My Ailing Laptop

Lately, my late 2013 MacBook Pro is refusing to stay connected to the household WiFi which is a source of irritation. It had been flaky for a while and one might suspect the laptop's WiFI but it connects just fine to the WiFi from my iPhone when I use the latter as a hotspot. I'm currently running a ten metre cable from the household router to it so all is well. I don't move about much with it anyway so it's not really an issue.

It's back to the old pre-WiFi days
for me as my laptop lapses into senility

Ever since I installed Linux Mint on my laptop to replace the Mac OS, the Bluetooth has not worked but that didn't bother me. I replaced the ten year old battery with a new one when I was in Australia earlier this year and that has really given the old laptop a new lease on life. There's no doubt however, that the device, like its owner, is showing its age. Last night, I discovered that closing the lid placed the laptop in permanent suspension from which it would not awake. Once the lid closed, I needed to restart it. However, by changing preferences so that closing the lid had no effect, I was able to remedy that little glitch.

I've lately found my misplaced USB cooling pad and so I now rest the laptop on that to keep it cool as it can often overheat if placed under even minimal stress. Overall, despite its current quirks, the machine is quite sufficient for my needs and I've grown quite attached to it after using it regularly for over nine years now. It may even see me out. Who knows? In the meantime I still have my Raspberry Pi 400 keyboard computer as a back up in case my primary device has a heart attack. 

My backup device
Raspberry Pi 400

There is a Raspberry 5 out now but no sign of a Raspberry Pi 500 as yet. Regardless, such a device would be superfluous to my needs at the moment. As the year draws to a close, I must note that my output this year of 26 posts falls far short of my output for 2022 when I made 47 posts. However, it's consistent with my output in other years since my output for earlier years was:

►  2021 (27)

►  2020 (22)

►  2019 (17)

►  2018 (16)

►  2017 (24)

►  2016 (16)

The average number of posts for the years 2016 to 2023 is a little over 24 posts or almost exactly two per month.

Old Webcam Finds New Life

I have my  Raspberry Pi 400 connected to an old Samsung monitor but up until now I haven't had a webcam attached to it. However, I found an old Logitech webcam that I once used with my a Toshiba Satellite laptop that I bought in 2006. Amazingly this expensive and ultimately disappointing machine didn't have a webcam which is why I purchased the Logitech accessory in October of 2007. I bought the laptop in mid-2006 and had been using a UMax webcam prior to this. Here is a short YouTube video that I made at the time announcing my purchase.

After I started using Mac laptops in 2011, there was no need for the Logitech webcam and so it was left in a drawer in my study. However, today I dusted it off and plugged it into my Pi 400. After installing Cheese, I took this 640 x 480 photo:

Well, it does the job with a decidedly retro flair. Who would have thought that I'd be using this old webcam again a full 15 years later! Not that I have much use for it as I don't use Zoom or other such software but at least it's there if I need it.

Raspberry Pi 400 (2020) versus MacBook Pro (Retina 13" late 2013)

I have two computing devices with keyboards: one is a Raspberry Pi 400 released in 2000 and which I bought in April of 2022; the other is laptop, my MacBook Pro, released in late 2013 and which I purchased in August of 2014.

The specifications are as follows:

MacBook Pro Retina 13" with 2560-by-1600 resolution at 227 pixels per inch and 2.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache. It has a 256GB SSD and 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory. The Intel Iris Graphics support dual display and video mirroring, simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays, both at millions of colors. There is a 720p FaceTime HD camera.

The Raspberry Pi 400 contains the same general specifications as the Raspberry Pi 4 but is tweaked for this new form factor. Thanks to work on the device’s thermal performance, the processor on Pi 400 has an increased clock speed over the base Pi 4. As a result, the Pi 400 has an increased clock rate from 1.5 GHz to 1.8 GHz. Meaning you should get slightly better performance when using this device. Unlike the Pi 4, there is only one variant of the Raspberry Pi 400. You can only get 4GB of memory with this device. Another change with this device is that it only has three USB ports. One is a USB 2.0 port, and the other two are USB 3.0 ports. The rest of the specifications of the device remains the same as the Raspberry Pi 4. You have access to the same GPIO pins, gigabit ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth as the base device.

It's probably not fair to compare the two devices but, as I use each of them daily, I will. In its day, the MacBook Pro was a premium device and it still holds it own. I've installed Linux Mint, replacing the Mac OS, and am quite satisfied with its performance. Mind you, I don't demand much of it nowadays. At most I'd have twenty tabs open in Google Chrome at any one time, sometimes watching YouTube videos or playing music in the YouTubeMusic tab. I may do some editing in Google Docs. The laptop sometimes runs hot and the fan works overtime but only when processor intensive tabs are opened like AirTable. The only hardware problem I have is the camera which ceases to function under Linux. For me this is not a problem but it might be for others who want to use programs like Zoom or the like. The battery of course after all these years is very weak and is rapidly depleted when not connected to an AC power outlet.

The Raspberry Pi 4 performs well enough given that it is a budget device. It could definitely benefit from 8GB of RAM instead of only half that. At times there is a noticeable lag in keyboard response if too many tabs are open in the Chromium browser. The Bluetooth is faulty and I've been unable to connect wireless earphones to the device. This is a problem since for some unknown reason there is no earphone jack. I've created a workaround that I've discussed in an earlier post. The keyboard is far less satisfying than the one of the laptop. The lack of a fully fledged browser like Chrome is annoying but with the Raspberry Pi OS that's what you get. I've tried booting into Linux but things didn't go and again I've described the experience in earlier posts. There's no battery for the Pi, it must be connected to an AC power supply but its form factor makes it very portable. To function, it just needs power and a monitor or TV.

The MacBook Pro model that I have is currently selling for about US$250 on Amazon while the Raspberry Pi 400 Personal Computer Kit is selling for about US$100.