end up making the SBC one of the least interesting parts to solve. For most the Pi-based laptops & Tablets I've seen, the Pi itself is ballpark 10% of the overall cost.

I think if I was going to attempt this (and to be clear, I use that phrase entirely in the 'armchair quarterback' scope), I'd be trying to create a terminal that's essentially a phone dock - because this isn't going to be an either/or purchase, no-one's going to give up their phone to get this terminal instead. So instead of using all your BOM trying to recreate what they already have, concentrate on what they're missing.

[a9h74j]

Also an armchair quarterback, but yes, to me one of the great mentionable intellectual/ecological "crimes" is the non-updateability of billions of phones. We don't have infinite retries at using physical resources on the scale we have.

That said, I haven't looked at how many tools work all the way back to much older versions of Android.

[kewrkewm53]

Pi is nice, but also used hardware would do the job. At least in Western countries old Core2 Duo business desktops are basically worthless by now, and such laptops don't exactly cost much either. Why not export more of those and get some more years out of them before recycling? They are perfectly adequate for learning to program.

[AussieWog93]

I've met people before who do exactly that. Margins aren't huge, but it's profitable for people in both countries.

[randomperson_24]

A big problem I have seen with Pi in India is that it overheats and throttles heavily because the the temperature is usually high. With additonal cost of a good power supply, monitor, HDMI cable, its not worth it.

IMO a better device will be a laptop ~ 80 USD with an ARM processor and basic specs - especially a good in-built speaker.

[kqr]

Just about everywhere, people learn programming on their graphing calculators and other low-end devices. I cut my teeth on a hand-me-down Psion 3C.

In some sense, I think doing it that way might even be easier. Constraints release creativity, and being able to read a single user's manual (however thick) and technically know everything you need to know is powerful.

[Robotbeat]

I wish there was something akin to TI-Basic for smartphones. A built-in IDE with an interpreted language, with easy path to compilation.

It’s easier to program a TI-89 calculator than an iPhone. Why can’t this be better?

[zepto]

> It’s easier to program a TI-89 calculator than an iPhone.

This is just false. Have a look at Pythonista or one of the numerous JavaScript idea. Hell, there’s even an ocaml environment on iPhone.

It could be a lot better, I agree, but it’s already vastly superior to a ti calculator.

[Robotbeat]

Superior in what way? It’s far easier to write a minimal program on a TI calculator like the TI89. No App Store account or Internet required. It’s included in every calculator for free, with function integration into the hard (ie easier to be precise while typing) keyboard.

[zepto]

> Superior in what way?

When it comes to programming, almost every way. Try getting a job if you only know how to program a TI-84. Now compare that with knowing python or JavaScript.

> It’s far easier to write a minimal program on a TI calculator like the TI89.

Yes, and far harder to write anything but a minimal program. Completely impossible to write anything in a commercially used language.

> No App Store account or Internet required.

So what? These are widely available.

> It’s included in every calculator for free, with function integration into the hard (ie easier to be precise while typing) keyboard.

So what? You can’t write anything resembling a modern program. This is a way in which the calculator is incapable of serving as a general purpose computer, not an advantage.

I’m not against calculators. I learned to program on my father’s TI, long before I had access to computers. I still like keystroke programming an HP-15C for repetitive calculations today. But there is no way that is better than Pythonista or the ilk for programming in general.

[cxr]

> Completely impossible to write anything in a commercially used language.

You're approaching this as if the comment was an opinion about the feasibility of doing commercial software development instead of what it was, which is a statement about HCI and the "implicit step zero" of software creation on today's commodity computing devices. Another way to put it is that this is a discussion about friction, and the original comment was specifically an observation about static friction, and you're talking about kinetic friction—while also insisting that the original comment is wrong because you want the subject to be the latter and not the former. It's a weird, overly hostile, and uncharitable way to interpret the other person's words.

The original comment as it stands is fine. Don't expect to be able to interpret it on different terms than the way it was meant to be understood.