Haven’t had a new one for years now (the latest were hard to get for a while because of demand, compounded by the chip shortage), but they’re fun, inexpensive,useful for learning python, and for creative little projects particularly. I’ve used them commercially for digital signage.
Haven’t had a new one for years now (the latest were hard to get for a while because of demand, compounded by the chip shortage), but they’re fun, inexpensive,useful for learning python, and for creative little projects particularly. I’ve used them commercially for digital signage.
Yes, but I didn't code. I have used Raspberry Pi 3bs as the base for making retro arcade machines. They are impressive devices and as you can now get a Pi5, pretty powerful. A 2b will probably be sufficient for coding and the earlier versions are not too pricey on ebay.
If you are into retro games, a 4b ought to run up to Playstation One/Dreamcast or even a PS2 extremely well and you transform the device's use by simply changing the SD card. A Pi 2 will run the older arcade games and 16bit consoles like the Snes and Megadrive.
If you are coding, you will want a Pi, Pi case, keyboard and power supply. You can get a 3b board for under £20 on ebay, sometimes with the case. Then you are looking at a keyboard for under £10 and a suitable power supply also for under £10. Add the sd card and you can put it all together for around £40.
I use one for supplying data for Flight Radar24 & ADBS Exchange over Kent. They are so easy to use. As @MuttleyCAFC says, Ebay is the place but there are different versions of them.
Yes, but I didn't code. I have used Raspberry Pi 3bs as the base for making retro arcade machines. They are impressive devices and as you can now get a Pi5, pretty powerful. A 2b will probably be sufficient for coding and the earlier versions are not too pricey on ebay.
If you are into retro games, a 4b ought to run up to Playstation One/Dreamcast or even a PS2 extremely well and you transform the device's use by simply changing the SD card. A Pi 2 will run the older arcade games and 16bit consoles like the Snes and Megadrive.
If you are coding, you will want a Pi, Pi case, keyboard and power supply. You can get a 3b board for under £20 on ebay, sometimes with the case. Then you are looking at a keyboard for under £10 and a suitable power supply also for under £10. Add the sd card and you can put it all together for around £40.
I know we had a thread on regrets not so long ago, but bloody hell, if I have had one regret in life is that I didn't learn to code properly. Always dabbled in the basics but never put in the time to do it properly. I bought books, I read the first couple of chapters but I'd always put the book down and get distracted. My brother has been a coder since he was 13 and loves it. I've always had him as a resource on tap and I never pushed it. When he sees some of the spreadsheets I've built with formulas and macros that most people would wince at, he has said I'd pick up coding so easily.
I've got so many ideas. So many things in life that could be automated. All it needs is some bloody code and I can't do it.
Its great the kids are using 'scratch' in schools now. I know my eldest used it at primary school for a while.
One of my daughters' dated a lad who graduated in Coding from Staffs Uni. He went straight into working at Bet365. His starting salary at 21 was around £28k, with significant increases planned ahead. That's pretty good for a young person to start out from uni.
I know here in Sweden there are tons of tech start ups, and there are plenty of ads for coders and courses to learn coding.
Might sound daft, but to the uninitiated, is it too late to have a career segway at 50+ (into this field)?
One of my wife's friends over here, sold an App to Apple about 5 years ago for a tidy sum, thought to be around £3m.
One of my daughters' dated a lad who graduated in Coding from Staffs Uni. He went straight into working at Bet365. His starting salary at 21 was around £28k, with significant increases planned ahead. That's pretty good for a young person to start out from uni.
I know here in Sweden there are tons of tech start ups, and there are plenty of ads for coders and courses to learn coding.
Might sound daft, but to the uninitiated, is it too late to have a career segway at 50+ (into this field)?
One of my wife's friends over here, sold an App to Apple about 5 years ago for a tidy sum, thought to be around £3m.
I used to type in the games from the mags on my Speccy sometimes. The spectrum was a good computer to learn coding on although I did more copying than coding. I did change the graphics which was all about values on a grid. I still have my old speccy in the loft somewhere. I wonder if it still works. I converted a lot of my games to work from Sinclair Microdrives but I doubt they are working now. Will have to dig it out someday and test it.
One of my daughters' dated a lad who graduated in Coding from Staffs Uni. He went straight into working at Bet365. His starting salary at 21 was around £28k, with significant increases planned ahead. That's pretty good for a young person to start out from uni.
I know here in Sweden there are tons of tech start ups, and there are plenty of ads for coders and courses to learn coding.
Might sound daft, but to the uninitiated, is it too late to have a career segway at 50+ (into this field)?
One of my wife's friends over here, sold an App to Apple about 5 years ago for a tidy sum, thought to be around £3m.
I'm 44 & that's what I plan to do. I've been in my current job since 2006 & I just want to do something completely different. I work from home full time these days so I have more time to learn, without all the traveling into London & back.
I used to type in the games from the mags on my Speccy sometimes. The spectrum was a good computer to learn coding on although I did more copying than coding. I did change the graphics which was all about values on a grid. I still have my old speccy in the loft somewhere. I wonder if it still works. I converted a lot of my games to work from Sinclair Microdrives but I doubt they are working now. Will have to dig it out someday and test it.
I was just a bit too young for coding & making my own games on the Spectrum. I think I was around 7 or 8 when we had one, I was more interested in playing Horace Goes Skiing. Then I moved onto a Sega Master System, away from Computers until I got to Secondary School. Even then I think there was 8 computers for an entire school to use!!!
One of my daughters' dated a lad who graduated in Coding from Staffs Uni. He went straight into working at Bet365. His starting salary at 21 was around £28k, with significant increases planned ahead. That's pretty good for a young person to start out from uni.
I know here in Sweden there are tons of tech start ups, and there are plenty of ads for coders and courses to learn coding.
Might sound daft, but to the uninitiated, is it too late to have a career segway at 50+ (into this field)?
One of my wife's friends over here, sold an App to Apple about 5 years ago for a tidy sum, thought to be around £3m.
I'm 44 & that's what I plan to do. I've been in my current job since 2006 & I just want to do something completely different. I work from home full time these days so I have more time to learn, without all the traveling into London & back.
One of my daughters' dated a lad who graduated in Coding from Staffs Uni. He went straight into working at Bet365. His starting salary at 21 was around £28k, with significant increases planned ahead. That's pretty good for a young person to start out from uni.
I know here in Sweden there are tons of tech start ups, and there are plenty of ads for coders and courses to learn coding.
Might sound daft, but to the uninitiated, is it too late to have a career segway at 50+ (into this field)?
One of my wife's friends over here, sold an App to Apple about 5 years ago for a tidy sum, thought to be around £3m.
I'm 44 & that's what I plan to do. I've been in my current job since 2006 & I just want to do something completely different. I work from home full time these days so I have more time to learn, without all the traveling into London & back.
Just to be clear: you don't have a laptop or desktop where you can install Python for free, right?
Because if you do, that's a quick and free way to start learning to code.
I would then recommend VS Code, also free, to write and debug your code.
I used to type in the games from the mags on my Speccy sometimes. The spectrum was a good computer to learn coding on although I did more copying than coding. I did change the graphics which was all about values on a grid. I still have my old speccy in the loft somewhere. I wonder if it still works. I converted a lot of my games to work from Sinclair Microdrives but I doubt they are working now. Will have to dig it out someday and test it.
Trust me - whatever you do, dont plug your Kempston Auto Fire joystick into the Spectrum whilst it is turned on, as it will destroy the whole computer
I used to type in the games from the mags on my Speccy sometimes. The spectrum was a good computer to learn coding on although I did more copying than coding. I did change the graphics which was all about values on a grid. I still have my old speccy in the loft somewhere. I wonder if it still works. I converted a lot of my games to work from Sinclair Microdrives but I doubt they are working now. Will have to dig it out someday and test it.
Trust me - whatever you do, dont plug your Kempston Auto Fire joystick into the Spectrum whilst it is turned on, as it will destroy the whole computer
Or plug in the Kempston or Interface 2 joystick interface when power is on, which I did once and killed my old Speccy.
One of my daughters' dated a lad who graduated in Coding from Staffs Uni. He went straight into working at Bet365. His starting salary at 21 was around £28k, with significant increases planned ahead. That's pretty good for a young person to start out from uni.
I know here in Sweden there are tons of tech start ups, and there are plenty of ads for coders and courses to learn coding.
Might sound daft, but to the uninitiated, is it too late to have a career segway at 50+ (into this field)?
One of my wife's friends over here, sold an App to Apple about 5 years ago for a tidy sum, thought to be around £3m.
Absolutely, unambiguously and categorically no.
I'm going to go opposite and say yes here unless you want to pick up the basics and start in a very specialised junior role. Which are like gold dust! Most places want a mix of skills, i.e front end / back end. So you'll be looking something like React then one of JS, C#, Python, Go plus SQL (or one of it's variations).
I have been working solidly with one particular coding language for 20yrs now. In that time have picked up others and have decent enough knowledge to write for myself and debug code already in place. For the one I regard myself as an expert in, you'd need years to play catch up with the potential of not having that real world experience if self learning so a tough sell on the CV.
Then let's say you do get the interviews, who has more chance of getting the role...Assuming the same skill levels & salary expectations, a 21 year old with years ahead of them or a 55-60 year old who could be retiring within a decade?
Just my personal opinion but all the best to you if do you go for it!
One of my daughters' dated a lad who graduated in Coding from Staffs Uni. He went straight into working at Bet365. His starting salary at 21 was around £28k, with significant increases planned ahead. That's pretty good for a young person to start out from uni.
I know here in Sweden there are tons of tech start ups, and there are plenty of ads for coders and courses to learn coding.
Might sound daft, but to the uninitiated, is it too late to have a career segway at 50+ (into this field)?
One of my wife's friends over here, sold an App to Apple about 5 years ago for a tidy sum, thought to be around £3m.
I'm 44 & that's what I plan to do. I've been in my current job since 2006 & I just want to do something completely different. I work from home full time these days so I have more time to learn, without all the traveling into London & back.
Just to be clear: you don't have a laptop or desktop where you can install Python for free, right?
Because if you do, that's a quick and free way to start learning to code.
I would then recommend VS Code, also free, to write and debug your code.
No, I don't unfortunately. Well not functional anyhow, I've got a Sony laptop which is about 15 years old & takes 5-10 mins just to do one thing!!
Comments
Bought from here: https://thepihut.com/
You’ve probably seen this: https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en
If you’re also interested in web development, I’d recommend this: https://www.theodinproject.com/
If you are into retro games, a 4b ought to run up to Playstation One/Dreamcast or even a PS2 extremely well and you transform the device's use by simply changing the SD card. A Pi 2 will run the older arcade games and 16bit consoles like the Snes and Megadrive.
If you are coding, you will want a Pi, Pi case, keyboard and power supply. You can get a 3b board for under £20 on ebay, sometimes with the case. Then you are looking at a keyboard for under £10 and a suitable power supply also for under £10. Add the sd card and you can put it all together for around £40.
I've got so many ideas. So many things in life that could be automated. All it needs is some bloody code and I can't do it.
Its great the kids are using 'scratch' in schools now. I know my eldest used it at primary school for a while.
I know here in Sweden there are tons of tech start ups, and there are plenty of ads for coders and courses to learn coding.
Might sound daft, but to the uninitiated, is it too late to have a career segway at 50+ (into this field)?
One of my wife's friends over here, sold an App to Apple about 5 years ago for a tidy sum, thought to be around £3m.
Just to be clear: you don't have a laptop or desktop where you can install Python for free, right?
Because if you do, that's a quick and free way to start learning to code.
I would then recommend VS Code, also free, to write and debug your code.
I have been working solidly with one particular coding language for 20yrs now. In that time have picked up others and have decent enough knowledge to write for myself and debug code already in place. For the one I regard myself as an expert in, you'd need years to play catch up with the potential of not having that real world experience if self learning so a tough sell on the CV.
Then let's say you do get the interviews, who has more chance of getting the role...Assuming the same skill levels & salary expectations, a 21 year old with years ahead of them or a 55-60 year old who could be retiring within a decade?
Just my personal opinion but all the best to you if do you go for it!