(December 13, 2016 at 5:36 pm)pocaracas Wrote: igh:
It may emulate perfectly up to the N64... but if you already have a desktop or laptop, you already have a machine that's powerful enough to emulate perfectly up to the playstation and gamecube... or even beyond those.
If it's to be a learning tool, you may already have it. Why waste mooneys on an extra device? one that will then call for a bluetooth keyboard and mouse... because you know you'll want those... more moolah!

But yeah, go ahead. The Raspberry Pi is a great little device that can run a full linux distro. I have one running right now, just so I can do ssh tunneling to my home and serve a few media files that I have on a usb stick.
I've tried the XBMC ROM on it and it played 1080p movie files flawlessly. Never did get to try emulators, because... no extra keyboard and mouse... I just used the ones connected to my main desktop computer to set up the Pi and now I only access it via SSH. It has X, so I can even run a web browser on that... but that's slow.

I'm a PC tech.  I know what you're saying.  But you can't easily lug a computer to a friend's house and it's just not as "cool".  You can use just a USB keyboard and mouse, which I usually have lying around in abundance.  That's if you even need them, which you don't after the setup for it to be an emulator.

And there's another reason to go with the Pi.  I've always wanted one, but I'm more of a "giver" than a "getter".  I don't spend money on myself, like, ever.  I'll get to play with it too.  If I'm lucky I can get him interested in projects we can work on together.  When I was his age there was nothing I loved more than BASIC programming on my Timex/Sinclair 1500 and Tandy Color Computer 3.  The best thing in the world for me was creating a program to make the computer do exactly what I wanted it to, no matter how stupid that thing was.  Whether it be a basketball scoreboard or a needle injecting a circle or consecutively larger circles creating a pattern, it was my greatest joy.  The Timex/Sinclair took something like 20 or 30 seconds just to clear the text off the screen, if I recall.

So, yeah, I know the emulators have been around for years.  I've used a few of them over the years.  Right now on my work computer I have an Adam computer emulator through which I put on Zaxxon just to pause it for the pause music, which I have always loved.  It's not the same, though.  PCs have never, ever brought me the joy the weird shit did.

(December 13, 2016 at 7:06 pm)Asmodee Wrote:

(December 13, 2016 at 5:36 pm)pocaracas Wrote: igh:
It may emulate perfectly up to the N64... but if you already have a desktop or laptop, you already have a machine that's powerful enough to emulate perfectly up to the playstation and gamecube... or even beyond those.
If it's to be a learning tool, you may already have it. Why waste mooneys on an extra device? one that will then call for a bluetooth keyboard and mouse... because you know you'll want those... more moolah!

But yeah, go ahead. The Raspberry Pi is a great little device that can run a full linux distro. I have one running right now, just so I can do ssh tunneling to my home and serve a few media files that I have on a usb stick.
I've tried the XBMC ROM on it and it played 1080p movie files flawlessly. Never did get to try emulators, because... no extra keyboard and mouse... I just used the ones connected to my main desktop computer to set up the Pi and now I only access it via SSH. It has X, so I can even run a web browser on that... but that's slow.

I'm a PC tech.  I know what you're saying.  But you can't easily lug a computer to a friend's house and it's just not as "cool".  You can use just a USB keyboard and mouse, which I usually have lying around in abundance.  That's if you even need them, which you don't after the setup for it to be an emulator.

And there's another reason to go with the Pi.  I've always wanted one, but I'm more of a "giver" than a "getter".  I don't spend money on myself, like, ever.  I'll get to play with it too.  If I'm lucky I can get him interested in projects we can work on together.  When I was his age there was nothing I loved more than BASIC programming on my Timex/Sinclair 1500 and Tandy Color Computer 3.  The best thing in the world for me was creating a program to make the computer do exactly what I wanted it to, no matter how stupid that thing was.  Whether it be a basketball scoreboard or a needle injecting a circle or consecutively larger circles creating a pattern, it was my greatest joy.  The Timex/Sinclair took something like 20 or 30 seconds just to clear the text off the screen, if I recall.

So, yeah, I know the emulators have been around for years.  I've used a few of them over the years.  Right now on my work computer I have an Adam computer emulator through which I put on Zaxxon just to pause it for the pause music, which I have always loved.  It's not the same, though.  PCs have never, ever brought me the joy the weird shit did.

See what I bolded, there? say no more!
I know the feeling.

Good luck getting your kid hooked on the Pi!

(December 13, 2016 at 7:10 pm)pocaracas Wrote: See what I bolded, there? say no more!
I know the feeling.

Good luck getting your kid hooked on the Pi!

Ah, so few things these days make me actually chuckle.  Thank you!

(December 13, 2016 at 5:22 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(December 13, 2016 at 4:11 am)Atheist_BG Wrote: You're throwing too much at something that old. I wouldn't pay more than a dollar for that ancient crap, let alone 90!

lol that's only because you don't know what it means to have a soul!

I do have a soul. And soon it will be upgraded with i3 4170, 1150 socket motherboard and 32GB RAM. Certainly can handle a lot better games than the ancient Nintendo.

(December 14, 2016 at 6:54 am)Atheist_BG Wrote:

(December 13, 2016 at 5:22 pm)bennyboy Wrote: lol that's only because you don't know what it means to have a soul!

I do have a soul. And soon it will be upgraded with i3 4170, 1150 socket motherboard and 32GB RAM.    Certainly can handle a lot better games than the ancient Nintendo.

Don't buy that much RAM, trust me.

Buy 2 sticks of better-rated RAM for the same money.  Unless you are rendering 3D graphics, processing video files, and playing the newest video games all at the same time, you'll never need more than 16Gb.

/2 cents from a programmer and video editor who has never used more than about 10Gb max.

(December 14, 2016 at 7:17 am)bennyboy Wrote: Don't buy that much RAM, trust me.

Buy 2 sticks of better-rated RAM for the same money.  Unless you are rendering 3D graphics, processing video files, and playing the newest video games all at the same time, you'll never need more than 16Gb.

/2 cents from a programmer and video editor who has never used more than about 10Gb max.

We're going a little off-topic here but I promise this is the last off-topic post I'll make in this topic.

There was a time when 1GB RAM was big, enormous, huge, enough for anything and everything. Nowadays 1GB RAM ain't enough for anything, not even for the OS, let alone for a decent web browser. Nowadays 8GB is somewhat enough. So additional RAM is never redundant. I already got one stick of 8GB DDR3 RAM and I'm gonna buy 3 more in the coming year. For the things I'm gonna use the computer (gaming's just one of the things) 32GB will be perfect: virtual machines, music making programs (one of which requires 8GB available RAM), visual studio for programming.

(December 14, 2016 at 7:17 am)bennyboy Wrote: you'll never need more than 16Gb.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Bill_Gates

IIRC, there was a computer developed in the 1950s, and the builders of it decided the entire planet earth only needed <10 of them, so they didn't go into production . . .

(December 13, 2016 at 5:36 pm)pocaracas Wrote: igh:
It may emulate perfectly up to the N64... but if you already have a desktop or laptop, you already have a machine that's powerful enough to emulate perfectly up to the playstation and gamecube... or even beyond those.
If it's to be a learning tool, you may already have it. Why waste mooneys on an extra device? one that will then call for a bluetooth keyboard and mouse... because you know you'll want those... more moolah!

But yeah, go ahead. The Raspberry Pi is a great little device that can run a full linux distro. I have one running right now, just so I can do ssh tunneling to my home and serve a few media files that I have on a usb stick.
I've tried the XBMC ROM on it and it played 1080p movie files flawlessly. Never did get to try emulators, because... no extra keyboard and mouse... I just used the ones connected to my main desktop computer to set up the Pi and now I only access it via SSH. It has X, so I can even run a web browser on that... but that's slow.

Someone been playing too much mafia with me lately?

(December 14, 2016 at 7:17 am)bennyboy Wrote:

(December 14, 2016 at 6:54 am)Atheist_BG Wrote: I do have a soul. And soon it will be upgraded with i3 4170, 1150 socket motherboard and 32GB RAM.    Certainly can handle a lot better games than the ancient Nintendo.

Don't buy that much RAM, trust me.

Buy 2 sticks of better-rated RAM for the same money.  Unless you are rendering 3D graphics, processing video files, and playing the newest video games all at the same time, you'll never need more than 16Gb.

/2 cents from a programmer and video editor who has never used more than about 10Gb max.

Especially on that processor.  Unless you're doing a "RAM drive", but I haven't seen one of those in years.  I'm sure they're still a thing, though.