Scratch on XO Update
While I was trying the new version of Runtime Revolution on the XO this weekend, I also did a Software Update for the XO. A new version of Scratch was downloaded and installed.
The new Scratch is version 1.3.1 - just like for the PC and Mac! I decided to give it a try. In an earlier post, I tried Scratch on the XO - and couldn’t recommend it! See the article here. For completeness sake, I’m running build 767 on a standard G1G1 XO.
My impressions were somewhat improved this time:
- Performance when dragging programming elements was good. In my previous test, I noted that the dragging was so jerky that it was almost impossible to place the programming elements.
- The screen elements are still very small. This is probably just an old man problem… and it didn’t seem as bad without the jerkiness when placing programming elements.
- I tried a pretty challenging (processing wise) flight simulator game from the Scratch website, see here. This has several scripts running in parallel in forever loops with short delays (I think they are at about .1 second). This game was very sluggish - but it did play!
- The flight simulator game sound played for a while and then stopped.
Although I would still choose a full powered computer over the XO to work with Scratch, it is clear that the Scratch Team is working to make the XO a viable Scratch development platform. And, for simpler projects, I think the XO would be fine with this current version of Scratch.
A few additional notes:
- I don’t know if it is a Scratch or XO issue, I could not download the Scratch projects from the MIT website and open them in Scratch. Although the files would appear in the Journal, they were not associated with Scratch. I was able to move files to the XO using a Flash drive and the Terminal activity.
- Suspend / Resume does work now.
- I didn’t note during my original review that the version of Scratch for the XO doesn’t include all of the backgrounds, sprites, … available in the Windows version. Some are included - but not all.