Livecode blows a Raspberry?

varvar chemrama at gmail.com
Sun Apr 22 00:35:41 EDT 2012


Re: Livecode blows a Raspberry? LiveCode does not currently support ARM/Linux
(as opposed to (de facto) ARM/Android).

OK, I had made the original request in January  to LiveCode Dev for a
ARM/Linux port, anticipating release of the Raspberry Pi. I have no idea
what RunRev thinks of all of this, but given the recent press release where
I understand that LiveCode is going to be adopted as the programming IDE in
schools in a major school district close to Cambridge, they should pay
attention to Raspberry Pi and Eben Upton's stated mission of promoting
interest in computing among school age children, and port LiveCode to
ARM/Linux. If they do not, all is not lost since the Android/ARM gadgets are
also in freefall as far as prices are concerned. When I attended the MIT ARM
Dev Conference in February, Eben was very candid about how the Foundation's
objectives vis-a-vis hardware had changed. Originally, they wanted
everything to be sourced in  the U.K., I believe. But they soon found out
that this was not going to be cost effective , and after much debate,
decided to OEM from China. Well, the Raspberry may be the cheapest computer
in the world, but you need display, keyboard,  etc., and that adds $ to the
cost.

If you do a diligent Google search, you will find OEMs in China offering
Android tablets at a cost of between $75 and $90 at the time I am posting
this--it drops every few days! What is the advantage of an Android tablet?
Most of them throw in the wireless interface and you do not need a display
or keyboard. So, you may not get the world's tiniest SBC/COM but you
certainly get a very low power, high res display all-in-one gadget, somewhat
more "open" than the Pi [it was my understanding from the MIT presentation
that certain parts of the Raspberry hardware engine , esp display drivers
and graphics,  were proprietary.] The Android tablets are all fairly generic
standard "clones."! Thus, LiveCode will run effortlessly on these low cost
machines, as I have determined from my tests. (Make sure that the OS is >
2.3 though!)

A final remark, again based on my testing, check out this company (Genesi 
http://www.genesi-usa.com/products http://www.genesi-usa.com/products ) 
that makes the EFIKA, A FULL ARM SBC IN A  slim CASE/box  that weighs approx
250 g, has a HDMI port, a USB port, Wired AND wireless ethernet, and a SD
card slot , runs Linux off internal flash RAM but boots Android (build
supplied by  Genesi) from the SD card. This elegant gadget costs $130 but I
am sure the company will look at ways to bring prices even lower. I got a
simple LiveCode app working effortlessly on the EFIKA.
Pardon the grammar and punctuation, and I am sorry if I have violated any
post etiquette or posted in the wrong forum--I do not post very often.
Rama Viswanathan, Beloit, Wisconsin, April 21, 2012

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