Minecraft coming to Raspberry Pi in hackable edition
Pinecraft, anyone?
Minecraft will soon be available for the Raspberry Pi, and in true Pi fashion will be hackable.
The Pi guys have blogged that they “sent a bunch of boards out to Notch and the guys at Mojang in Stockholm a little while back, and they’ve produced a port of Minecraft: Pocket Edition”.
The port, dubbed Minecraft: Pi Edition, offers “a revised feature set and support for several programming languages, so you can code direct into Minecraft before you start playing.”
Mojang's Owen has posted on the release and says the Pi edition will allow users to “start by building structures in the traditional Minecraft way, but once you’ve got to grips with the in-game features, there’s opportunity to break open the code and use programming language to manipulate things in the game world. You’ll be learning new skills through Minecraft.”
“It’s like hacking your way into Minecraft and modifying the game world with code, a bit like being Notch, Jeb, or Nathan, but arguably more fun and less stressful,” the post says, also offering “the cheapest LAN party of all time” as another P-powered possibility.
All concerned promise the Pi version will be available for download very soon now, but don't offer a date. The Pi version of the game will be free. ®
COMMENTS
@ AC 0653h - Re: all very well but..
void answer post() {
if (AC 0653h is troll){
votePost --;
} else {
post reply " What are those PR lies (from a non-profit foundation?) and what's the USB problem? It's ususally solved with a better power supply or an active hub. RPi are made to tinker with; if that's not your thing, buy an iPad."
}
}
Real computing
The beauty of the Pi is that it introduces kids to computing. These are not locked down "devices" - the path that Apple goes down, followed by Microsoft. These are computers, open, visible - and you can install what you like on them.
The Pi is a reminder of what computing is about. Let's hope that computing will always be free and accessible. The large corporations do not want that.
Re: Pi woes
Sounds like you have very early boards. The latest ones do not suffer from the hot LAN chip - this was a wiring fault caused by a less than comprehensive datasheet. It jsut gets hot thoruhg - shouldn't affect anything else. Also, the polyfuses are replaced with 0ohm resistors on the latest boards so power shouldn't be so much of an issue. You can mod you boards if you want to to get the same effect.
As to the USB connector - well, rough handling can break anything.
Banning on the forums - bollocks. Very few people have been banned. To say it is a regular occurrence is completely wrong. In one year I have banned about 5 people (excluding spammers who don't count). Please don't let the tiny minority of people who have been banned (and for bloody good reason too) tell you otherwise- they fucked up and now spend there whole time whining about it (although even they have quietened down recently), making the whole place sound like some draconian concentration camp which it plainly isn't. It's just sour grapes.
USB drivers. Massive improvement over the last 6 months. I suggest anyone still having problems upgrade to the latest kernel and drivers - the vast majority of people should no longer see problems. That said, there are still some areas being looked at. Considering there are nearly a million boards out there, we now get only a few reported issues. If you still have problems after trying the latest code, then report them on the Raspberry Pi forum - we need to know specific issues so they can be investigated.
Re: too much raspberry flavored koolaid
I think you've missed the point here; your example of using a used netbook may be valid, but it won't scale for most organisations.
The educational version of the RasPi will be available in any quantity, pretty much all over the world; I doubt that this will be the case for used netbooks.
As an individual, you can pretty much suit yourself as you only have to get one working, but if you are trying to set up a hundred systems for educational use then you run into problems of consistency. The Raspberry Pi isn't trying to solve the problem of providing a few enthusiasts with a solution to all their computing needs, it's trying to increase the availability of the programming experience to as many people as possible (over half a million Raspberrry Pi have been sold).
If you don't like the idea of the Raspberry Pi, fine, it isn't compulsory; but don't try to suggest solutions for a different problem as being "better than a Raspberry Pi".
If I remember correctly the stated aim was always to get the first Pi's out to hackers, tinkerers and enthusiasts, then, when the product has a higher level of maturity, release it for as a cased product for mass educational use. I always thought it should be considered in the same way as a Microsoft operating system, no sane person would use it in a liive / production situation until at least service pack one.
Having said that I have had non of the problems with USB stated above and quite happily run a SSD via USB on a powered hub as well as the normal gubbins like a keyboard, mouse, wireless dongle etc.
@csumpi
My normal Pi setup of Pi, power supply, keyboard, mouse, powered hub, wireless dongle, second hand laptop SATA drive and SD card came to about £70. Exactly which netbooks were you considering in this price range?
