Looks like a bunch of off the shelf hardware (Raspberry Pi, small monitor, keyboard etc.) put into a nice box and offered for a reasonable price? Not a bad idea, I was thinking about doing the same for my 23 month old now that he's mastered his iPad. He's really interested in my desktop and like to move the mouse and click on stuff :) anyway looks cool if I did not already have most of the components I would buy one. (still might)
awesome, I was also curious about buying this for my little cousin (6). I think my other 10y cousin would love this too, she already told me how good a netbook fits to her tiny fingers, so sweet. But the tutorials, manual and software is all English, so he'd first have to learn English :-/
Wish people would value internationalization much more, other than just assuming English fits all.
You read our minds. We're going to launch with the Kano books translated into Spanish and Arabic, to start, and then continuing to add languages. Really important IMO to recognize that next digital generation won't just speak English, live in SF, London, etc.
cool for kids i guess? but growed ups should be making desktops!!
it's totally easy. the only step that can not be described as screwing/un-screwing/plugging-in is when you have to put the thermal paste on the processor. & heat efficiency of modern parts is so good that cooling otherwise isn't really an issue anymore -- i have an i7 running with a single case fan.
i did it a few months ago, built a BLAZING computer with multiple hard drives for ~$900
For new builds you don't even have to apply the thermal paste. The Intel boxed processors I used have come with pre-applied paste on the cooler. No additional paste needed.
No, it's been like that for years. Years and years.
Thats how my AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHz came in 2001.
I suspect that your unlocked CPU didn't come with pre-applied thermal paste because it's aimed at enthusiasts who can get their CPUs a few degrees cooler by using proper thermal paste.
(The gunk that comes standards can cost you a few degrees of CPU temp)
That is a much better version of the page. I instantly understood what was going on without having to watch a minute-long video of a monkey bashing a computer to dubstep that ultimately made no sense.
Anyway, kinda odd replacing a page explaining the whole thing to put just a teaser one with no content at all. It is supposed to be the other way around... just saying
I strongly agree with you. The prerogative use of "first" and "best" in the description just hurts my feelings. I really like the looks of this thing, all cased up like that, but the copy I do not grok.
I like the content of the box, but I stopped reading at the lede.
At the bottom of that page there is a couple of textbooks on digital design. One of them you can find as a free pdf. These books provide an easy to follow intro with examples, intended for this board.
You can get into FPGA just like you get into any other hobby - start with something simple, then progress to something complex, one step at a time.
For example, start with implementing an adder. By implementing I mean writing a description of the adder in a hardware description language. The description can be structural (describe the circuit which does the addition), or functional (describe the desired output of the circuit given specific inputs). Then you load that description into the board, and your circuit will created there from logic gates. This is not much different from regular programming (actually simpler, because you're much closer to hardware, so you can see better what your "program" is doing).
Best go with structural if you want to actually learn something. This book ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Computing-Systems-Princip... ) is very good and I think still stands as the best introduction to this type of stuff I've seen. It's also presented in a straight forward enough way that it's good enough self-study for anyone with some programming experience.
Note, however, that it does not use actual hardware, nor a real hardware description language - it's just a hardware simulator (this might be important for someone who's interested in FPGA per se).
There are two main vendors: Xilinx and Altera. Don't bother going to their websites, they only sell the latest and greatest directly (this will easily cost over $1000).
Instead, there are discount vendors that will sell older chips (generally 2-3 generations behind the curve) for cheap. The names to watch are Digilent for Xilinx and Terasic for Altera.
I tend to prefer Xilinx stuff. I don't really have the time to write a more detailed reply, but you can browse around here [1]. Get something with lots of ports, or you won't be able to make anything interesting without a lot of pain (where interesting means "I want to hear/see/communicate-to another-computer my results"). The Zynq boards also come with an ARM processor that can talk to the FPGA fabric.
Its exactly how computers are built: by the people who intend to use them.
For example, my current rPi hotness is a repurposed Motorola Lapdock, which cost me $50. Although it required some cable hacking, I can now switch out the rPi or a HDMI-stick running Android, Debian, and so on. It was a $50 solution to the problem of not having a handy HDMI monitor, USB hub, keyboard, mouse, screen, battery, power-supply set up. But, since I'm a user, I sorted it out, and the machine is indeed, an upgradable laptop.
I wish Motorola hadn't been borked on this. The Lapdock is a superb bit of kit; my rig competes strongly against the Macbook Air, for example, in terms of pure aesthetics, lightness, and utter freedom. Alas not many other laptops do so as a user, building such a thing as a cable bundle and a couple of 3d harness/cases to align with the Lapdock pinouts, for me, was quite handy..
Great dialectic and questions – that’s why I love HN.
I'm Alex, cofounder and product at Kano.
On monkey – thanks for kind words all. Her name's Lily, used to work in VC.
We’re working hard to make Raspberry Pi accessible to everyone. Challenge was first set by my 7-year-old cousin, to "make it as simple as Lego." The Pi is a brilliant piece of tech and the most promising "vector" yet to infect a new generation with open source.
That’s why we’ve designed and built our own custom hardware and made sure that everything – from the touchpad keyboard to the DIY speaker – works perfectly, and sparks curiosity.
We’re also rolling out our own Debian distro, Kano OS, with new UI, utilities, and software projects – all of which we’ll be open sourcing and pushing up-stream where possible. Some cool integrations too (Minecraft, Pong, Codecademy).
We’ll try to trickle these out here amid the Kickstarter (Nov 19) for raves/heckles.
49 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 99.5 ms ] threadWish people would value internationalization much more, other than just assuming English fits all.
it's totally easy. the only step that can not be described as screwing/un-screwing/plugging-in is when you have to put the thermal paste on the processor. & heat efficiency of modern parts is so good that cooling otherwise isn't really an issue anymore -- i have an i7 running with a single case fan.
i did it a few months ago, built a BLAZING computer with multiple hard drives for ~$900
Thats how my AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHz came in 2001.
I suspect that your unlocked CPU didn't come with pre-applied thermal paste because it's aimed at enthusiasts who can get their CPUs a few degrees cooler by using proper thermal paste.
(The gunk that comes standards can cost you a few degrees of CPU temp)
Anyway, kinda odd replacing a page explaining the whole thing to put just a teaser one with no content at all. It is supposed to be the other way around... just saying
(You can also contribute to repairs at The Internet Archive here, just got hit by a fire: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/internet-archive-from-lond...)
That's a bit of a stretch even for a marketing slogan.
I like the content of the box, but I stopped reading at the lede.
Or is it simply another PC assembly kit for dummies, where no understanding of computers is needed?
The package looks well put together.
I wish I had one when I was a kid.
At the bottom of that page there is a couple of textbooks on digital design. One of them you can find as a free pdf. These books provide an easy to follow intro with examples, intended for this board.
You can get into FPGA just like you get into any other hobby - start with something simple, then progress to something complex, one step at a time.
For example, start with implementing an adder. By implementing I mean writing a description of the adder in a hardware description language. The description can be structural (describe the circuit which does the addition), or functional (describe the desired output of the circuit given specific inputs). Then you load that description into the board, and your circuit will created there from logic gates. This is not much different from regular programming (actually simpler, because you're much closer to hardware, so you can see better what your "program" is doing).
a + b
Best go with structural if you want to actually learn something. This book ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Computing-Systems-Princip... ) is very good and I think still stands as the best introduction to this type of stuff I've seen. It's also presented in a straight forward enough way that it's good enough self-study for anyone with some programming experience.
Note, however, that it does not use actual hardware, nor a real hardware description language - it's just a hardware simulator (this might be important for someone who's interested in FPGA per se).
Instead, there are discount vendors that will sell older chips (generally 2-3 generations behind the curve) for cheap. The names to watch are Digilent for Xilinx and Terasic for Altera.
I tend to prefer Xilinx stuff. I don't really have the time to write a more detailed reply, but you can browse around here [1]. Get something with lots of ports, or you won't be able to make anything interesting without a lot of pain (where interesting means "I want to hear/see/communicate-to another-computer my results"). The Zynq boards also come with an ARM processor that can talk to the FPGA fabric.
[1]: http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Catalog.cfm?NavPath=2,40...
For example, my current rPi hotness is a repurposed Motorola Lapdock, which cost me $50. Although it required some cable hacking, I can now switch out the rPi or a HDMI-stick running Android, Debian, and so on. It was a $50 solution to the problem of not having a handy HDMI monitor, USB hub, keyboard, mouse, screen, battery, power-supply set up. But, since I'm a user, I sorted it out, and the machine is indeed, an upgradable laptop.
I wish Motorola hadn't been borked on this. The Lapdock is a superb bit of kit; my rig competes strongly against the Macbook Air, for example, in terms of pure aesthetics, lightness, and utter freedom. Alas not many other laptops do so as a user, building such a thing as a cable bundle and a couple of 3d harness/cases to align with the Lapdock pinouts, for me, was quite handy..
Great video and design, though.
P.S. Not sure how happy Kano the rapper is going to be about you using his name:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kano_(rapper)
I'm still praying for the day that composers quit making these quaint, cute, hipster iJingles for every "innovative" tech project/product.
(Primary schoolteacher, judo inventor.)
there is already tons of alternatives for 1. buy soc board and put in case (4 screws maybe not even that). 2. attach to monitor. 3. turn it on.
I'm Alex, cofounder and product at Kano.
On monkey – thanks for kind words all. Her name's Lily, used to work in VC.
We’re working hard to make Raspberry Pi accessible to everyone. Challenge was first set by my 7-year-old cousin, to "make it as simple as Lego." The Pi is a brilliant piece of tech and the most promising "vector" yet to infect a new generation with open source.
That’s why we’ve designed and built our own custom hardware and made sure that everything – from the touchpad keyboard to the DIY speaker – works perfectly, and sparks curiosity.
We’re also rolling out our own Debian distro, Kano OS, with new UI, utilities, and software projects – all of which we’ll be open sourcing and pushing up-stream where possible. Some cool integrations too (Minecraft, Pong, Codecademy).
We’ll try to trickle these out here amid the Kickstarter (Nov 19) for raves/heckles.
Cheers, Alex