[csmithuk]

Not particularly excited. After spending a number of years with embedded systems, my tolerance has faded a little. We tried the "follow the instructions" and no help thing to start with. Unfortunately we were blessed with only a composite video cable which is to be fair, a flipping nightmare of reading inconclusive LED states and fumbling around in the dark with no video output. That is where the documentation stops and years of prior experience of embedded systems and knowing what to search for kicks in. Each step came with its own pile of crud to deal with. Each hoop jumped through chips a little bit of interest away. The inevitable question that gets asked is:

"Dad: is this what your job is about?"

It's not and never has been.

The perfect Apple 2 / C64 (or in my case, BBC Model B) was the one that you opened the box, plugged it in and it worked the moment you turned it on without fail, every time and never poked you in the eye unless you told it to.

I still think the (partial inspiration for the Pi) i.e. the BBC Micro is still a better starting point than the Pi itself. Well documented, relatively simple, very powerful, forgiving and the ability to write high level (basic) or low level code (assembly) from the get go from the books that came with it, can play games on it and if you screw anything up, just restart it.