[Indi]

About:
The idea behind a tiny and cheap computer for kids came in 2006, when Eben Upton and his colleagues at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory, including Rob Mullins, Jack Lang and Alan Mycroft, became concerned about the year-on-year decline in the numbers and skills levels of the A Level students applying to read Computer Science in each academic year. From a situation in the 1990s where most of the kids applying were coming to interview as experienced hobbyist programmers, the landscape in the 2000s was very different; a typical applicant might only have done a little web design.

Something had changed the way kids were interacting with computers. A number of problems were identified: the colonisation of the ICT curriculum with lessons on using Word and Excel, or writing webpages; the end of the dot-com boom; and the rise of the home PC and games console to replace the Amigas, BBC Micros, Spectrum ZX and Commodore 64 machines that people of an earlier generation learned to program on.

There isn’t much any small group of people can do to address problems like an inadequate school curriculum or the end of a financial bubble. But we felt that we could try to do something about the situation where computers had become so expensive and arcane that programming experimentation on them had to be forbidden by parents; and to find a platform that, like those old home computers, could boot into a programming environment. From 2006 to 2008, Eben designed several versions of what has now become the Raspberry Pi; you can see one of the earliest prototypes here.

By 2008, processors designed for mobile devices were becoming more affordable, and powerful enough to provide excellent multimedia, a feature we felt would make the board desirable to kids who wouldn’t initially be interested in a purely programming-oriented device. The project started to look very realisable. Eben (now a chip architect at Broadcom), Rob, Jack and Alan, teamed up with Pete Lomas, MD of hardware design and manufacture company Norcott Technologies, and David Braben, co-author of the seminal BBC Micro game Elite, to form the Raspberry Pi Foundation to make it a reality.

Three years later, we’re just going into mass production through licensed manufacture deals with element 14/Premier Farnell and RS Electronics – although it’s just the beginning of the Raspberry Pi story.

We’ve had enormous interest, support and help from the educational community, and we’ve been delighted and a little humbled by the number of enquiries from agencies and people far away from our original targets for the device. Developing countries are interested in the Raspberry Pi as productivity devices in areas that simply can’t afford the power and hardware needed to run a traditional desktop PC; hospitals and museums have contacted us to find out about using the Raspberry Pi to drive display devices. Parents of severely disabled kids have talked to us about monitoring and accessibility applications; and there seem to be a million and one people out there with hot soldering irons who want to make a robot.

We don’t claim to have all the answers. We don’t think that the Raspberry Pi is a fix to all of the world’s computing issues; we do believe that we can be a catalyst. We want to see cheap, accessible, programmable computers everywhere; we actively encourage other companies to clone what we’re doing. We want to break the paradigm where without spending hundreds of pounds on a PC, families can’t use the internet. We want owning a truly personal computer to be normal for children. We think that 2012 is going to be a very exciting year.

Website:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/

The Pi in itself:
http://www.avc.com/.a/6a00d83451b2c969e201...761ef970c-500wi

This post has been edited by Indi on Saturday, Jun 16 2012, 21:42

[H3NR1QU3]

I wanted to get one of those, install XBMC and use it to watch movies and stuff on my living room, but as far as I know it isn't available in my country.

[Indi]

QUOTE (H3NR1QU3 @ Saturday, Jun 16 2012, 22:45)

I wanted to get one of those, install XBMC and use it to watch movies and stuff on my living room, but as far as I know it isn't available in my country.

XBMC is still quite buggy for the Pi right now. The guy who is working on Raspbmc (the port of XBMC to Pi) said he is fixing some synching issues.

There's also another port as well which is OpenELEC.

I use my Pi for learning to program. It's a wonderful device and I'm glad the world of computing is coming back for kids, I wish this type of stuff was out when I was younger, I'd be pretty good at programming by now if this was released a couple of years ago.

I hate the way I.C.T. is taught in schools. It's general knowledge mainly, computing is how to learn what computers do and the arcitecture of them.

This post has been edited by Indi on Saturday, Jun 16 2012, 21:52

[Whiskey]

That's pretty damn awesome. I've never heard of them until now now. Starting computers in college hopefully in August and it will be great to practice with. Also it will be great to use as a media center in my living room.

[Gareth Croke]

QUOTE (Indi @ Saturday, Jun 16 2012, 22:49)

I hate the way I.C.T. is taught in schools. It's general knowledge mainly, computing is how to learn what computers do and the arcitecture of them.

So it's not changed since I was at school all those years ago, when GCSE IT was basically the Windows 3.11 and MS-DOS 6.22 Manual

I like this idea, could be a little bit fun to start tinkering with it, and kinda taking things back to what they once were (invokes old clause) when I were young nipper trying to program my old BBC micro.

[Indi]

QUOTE (Gareth Croke @ Sunday, Jun 17 2012, 22:34)

QUOTE (Indi @ Saturday, Jun 16 2012, 22:49) I hate the way I.C.T. is taught in schools.  It's general knowledge mainly, computing is how to learn what computers do and the arcitecture of them. So it's not changed since I was at school all those years ago, when GCSE IT was basically the Windows 3.11 and MS-DOS 6.22 Manual I like this idea, could be a little bit fun to start tinkering with it, and kinda taking things back to what they once were (invokes old clause) when I were young nipper trying to program my old BBC micro.

Oh man it is f*cking horrendous. I had a terrible teacher who was such a lazy man who would not help you at all and didn't have any patience, on top of that as well I was sitting in lessons bored out of my mind because I was doing sh*t that I already knew, but had to shove all of the knowledge into powerpoint slides, and I had to take pictures to show that I did the stuff on my own, such a tedious process and really bad. I.C.T. definitely needs some work in schools.

On top of that there was 2 theory exams, and then you learn pointless crap that you will not need to learn. Say if you work on computers day-in-day-out, you will naturally learn how to explain things in your own words by using a computer, but from what I found was that examination boards wanted you to learn specific and key phrases to use in the exams, even though I know I am very good at computers... and the grades that people get is quite heartbreaking for some people, it's very biased and the courses aren't for everyone. Definitely needs work done to the curriculums.

This post has been edited by Indi on Sunday, Jun 17 2012, 23:39

[Ronnyboy]

I've been following the project for a bit and it's a genius idea. I can't wait to get mine, just so I can f*ck around with it. My friend who's big into linux keeps telling me to dual boot my gaming PC. Problem is, I don't have the time nor the need for it on my main machine, so it'd be nice to have this to play with.

[Pico]

I had a preorder in the day they opened up... only to find out two weeks later the order never submitted. Could have sworn I went all the way through with it. But seeing as how it was back ordered to the end of time by then I decided to leave it alone for now.

I like the idea of a tiny PC. I planned on using it as a media center PC. I've got different plans now that don't center around a Pi.

[H3NR1QU3]

So here's an alternative to Raspberry PI:
http://liliputing.com/2012/06/gooseberry-d...spberry-pi.html

Looks pretty cool too if you ask me.

@Indi: I didn't know about those issues with XBMC, I thought as it is able to run Linux it would also be able to run XBMC without a problem.

[Ben Again]

Has anyone tried to run a GTA game on one of these? I'd think it could run GTA III, but is there even a Linux version of that? Owait, you can get android on it. Would that work?

[sivispacem]

There's no way it could run any GTA game. Even hacked and extensively modified ones only just have the minimum requirements to run full builds of comparatively sparse operating systems- Linux variants like Ubuntu and Mint properly.

[3niX]

Well...

FreeRTOS and Raspberry Pi would make a lovely combination. Would love to experiment with it one day.

[Forty]

I bought one of these recently along with a starter kit that includes extra power cords, HDMI cable, a spare SD card and a protective case for $75 all total. I got RaspBMC set up wonderfully but then came to the realization that I need a powered USB hub for my Seagate external hard drive, as the Pi doesn't have enough juice to keep it running. I didn't plan for this, and the setup has been put on hold until I can acquire that piece.

[sivispacem]

They've been really slow on the up-take producing peripherals for them. We've got a few we used at work as pentest tools and half the peripherals for those are entirely custom. Not even interesting stuff, either.

[trip]

I can't tell you how many time I go to order a Model B only to back out because I can't come up with a good project to use one of these cute little Pi`s for.

If I could [properly] run an arcade monitor off it I would use it for MAME cabinets.

Just curious. For those who have one - what have you been doing with it?

[sivispacem]

I've not done anything with mine yet- I'm waiting for the release of some pentesting hardware for it. I've seen them used for pentesting, various pet projects like controlling LED and LCD displays, gaming, as ICS/SCADA systems to control domestic HVAC, and as mild gaming machines.