Raspberry Pi Arrives, With a School Debut In Leeds 148
hypnosec writes "It seems fitting that the first batch of Raspberry Pi computers landed in the UK in the hands of school children based in Leeds as what many consider as another wave of grass-root computing revolution, another BBC Micro 2.0, begins. The Raspberry Pi has been designed from scratch to get anyone interested in computer programming to do so without forking out much; the base unit can connect to a television like the Commodore C64 or the Sinclair ZX81. According to the BBC, the first batch has been presented [Friday] by Eben Upton, the school project coordinator, in an event held at the Leeds offices of Premier Farnell, one of the official PI distributors."
At the price. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Ordering now means you'll probably get yours at the end of summer. You'll have to wait longer still if you want several, because right now orders are limited to one per person. If you just want to get experience working with clusters, create a couple of VMs and a virtual network. If you want to cluster Pis to get more performance, get a real computer: cheaper and faster (and available).
Re:At the price. (Score:5, Informative)
who said he wanted performance. He said he wanted fun, which you obviously have no sense of. Good day sir!
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I think he meant "dropping", not "dropped". He'll pay USD200 (I think he'll pay USD, given his prior comments) to get 8 Raspberry Pis to connect together.
As the other replies to him note, there might be some problems with that.
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Of course, if you're looking to spend $25 each (to get 8 for $200), you're going to get the version with no Ethernet... the Model B with Ethernet is $35...
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unless he's talking £ not $ then 8 for £200 is just possible. ^_^
Re:no (Score:5, Interesting)
Lied about import duty? One of the most interesting things about this whole process has been how upfront and transparent they've been. When they discover some new roadblock or detail that they weren't aware of (such as the status of the Pi wrt import duties, or the requirement for CE testing), they've been quick to post to their blog and tell the world about it.
As for "and market them badly"... really? How much do you suppose they've spent on marketing, exactly? Are you aware of how much publicity they're getting, worldwide, for free? Even my local newspaper, which is absolutely dreadful for tech news, has carried very positive (and nearly accurate!) stories on the Raspberry Pi. Seems to me that, if there's one thing they've done extremely well, it's creating a huge buzz around their concept, WITHOUT blowing a huge pile on marketing.
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One of the most interesting things about this whole process has been how upfront and transparent they've been
Yes, like when they said they are sitting on 10K units ready to ship, or when they announced official launch and started selling nonexistent boards, or when they said that this time around they _really_ have 2K boards and to prove it they posted a picture of a chinese factory :). Or how now, 2 months after official launch, first people to get their hands on the boards are children in UK and not people who paind for the boards 2 months ago thinking they are buying something and not preordering.
WORST product
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WORST product launch ever. I just hope thats the end of rasppi drama and there wont be any more hurdles (for example lack of mpeg4 hardware acceleration, lack of camera interface documentation and so on)
This is a £16 computer intended for education, I'd be very surprised if it has either initially. If that surprises you or upsets you, perhaps you shouldn't be trying to order a £16 computer.
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WORST product launch ever. I just hope thats the end of rasppi drama and there wont be any more hurdles (for example lack of mpeg4 hardware acceleration, lack of camera interface documentation and so on)
This is a £16 computer intended for education, I'd be very surprised if it has either initially. If that surprises you or upsets you, perhaps you shouldn't be trying to order a £16 computer.
Perhaps if it doesnt have those Rasppi foundation should stop claiming it does? At this point I treat everything they announce as a wishful thinking full of omissions at best and lie at worst.
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did you read the reasons behind No. 4 on your list?
Initially the foundation expected the R-Pi would be only picked up by enthusiasts and developers (Like Arduino boards) so EC mark was not a requirement. Since it was being sold as a "Development" board NOT a finished Consumer item.
But when they realised the demand and reached out to the 2 companies to licence it, the companies WANTED the EC mark before they would sell it.
The R-Pi foundation was waiting for the initial surge of orders to pass so they could c
Re:no (Score:5, Interesting)
Initially the foundation expected the R-Pi would be only picked up by enthusiasts and developers (Like Arduino boards) so EC mark was not a requirement. Since it was being sold as a "Development" board NOT a finished Consumer item.
Confirming that "we must manufacture abroad because finished gadgets don't attract import duty" is bunkum.
The Raspi was always going to be sold as a finish board; it's not possible for it to be hand soldered. The original intent was to manufacture in the UK but that proved to be too expensive in part due to the import issues... I believe the duty costs on the parts was greater than the duty costs on a completed board. Which is dumb, but not the fault of the Raspi Foundation.
The original plan was that the Raspi would be sold like Arduino/Beagle boards - i.e. as development boards - and thus would not require CE certification in the first instance. However, either due to the volume of demand and/or the way it was being promoted - i.e. as a board you can just plug straight into your TV for immediate use - the distributors then decided they needed certification from the get-go.
And before you say "but they should've known the demand would be high; how would they have delivered it to millions of school kids like this", the original manufacturing volumes were always going to be low, but they had expected the types of people who would pick up the intial Raspi's would be nerds/developers who would help in creating the eco-system for when production ramped up and certification had been completed.
And I guess for RS/Farnell, the problem was that with such huge demand, they'd be legally vulnerable if the product wasn't certified.
But when they realised the demand and reached out to the 2 companies to licence it, the companies WANTED the EC mark before they would sell it.
Huh. Neither Upton nor anyone relevant at Broadcom would have any idea that one of the largest electronics distributors in the UK would expect EMC testing on a finished product?
Think I mostly dealt with this above, but just to reiterate, nope neither Upton nor Broadcom would have expected that *because* they expected it to be treated the same as other "development boards". In that sense, the Raspi was a victim of it's own success... had the launch been lower profile, and the demand lower, CE certification probably would not have been required initial. Indeed, it might be that RS/Farnell would not have been brought on-board so early.
The English are great at feigned ignorance, I must admit.
Casual racism... smooth! You do understand that the people running the show actually have day jobs and that they haven't done this before. They're smart people, but much of this has been a learning experience... albeit, if you've ever started a business yourself, you'd recognise the whole "on-going learning experience" that is running a business. However, since you'd don't appear to understand this, I have to assume that you're just one of these people who coasts along in life whilst snearing at others who *do* make the effort.
You seem to be making a lot of effort poking holes in a product that you apparently feel is worthless, which srikes me as odd.... it's almost as if you're some kind of... I dunno... internet troll or something! If you don't like the product and feel that other products exist and are better, buy those.
But just to get things in some kind of perspective, the Raspi is approx. 6 months late against what the foundation originally said. This seems entirely consistent with the rest of the industry as far as I can tell, but the difference here is that Upton and co. have been entirely up-front with where they are and what the problems are. And for a first effort, and entirely for charity, I'd say they've done fantastically well and should be getting credit they deserve.
**Note: this comment is entirely based on what I know purely by following the Raspi news. I'm not affiliates with the Foundation or anything, and I'm still waits for my Pi!
Stifling Regulation in U.K. Kills Jobs (Score:2)
From what you are saying regarding the costs of discrete components vs. a finished board, perhaps someone in government should be noticing that the organisation of these regulations is stifling manufacturing in the U.K..
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Duty is 15% at most on electronics imported into the EU
You don't know what you're talking about. The situation is very complicated, and varies depending on the type of component and the country of origin, but, for example, the duty on DRAM imported from Korea is 32.9% [hmrc.gov.uk].
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Well, it certainly isn't an exercise in teaching kids how to merely "program" because - well - we have every single deskop and laptop in the world for that. Nor is it an exercise in teaching kids how to electronically interface to the outside world - a dozen boards already provide that, as does a parallel/serial to USB interface. So what unique property do you think the Pi offers? Why exactly would anyone want a Pi, apart from "it seems hyped a lot so it must be good", please?
Assuming you're the same AC who's been posting similar comments up this thread then you seem to have paid plenty enough attention to Raspberry Pi to know that's not true. The rational of RPi has been pretty clearly laid out:
1) The is not the same supply of students arriving to universities with home programming experience as there were in recent decades.
2) The vast majority of kids no longer have access to devices for them to program:
2a) At home "the computer" is needed to do homework
Re:no (Score:4, Informative)
Re item 1) the tax is on individual components in the EU, but apparently excludes assembled PCBs. Hence (ignore also higher labour rates etc) it is more expensive to assemble the RPIs in the EU then get them made in china and shipped back. They spelled this out clearly on the blog. Its a stupid situation and one they have taken up with the UK minister for business.
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Re item 1) the tax is on individual components in the EU, but apparently excludes assembled PCBs.
One more time: this fabled "tax" ( technically a duty ) DOES NOT EXIST. There is no evidence of it. None. The Foundation have ignored all requests for information on it. MPs have raised questions about it in the Commons and no-one has the faintest idea what they're talking about.
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One more time: this fabled "tax" ( technically a duty ) DOES NOT EXIST. There is no evidence of it. None. The Foundation have ignored all requests for information on it. MPs have raised questions about it in the Commons and no-one has the faintest idea what they're talking about.
That should be an easy statement to back up with a citation.
I can't find one. Can you?
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The site you link to only appears to have a subset of the import tariffs based on origin country. If you click a specific product code to get to the country list it will show you the countries it has data for. If you select (e.g.) China from the drop down list at the top right, it will tell you it has no data for import tariffs on the product you selected from China. It also doesn't have data for Taiwan. As broadcom's preferred manufacturers are located in these countries, it is highly likely one or the
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Has this been marketed so many dilettante geeks who didn't already know about the myriad of options may buy them? Yes
What myriad? Which other products have a multi-hundred-megahertz 32-bit processor, 128 or higher MB of RAM, and respectably powerful DSP and GPU functionality for under $40? For under $80?
Re:no (Score:5, Informative)
That's an interesting rewrite of history. The BBC Microcomputer revolution was about entrepeneurs Chris Curry and Herman Hauser bidding against other rivals (Sinclair, Newbury, Dragon) to produce a computer under contract for the BBC. Acorn was already selling the Acorn Atom commercially and the BBC Micro was an upgrade to this. There was no liasing en masse with schools. The academics, inc Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber, were working for Acorn not acting out of charity.
The sad thing is you don't recognise the 6502 had nothing to do with British engineering, yet the ARM chip 100% is. This is very much the BBC micro revolution Mark 2, minus the OS.
Phillip.
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Again you are wrong. Acorn was not a group of academics, it was a company. IBM employes academics and undergraduates but that doesn't make them an educational establishment. I have no intention of revising the fact: Acorn were not philanthopists liasing with all the schools to produce the ideal education computer, they fought for a contract with the BBC who came up with a spec in order to make money.
You fail to see the discrepancy between your "glory days" of the BBC Micro being a bunch of foreign component
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"I reiterate my initial concern that Britain's doing fuck all today."
Mr Upton is a UK based SOC architect, I think it's safe to assume he is on the team that designed the BCM2835 therefore that's designed in the UK
PowerVR's Graphics - Imagination technology - (you know that thing that's in most mobile 3D chips) designed in UK.
Most digital radio is based on Pure's chips which again are designed by imagination technology
CSR - the basis of most bluetooth devices, again UK.
Cytrix, UK based
Symbian - about half o
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An American company provides a chip for a cookie cutter board built in China, surrounded by a hype and no long term plan.
This is not "the BBC micro revolution Mark 2".
Sorry.
It's a bare-bones computer for the cost of a top 10 DVD, with a FOSS OS, available for schools at a time when most state schools can barely afford to keep the lights on, let alone buy consumer grade electronics. Whether you think it's revolutionary or not, it's certainly something most educators will feel excited by.
Computing teaching in school is spotty at best, if not outright depressing. I went to a so-called "technology specialist" secondary school, and did the most computing-y course they offered (a GN
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If you wanted a through-and-through british design, development and manufacture you'd have to look at something like a transputer which WAS built in Britain during the mid 80s and would have wiped the floor with an 6502 based machine. Sadly it went the way of most british innovation and withered on the branch.
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In the 80s it was possible to build a computer like the BBC Micro yourself, but now all the parts are surface mount. Often you can't solder them without a some serious equipment, assuming you can order the parts in quantities of less than 1000.
I will be getting one to run from solar.
Re:no (Score:4, Interesting)
The Raspberry Pi charity is trying to improve computer education in British schools. Better education is important for the country.
What have you done to help?
The First Hurdle (Score:5, Insightful)
As people have mentioned before, simply creating the product and making it available isn't going to miraculously rejuvenate computer programming in the UK amongst children. After all, many children already have access to computers capable of running python as it is - and so do schools. If schools want to teach computer programming, it doesn't actually need a raspberry pi.
I think the next step is to create tutorials for the raspberry pi, and to ensure that schools aren't penalised for teaching computer programming (as in it won't detract from teaching time and achieving targets in other subjects), and I think the only way to do that is to make computer programming a new GCSE, with a curriculum, exams, and formal teaching time.
Re:The First Hurdle (Score:5, Informative)
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parents are anxious about the notion of allowing their children to experiment on an expensive home PC
Most parents don't have the vaguest notion of what their offspring do on a computer. The only thing they are more lacking in, is the ability to fix it if the little darlings do manage to screw it up.
In practice, the simplest, cheapest and quickest way to get children programming on a small Linux platform would be to install VirtualBox, whatever Linux image is suitable and then let rip. If this image does become irrevocably broken, a simple VM reinstall costs nothing and has no inherent risks. An alternativ
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I disagree. As soon as you start suggesting "install this software on your PC" - or even "boot from this LiveCD" you wind up with a plethora of support issues, ranging from "I tried it on the underpowered PC my parents bought at the height of the Vista debacle and found it too slow to be able to do anything", going through "My computer's been on the verge of failing for the last year; in a rather unfortunate coincidence it stopped booting immediately after installing your software and now I'm blaming you" a
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Most parents do have a good grasp of what their kids do, its play games, surf the web, chat on facebook. Not necessarily in that order.
The problem here is that everyone is running Windows, and that's been sold to them as a 'consumer device' rather than a general purpose computer. Its no wonder the vast majority of users knows how to program on it, it's practically not designed for that. Its designed to sell a pre-packaged box to people.
Your suggestion to "install virtualbox" shows your geek credentials - an
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sure, I know that too as I'm a developer for a MS shop, but we're the exception. Everyone else is told to be users, not developers. MS doesn't make it really really easy for them to get into coding. The Pi does things differently, that's why its a good thing.
(oh, and it's Linux, which is double-good ;) )
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I think you are wrong. The difference at school between using an Acorn Archimedes and using a Microsoft PC was huge. The latter was always locked down, you couldn't tinker with the OS (even if you could understand the mess of DLLs), limited as to what software you could install on there, couldn't drop down to assembler at the drop of a hat, and couldn't write full-screen arcade games in a few lines of BASIC. If I was forced to use Microsoft Windows rather than the Acorn computers when I was a child I would
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They have provided the spec sheet for the RPi SoC, it just has the gfx chip section removed (see the RPi blog). So hardly very different to the chip on the board you just wrote about.
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Are you trying to be deliberately dim? The section removed only contains the registers to control the gfx chip as there are restrictions on their release, everything else is there. Hardly very restrictive.
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good thing its not being introduced in tennessee.
they'd have to spend equal time 'theorizing' about how the raspi got created; and also if 2 ARM chips that are in a tightly coupled union are committing a sin while co-computing.
Re:The First Hurdle (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing you might not have taken into account is the actual experience of the teacher who would like to introduce students to programming. I have no experience with the British school system, but I did work for IT in a K-12 U.S. school system not too long ago, so I think I have something to say about this.
Where I worked, students' computers were heavily locked down Windows machines running a restricted set of software. Because of the machines' age, the bad third-party GPO-wannabe software that the school district used to manage the systems, and various virus infections, these computers were not the friendliest things to teachers and students – and both groups were perpetually scared to death of "messing up" the computers and getting in trouble. In reality, these PCs were used primarily as overcomplicated interfaces to various bits of flash- and web-based educational software, and anything else was deemed too troublesome.
The point is that between the technical deficiencies and the bureaucratic ones, getting school IT to allow students to run a new type of program and then support it can frankly be a nightmare. You say these computers are capable of running Python, and this is true in the strictest sense, but in reality it's just not going to happen when half of the admins don't even know what Python is, and the other half are too scared of deploying a new, "nonstandard" interpreter.
And if that's how IT feels about the prospect, just think of how frightening it looks to the teachers.
Now contrast that with using something like the Raspberry PI. You can program without messing up your "real" computer! No IT support required, you can reset it to factory configuration in a heartbeat, and even if you do manage to physically break it somehow... hey, it was only $25. Perhaps most importantly, you can write a grant proposal to get a classroom full of them without having to go through the IT department. The Raspberry PI, or something like it, is the programming tool that teachers will be able to use in practice.
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Apparently you spent time in a poorly-run K-12 school district. Where you see a panacea to all that you imagine is wrong in education where computers are concenred, I see problems. The $25 price point is cute, but tarted up for the education market (case, PS, etc) it becomes $50, but that's still cheap. Imagine walking back into your old job, going into a classroom, taking the current "heavily locked-down Windows machines" and replacing it with a Raspberry Pi - what would the teacher think? Would they cheer
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It's the same everywhere...I am a high school computer science teacher in Toronto, Canada. I'm forbidden to teach linux, (I complained so often about how we should be teaching linux, that they assigned me a science teaching timetable...blah...) due to corrupt administrators and (very) profitable 'support' contracts with M$, etc. Hence, locked down computers that can barely handle IE, and approved no nothing, do nothing 'software'. I bring my own linux laptop to school with me everyday, rather than use t
Actual cost? (Score:3)
Re:Actual cost? (Score:4, Informative)
For this model (the Model B, with Ethernet), the target price is $35. The actual price, including shipping & handling, depends a bit on where you are in the world, but it's pretty much bang on $35 plus whatever shipping charge Premier Farnell or RS has come up with for your country. They've done an amazing job at keeping this thing on track, despite delays and major changes in manufacturing plans...
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No, he means the actual price minus the Broadcom subsidies.
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It's probably $40 per Model B if you don't count the discount they got from Broadcom for the SoC
With the discount the Foundation makes around $2 per device.
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opps! forgot the "before local/state TAX / VAT is added..." bit...
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Plus the cost of storage/MicroSD card.
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Since these boards are intended for schools, these extras would need to be purchased, as they can't just be "scrounged" from other equipment - which would then, itself become unusable. In addition there is cost associated with integrating all these parts, reckon on at least 1/2 hour per unit (which is probably cross-charged at the same $25 price of the board) So the whole "we can
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Some people just see problems, others see solutions.
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Your $200 estimate for a complete kit is a bit "optomistic" (low), but let's work with it.
I'd like to encourage anyone considereing deploying these "systems" in a public school system take a moment and try to explain to a concerned parent how this cobbled-together "system" at $200 is a better educational tool than a $400 Win 7 PC or even a $300 Linux PC. Once you get past "it has a web browser" answer most parents will find it sorely lacking in comparison and wonder why their children can't get access to th
This has gone far too well (Score:4, Insightful)
and if it takes off in the US i forsee a plethora of LawSuits alledging patent, copyright and anything else the syhsters can think of just to stop this in its tracks.
If this becomes really successful I have no shadow of a doubt that the likes of Microsoft will see this as a threat to their business and try by whatever means to stifile if not downright kill it.
You really can't have people building a computer now can you? Whatever next? Desiging their own Operating System and giving it away?
On a personal note, this device really takes me back to my Degree project in 1975 where I build a DtoA and AtoD converter board for the NatSemi IMP16 Microcomputer. in the years afterwards I build a number of UniBus devices for the PDP-11.
Interfacting 'kit' to computers has gotten a lot easier these days.
Re:This has gone far too well (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who can't think of a use for these boards is lacking a serious amount of imagination.
1) Educational tool
2) Media center
3) Robotics controller (CNC tools, experimental robots)
4) Homebrew NAS
5) Cheap linux box
6) Point of sale machines
7) Disposable computer for test industries
and that was 1 minutes thought.
So many uses it's stupid...and the reason it is so damn useful is that it will be have good support and it is so damn cheap for the power you get.
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How many P3 and P4 computers will be replaced in schools with Raspberry Pi systems?
If only there was some way to load a development environment onto those surplus computers being shiped by the, uhm, ship load, to China to be recycled - that would be sweet!
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They will be including the encoders at a later date once they have picked a camera for the CSI port.
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In order:
1) Educational tool - seriously? You imagine this will be some sort of "stone soup" revolution in education, all centered arounf a $25 circuit board with no case, PS, keyboard, ouse or display, no course materials, and on a platform unlike the Macs or PCs the students have at home, their parents use at work?
2) Media Center - When most folks discuss a media center they don't imagine an appliance that could easily be replaced by a refurbished XBox, $50 Roku, or an Apple TV. They usually look for a sy
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In order:
1) Educational tool - seriously? You imagine this will be some sort of "stone soup" revolution in education, all centered arounf a $25 circuit board with no case, PS, keyboard, ouse or display, no course materials, and on a platform unlike the Macs or PCs the students have at home, their parents use at work?
I don't know how many P4 boxes you can buy, for $25, which include a display, keyboard, mouse, course materials, etc. Even the cheapest netbooks are still not much less than $200 in the UK.
The platform being "the same as the one they have at home" is a non-point. Educators don't expect kids to already know the material, so their prior experience is a non-issue.
If all Raspberry Pi turns out to be is a very cheap computer with a suite of FOSS educational tools pre-loaded, it's still something that will be of
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Summary of kenh posts:
"I hate this project for unknown personal or business reasons and want it to fail; I will rubbish any use for it and make up any shit I can to try to put people off."
Tip: Your bizarre obsession with trashing this project has actually made me (and probably others) *more* interested in it and more likely to buy one.
Plenty of room for competition (Score:5, Insightful)
Although you're making a "glass half full" kind of prediction, it's not hard to imagine that the opposite of your guess might occur in the US: All the other ARM licensees might see this as a fantastic coup for Broadcom, and follow suit with their own competing $25 - $35 boards.
After all, Texas Instruments already has their own $5 SoC [ti.com] available and used in their BeagleBone [beagleboard.org], so they could quite easily remove features from that board and release something into the Raspberry Pi price niche for education. (The BeagleBone's $89 [adafruit.com] places it far outside the Raspberry Pi's price niche.)
The Chinese will of course follow suit with boards based on their wildly successful Allwinner A10 [rhombus-tech.net] ARM device, which is far better than Broadcom's SoC (on specs) and only costs $7 in production volumes. Expect a pile of competitors from that quarter!
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You seriously think this will ever be a threat to Microsoft? On what planet?
This system reminds me of the COSMAC ELF [cosmacelf.com] of the early 1970s, but with a an ethernet port and an HDMI connection for the TV. Those who think this is revolutionary need to expand their knowledge of computer history to at least a point prior to Saint Linus came down from the Mount with his Linux Kernel...
Excessive Raspberry Pi marketing on /. (Score:3)
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What about the backorders ? (Score:1)
I thought the first 10k batch had already been sold and they were scrambling to get them certified to be released from customs. All of a sudden they have a batch ready to give to a school. Looks just like more PR to me. Maybe I wouldn't be so suspicious if their didn't already have so much delay delivering the goods to the actual customers.
Project plans (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:3, Interesting)
So could someone explain to me how these $25 circuit boards are "better" than any one of the countless millions of P4 computers that we dump in the cargo holds of contaner ships heading back to China to be "recycled" into a small amount of precious metals and a whole lot of toxic waste???
Last time I looked this system required a power supply, USB keyboard and mouse, case, and a display that can accept a digital signal - in comparison, the Vic-20, Commodore 64, and Sinclair ZX-81 all came with keyboard, case & and power supply, and only required a composite video capable monitor (or a TV modulator).
This is much more like the Apple I - the circuit board that could be bought unpopulated or completed, and was quickly snapped-up by a small community of enthusiasts and then made obvious the need to offer a complete system that included a keyboard, case and power supply.
How long till Raspberry Pi offers their version of the Apple II, a system in a case with a keyboard, mouse, and power supply?
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Troll much? In what condition are these p4's? Whose will oversea the inspections of them to ensure all components are working? Where can you get replacement PCI cards for under the cost of the pi? Do they come with monitors? Are they small enough to Cary around? How much work is involved in making a distro that is guaranteed to work on all of them?
There are some mnay things good about the pi. It is a rare example of what the site is/was all about. The best comment you can come up with 'everyone should use o
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Also, these machines use much, much less power than these old systems. Think 7 watts vs 250 watts or more.
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I dont get this child angle (Score:3)
What? are there NO computers in the UK? making a small cheap computer is not automatically going to spark a fire in a child who is surrounded by more powerful machines every moment of their lives capable of doing the exact same thing
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In a way, it's "nudge theory" in action again (the political class's buzzword du jour, but it does have some merit).
The idea is that while a kid could be adventurous with the £600 home Win7 laptop, odds are both they (and their parents/teachers) will feel overly cautious, treating it with kit gloves, in case the kid somehow "breaks it". It's irrational, but that's the way people think.
Give them a £30 computer that looks like a piece of soldered electronics, it's far more likely that both the kid
Headline (Score:2)
Not every sentence, requires a comma.
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Wow, so bitter...did they bugger up a business plan of yours Mr AC?
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If you can't see how useful a commodity, tiny form factor computer (with great connectivity) that costs throw away money is then I really pity you.
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Since when is 20 equal to 50?
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But what if your intended use does not include adding a screen or high GHz? And I doubt that with a screen you'll get the low energy consumption. And does that tablet have a comparable form factor?
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The Raspberry Pi has a HDMI port as well, so your claim that you need a CRT is clearly wrong.
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Actually if you have ever ordered from Farnell and RS, you'll find that the shipping charge is about typical, especially for orders that require airfreight. Our company has accounts with both of them.
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That tablet will NEVER be anything but a painful experience to use.
The Rpi can be perfect for a number of projects, and infinitely more configurable.
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All of those, including the garbage resistive screen and 3hr+ battery are irrelevant for this project.
Why are you bringing up Google Chrome? Do you want to run a desktop on the thing? All that says is that you have NO idea what to use it for. I'd take a debian install with repos ANY day over android for what this thing can be used for.
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So it's not useless. It's certainly of limited form factor but it has a lot
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