On 2019-06-24 9:28 a.m., James Knott via talk wrote:

It would be nice if they made a model with 2 Ethernet ports.

I don't think they have room on the board. I suspect the demand for such things is rather higher on this list than elsewhere. But a 4 GB DDR4 machine with a quad-core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.5GHz coupled to a USB3 SSD might be handy. They haven't quite got USB3 boot sorted yet though. I don't think any supplier in Canada has them yet. Chicago Distribution (the US arm of Elmwood Electronics) looks like they are supposed to get them in early July. Not a bad 50th birthday present for me ... cheers, Stewart

On 2019-06-24 11:20 AM, Alvin Starr via talk wrote:

Netgear has a cheap (~$100)  8 port managed switch that will support VLANs. There is also a version that will provide POE.

There are plenty of cheap managed switches available, with 5 port starting at around $35, though TP-Link should be avoided, as they don't do VLANs properly.

On 2019-06-27 3:34 p.m., Stewart Russell via talk wrote:

Given that they've launched models in January, February, March, June and November, I won't ever ask you to draw me a circle ...

This one came out early as the work on the SoC went quickly. It apparently supports 8 GB of LPDDR4, but they don't offer a board with that yet.??

The announcements I've usually heard and paid attention to are the ones that have come on Pi Day. I haven't noticed product releases on other days of the year. I think I saw something about an 8GB model being available possibly (very?) late this year. -- Cheers! Kevin. http://www.ve3syb.ca/ | "Nerds make the shiny things that https://www.patreon.com/KevinCozens | distract the mouth-breathers, and | that's why we're powerful" Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 | #include <disclaimer/favourite> | --Chris Hardwick

On Sun, 28 Jul 2019 at 17:04, Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

… but good luck getting one, even still. Especially the 4 GB ones

These guys claim stock now: https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-4-4gb.html I recall stock problems in the first few moths of previous releases too. How important are the heatsinks? Does the new processor need them?

On Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 05:03:25PM -0400, Stewart C. Russell via talk wrote:

… but good luck getting one, even still. Especially the 4 GB ones

It seems that official Raspberry Pi resellers are finding that the North American importer, OKdo (formerly Allied), is selling units out from under the resellers. That's why Digikey - not an official reseller - has them and resellers don't. Getting qualified as an official reseller isn't easy: lots of paperwork and NDAs, possibly even minimum order guarantees.

I think I will wait for a revision with a correct USB power port. I already have a 2 and a 3 and haven't done much with them yet (plenty of plans, no actual doing anything). -- Len Sorensen

| From: Kevin Cozens via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | I found one Canadian authorized seller (afaict as they are listed on the RPi | site when you click on Buy Now) that has decent prices and shipping. It is | buyapi.ca and they appear to be showing that 1GB and 2GB models are in stock. | I'm still waiting on the 4GB. <https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-4-4gb.html> It looks as if they have 4g units in stock. They don't say so explicitly. They are a Vancouver company. I have not checked to see if they are authorized. You can buy in C$ or US$. When I last looked, the US$ prices were slightly better; that may just have been a lag in updating their exchange rates. Warning: credit cards and banks take an unconscionable fee when exchanging currency so buying in US$ might only make sense if you have some US$ already. Raspberry Pi 4 basic kit: US$69.95, C$94.95. One source says it should be C$90.96 at the moment. Many credit cards charge 2%, smaller than this difference (but they probably convert when the transaction is posted). Oops: it seems that when you ship to a Canadian address, they force the currency to C$. The cheapest shipping for 3 units is CA$14.95. Probably the same for a single unit. So group ordering might make sense. Only "express" shipping ($31.95) would arrive in time for the next GTALUG meeting. | I still haven't decided if I really need another Pi (I have 5 in total, of | different types), but I may grab a 4GB model 4 just to have it. Agreed. But I'm more in Lennart's situation: I have several Pis that I'm not using (yet?). The Pi 4 certainly addresses some glaring limitations of the previous models. Note: the previous models were perfectly fine for their intended uses.

On 2019-08-07 6:39 p.m., Stewart C. Russell via talk wrote:

Seems that Raspberry Pi (Foundation|Trading Ltd) have been completely blindsided by demand for the 4GB model, with the possibility that they're being intended as corporate thin clients or low-power desktop

It isn't the first time they have underestimated demand. Remember the situation with the Pi Zero? It took a long time before stock of that device was readily available. -- Cheers! Kevin. http://www.ve3syb.ca/ | "Nerds make the shiny things that https://www.patreon.com/KevinCozens | distract the mouth-breathers, and | that's why we're powerful" Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 | #include <disclaimer/favourite> | --Chris Hardwick

On Tue., Sep. 3, 2019, 12:45 Lennart Sorensen, <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

Vertical enter key, '|' key on left where shift should be. What's to like about that keyboard? Eww!

I honestly think I'm too old to care. I've been using it for the last couple of weeks and it's pretty decent. The mouse is good enough, I guess - though it's no IBM//Lenovo Trackpoint mouse. Stewart

On 2019-09-03 3:25 p.m., Lennart Sorensen wrote:

If you work on look, hunt and peck princible, then sure, anything will do.

Oddly, swearing at keyboards seems fairly limited to computer types. I use to work with a lot of copy-typists, and they could work on anything at all. They'd switch from Suns to Macs to Thinkpads to real typewriters without complaint. Some of them were using multilingual layouts and could use QWERTY, AZERTY and QWERTZ at blazing speeds depending on the language of the project. These people were the fastest and most accurate keyboarders I've ever met — like, ‘retype a whole page with no errors faster than you could walk to the photocopier and back’ fast — and they lived all day on keyboards. I don't think I heard about them complain about a computer keyboard ever. Plenty of complaints about chairs and desks, sure, but no complaints about keyboards. (There was a specific desk's keyboard that they'd complain about *a lot* though, and refuse to use unless it was the only one available. It belonged to an editor who would water their plants over the keyboard and also eat their lunch directly over it. It's the only keyboard I've ever seem that had algae growing between the keys, while some of the keys would rebound very slowly accompanied by a wet sucking noise. It was very unhygienic.) I never learned to type, and likely will keep my 4½-finger typing technique until I die. My current (non-Raspberry Pi) keyboard is a CoolerMaster gaming thing with an irritating top row. They keys are marked ` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + which is no fun if you're keyboarding by sight. Stewart

On Tue, Sep 03, 2019 at 08:17:56PM -0400, Stewart C. Russell via talk wrote:

Oddly, swearing at keyboards seems fairly limited to computer types. I use to work with a lot of copy-typists, and they could work on anything at all. They'd switch from Suns to Macs to Thinkpads to real typewriters without complaint. Some of them were using multilingual layouts and could use QWERTY, AZERTY and QWERTZ at blazing speeds depending on the language of the project.

These people were the fastest and most accurate keyboarders I've ever met — like, ‘retype a whole page with no errors faster than you could walk to the photocopier and back’ fast — and they lived all day on keyboards. I don't think I heard about them complain about a computer keyboard ever. Plenty of complaints about chairs and desks, sure, but no complaints about keyboards.

The letter keys are not the ones being moved around. If all you do is enter text, the placement of most other keys don't matter that much (although I would think the size of the shift key and the enter key would still be a problem in some cases). I remember my mother did not get along with the microsoft natural keyboard because they put n on the wrong half of the split. Of course some people think they put it on the right half. Depends how you learned to type. Well azerty does move letters around and I am surprised if someone can actually be efficient on both azerty and qwerty. Impressive. I have seen people be pretty efficient on both qwerty and dvorak though, which is totally different, so I guess you could get used to it.

(There was a specific desk's keyboard that they'd complain about *a lot* though, and refuse to use unless it was the only one available. It belonged to an editor who would water their plants over the keyboard and also eat their lunch directly over it. It's the only keyboard I've ever seem that had algae growing between the keys, while some of the keys would rebound very slowly accompanied by a wet sucking noise. It was very unhygienic.)

Eww!

I never learned to type, and likely will keep my 4½-finger typing technique until I die. My current (non-Raspberry Pi) keyboard is a CoolerMaster gaming thing with an irritating top row. They keys are marked

` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ +

which is no fun if you're keyboarding by sight.

Oh top and bottom labels are reversed? -- Len Sorensen

On Tue, Sep 03, 2019 at 03:43:14PM -0400, Kevin Cozens via talk wrote:

The shift key is where it is supposed to be. The | is in the wrong place along with a few other keys. I was thinking of getting one of those keyboards to go along with the matching red and white case and white power supply. Now I think I will skip getting it. I'm a touch typist. Those keys that have been moved would have me checking what distance I could get out of the keyboard when I chuck it out the window. :)

Well the left shift key is too short, and the part of it I use is there '|' is placed. :) -- Len Sorensen