> On 18/10/2015 04:54 PM, nemesis wrote:
>> I have a tablet, I use it mostly just to read sheetmusic.  My phone
>> however, I
>> use for pretty much everything a pocket pc should prove useful, including
>> communications, media playing, web browsing, photographing and gaming...
>
> Yeah, the *other* possibility is to just buy a smartphone. But then, the
> idea of accessing the Internet with a PAYG account sounds... expensive.

You have wi-fi at home, yes?

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> Yes, but like all laptops more than 6 months old, the battery no longer
> functions.

You could always get a new battery. If it's a fairly common model 
there's normally non-OEM ones available quite cheaply.

> I'm pretty sure the Raspberry Pi *hardware* can do this, but again I'm
> unsure about software. (Although since it's basically running Debian, it
> seems reasonable that it might work.)

Well if it's a USB interface then the Pi definitely has a working USB 
port :-)

Raspbian can definitely talk to a USB DAC for *playing* audio. But lsat 
time I checked the drivers were a bit buggy and you got random 
split-seconds of white noise every 30 seconds or so, and switching to 
different sample rates sometimes completely crashed the sound system and 
hung whatever app you were running. I ended up going back to the 
analogue audio output. But it might be fixed by now, or just my DAC was 
strage, IDK.

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On Tue, 20 Oct 2015 19:25:39 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 10/20/2015 6:11 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> It seems that playing iPlayer on the TV would be like watching TV.:)
>>
>>
> I wouldn't know. :-(
> I don't think I've watched TV for a couple of years except for some
> comedy programmes on Freeview*.
> 
> I lost the habit years ago before there was satellite TV. When I was on
> the rigs. Radio 4 was all we could get and that was on Long Wave.

We just recently got a cable subscription again (when I got laid off in 
2011, it was the first thing to go to save money), so we've got a handful 
of shows we're watching.  But unlike before, when it was costing us 
upwards of $130/month for a basic digital package with HD, we're now 
paying only about $30 more than we were for our Internet connection, and 
the 'net connection is a business expense (so I get reimbursed for it).

>> But yeah, I've got the iPlayer app installed on something here.  Not
>> that I can watch TV with it, but I can listen to some radio programmes
>> with it.
> 
> I use get_iplayer as a PVR.

Yeah, I've been using that for years.  But there have been instances 
where it was just more convenient to stream directly.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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> I wouldn't know. :-(
> I don't think I've watched TV for a couple of years except for some
> comedy programmes on Freeview*.

TV for our house is only something to turn on during dinner, to avoid 
having to talk to each other too much :-) For the last couple of years 
though it's been mostly something provided by iPlayer (food is never 
ontime!), usually some type of general knowledge quiz.

> I lost the habit years ago before there was satellite TV. When I was on
> the rigs. Radio 4 was all we could get and that was on Long Wave.

I lost the habit at University with no TV for 4 years.

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If I download the Andriod SDK, it comes with a device emulator, right?

Question: Can I use that to just, you know, *run Andriod*? Or will it 
*only* let you run apps you just developed?

Obviously if you're emulating a phone, you can't actually make calls 
with it. But can it simulate everything else? If so, this seems like the 
easiest and cheapest way to find out what it's like to use...

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On 19/10/2015 04:28 PM, scott wrote:
> I still have a TI-86 somewhere gathering dust. That had a BASIC
> interpreter built-in. Somehow IIRC we also had a version of Mario
> running on it, I assume you could also run assembler on it somehow.

Yeah, I imagine on the ones that really *are* programmable, you can do 
that. Mine, sadly, isn't. (I think it's Casio, off the top of my head. 
Hmm, I wonder where the hell it is...)

> In fact I wrote a simple "shoot the target" type game in BASIC for a
> piece of GCSE Maths coursework. It showed you a target (a pixel) on the
> right edge of the screen, and you had to enter an angle and speed to
> fire an arrow (another pixel) to hit it.

Sounds more advanced than anything I ever wrote!

> I learnt two important lessons
> doing that. Firstly to test your program with sufficiently varied input
> before releasing it,

Hahahaha! ;-)

> and secondly that 45 radians roughly equals 45 degrees (mod 360).



But don't worry. exp(pi) - pi = 20.

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Le 25/10/2015 15:31, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
> If I download the Andriod SDK, it comes with a device emulator,
> right?
> 
> Question: Can I use that to just, you know, *run Andriod*? Or will
> it *only* let you run apps you just developed?
> 
> Obviously if you're emulating a phone, you can't actually make
> calls with it. But can it simulate everything else? If so, this
> seems like the easiest and cheapest way to find out what it's like
> to use...

To have tested, the android emulator on i686_64 is very slow.
(phone is usually ARM, not i386)
It is also a memory eater. (you need far more on the PC than on the
real device), so beware of more slowing due to swapping.

I'm not sure you can connect to the playstore either to try
applications with the emulation.

On the bright side, you can download your own application without
paying google, and you can try various screen size, orientation and
physical buttons.

Now, emulating the touch screen with a mouse is not always the right
thing. (and do not consider the multi-touch gestures either)

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On Sun, 25 Oct 2015 14:31:35 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> If I download the Andriod SDK, it comes with a device emulator, right?
> 
> Question: Can I use that to just, you know, *run Andriod*? Or will it
> *only* let you run apps you just developed?

You can run Android, with limitations, but yes, it is slow.

Have a look at the free version of Genymotion.

Jim




-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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> If I download the Andriod SDK, it comes with a device emulator, right?
>
> Question: Can I use that to just, you know, *run Andriod*? Or will it
> *only* let you run apps you just developed?
>
> Obviously if you're emulating a phone, you can't actually make calls
> with it. But can it simulate everything else? If so, this seems like the
> easiest and cheapest way to find out what it's like to use...

No. It's slow, you can't use your fingers on the screen, and the 
resolution may well be larger than your monitor (vertically at least). 
But yes, you can navigate through the Android OS once you exit your app 
(IIRC it starts your app automatically with the emulator).

Why don't you just go to a shop that has these things on display (eg a 
big Tescos) and have a play?

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On 29/10/2015 08:18 AM, scott wrote:
> Why don't you just go to a shop that has these things on display (eg a
> big Tescos) and have a play?

To be fair, that's probably a better idea...

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