6 ms·

Why the Raspberry Pi will save the UK

87 points by husky 15y ago

jgrahamc 15y ago
This is largely the argument I made in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/11/ict-british-computing-renaissance http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/11/ict-brit... Let's hope it comes true!
- husky 15y ago
  Yes - I read your work in January and it invaded my consciousness. Sorry if I have regurgitated anything but this message needs to be spread!
  - jgrahamc 15y ago
    No need to apologize at all! Let's hope it comes true (and let's hope I can get my hands on a Raspberry Pi one day :-)
- blasterford 15y ago
  > People often argue that children don't need to know how to program just as they don't need to be a car mechanic to drive a car. The analogy is useless because a car is a one-use machine (it moves), whereas a computer's very essence is its programmability, its ability to be a universal machine. Surely a better analogy then would be that kids don't need to learn how to build things out of metal (Unless they particularly want to). Welding and metalwork is for some people. Just as programming is for some people and not others. Personally, I don't think we have fallen behind at all. Kids are still learning to program, just as they used to. Being taught in schools is (I guess) a nice to have, but not necessary. It's easy for programmers to think that programming is the only thing that matters and it's crucial everyone learn it. But it's really not. All that matters is that people who wish to learn it, can.
  - graphene 15y ago
    I think a better one is something like "ICT skills are like being able to take the bus; programming skills are like being able to drive a car"
    - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
      Maybe just ICT = passenger, programming = driver?
rmc 15y ago
I share the authors desire for there to be more programmers and that software will eat the world. However why do we need a Raspberry Pi? Can't you make software with any computer (except recent things from Apple)? Or is it a case that RP, being so popular will get people talking about creating and playing with stuff?
- mvanga 15y ago
  I imagine the price being extremely low is a very useful factor when you are talking about giving every kid his own computer. With a Raspi, you can give your kid a decently powerful computer for around $100 (assuming you buy the keyboard, screen, mouse etc.).
  - Maxious 15y ago
    Just like the computers of yore, the screen is the family TV. And USB keyboard/mouse are a couple of dollars second hand - I'd bet if UK school districts are anything like the ones I worked with in my youth, they have rooms filled with peripherals waiting to be recycled.
    - mvanga 15y ago
      I had forgotten about the TV! I imagine a lot of people will go that route to save the money on a new monitor. Though, I think about the insane hours I spend tinkering with my computer when I was a kid and it makes me wonder how many parents would be happy to let their children go on tinkering for hours like that on the commong family screen!
- dazzawazza 15y ago
  This is true but for a lot of parents there is one computer in the house and it's pretty precious, the kids can't 'fuck it up'. Now, with a rp, when a kid says "I'm gonna strap my computer to this servo, and that servo to some junk in the garage and throw it all off of the roof AND IT WILL FLY!" a few less parent will freak out and there is more of a chance we can all benefit from what ever is in this kids head..... and latterly smashed on his lawn :) There are a lot of ideas in kids heads that just don't see the light of day.
gacek 15y ago
A webdeveloper blog that does not work in an up-to-date browser (Opera)... I get it when it is WebGL, but not for static text.
- makepanic 15y ago
  it works fine in opera, if you disable the 'overflow: hidden;' on the body element
  - husky 15y ago
    Thanks - I did that quick
- husky 15y ago
  Sorry - but I just used a pre-built theme - because if I didn't do that then I would never get time to actually write any blog posts as my own site takes a very low priority for coding time! Saying that I do like this theme and think the dev did a good job. I have removed that overflow hidden on the body - thanks for the suggestion - so let's hope it's readable now
  - xlevus 15y ago
    for what it's worth, I found the parallax effect on the background image rather annoying. Every time I scrolled every single visual reference point of where I was reading changed.
gaius 15y ago
Elephant in corner of room: The City which he is so contemptuous of is the one industry in the UK that pays technical people fair wages. I studied Mech Eng at college; no-one does that who doesn't want to be an engineer. When I graduated in the mid-90s there were no jobs, so I went into high-tech. But my CV is still floating around, and I occasionally get called by recruiters in engineering. Now I am no rock star, I am paid well (market rate) but not extravagantly so. But these engineering jobs pay a fraction of what I earn, for the equivalent years of experience. And they wonder why no-one wants to do it? This comes back to the old class system which is still strong in the UK. No matter how educated, an engineer is not "one of us" to the management class, and will never be paid fairly in the old industries, never more than a paper-pushing middle management bureaucrat who went to the "right" school. Only high-tech (enlightened) and The City (where managers are so well paid that they don't feel threatened) pay technical people fairly. Anyone smart enough to be an engineer - and there are plenty who want to be - is smart enough to not be exploited in that way. And that is why manufacturing died in the UK.
- dasil003 15y ago
  I'd be curious about City vs Wall Street salaries for engineers. Even in the US they are paid more than the vast majority of other programmers. I wouldn't be so proud of the financial sector paying engineers fair wages, because the bottom line is it's crumbs to them. They are skimming more cream off the economy without producing anything tangible than anyone else, so they can afford to pay above market to the privileged few. It's not a scalable model for increasing average salaries though. The UK (and Europe) really needs to figure that out. I was able to move to London because I was moving from SV and I got a cost of living increase on top of my US market salary. If I was born here and forced to accept London market salaries I would be looking for my ticket out of here ASAP. As technology and mobility increases it's going to be increasingly important to economies to retain talent, something which I believe is obscured for the super rich who make money by arbitrage highly abstracted from the value in the base economy.
  - gaius 15y ago
    It's not "above market"; that's the point. Why shouldn't engineers be paid as well as doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc? What The City pays is what all should pay. Engineering died in the UK because the management class can't tell the difference between a professional mechanical engineer and a car mechanic (not that the latter isn't a skilled worker). In the rest of the world "Engineer" is a meaningful, exclusive title.
revorad 15y ago
I'm also hoping that RPi will kick off something here in the UK. But is there evidence that access to a computer is the main hurdle for kids wanting to learn programming in the UK? Clearly, the US hasn't had a Raspberry Pi.
- timthorn 15y ago
  It's not about access to a generic computer - it's access to a computer that positively invites tinkering.
  - ocdprogrammer 15y ago
    Old computers, netbooks, arduinos. They are here for some time now and no miracle happened. Raspberry Pi might help eastern europe and africa but not UK.
  - ashleyf 15y ago
    Absolutely! RPi is cheap but every bit as powerful and complicated as a full PC. I don't see why everyone is saying it will revolutionize programming education for kids. They don't need cheap computers. They need simple computers; a "microworld" in which to play as Seymour Papert would say. That's not the same as an abstracted away or dumbed-down machine. Give them a constrained, simple environment and they'll have fun stretching it in ways you'd never imagine. Something closer to the Fignition side of the spectrum. (I've personally liked taking my kids back to Papert's Turtle Graphics on such a simple machine: http://bit.ly/figlogo http://bit.ly/figlogo)
willvarfar 15y ago
I remember the BBC Micro! Oh for our kids to learn how and why of computers, and grow up to rule them instead of be ruled by them!
ocdprogrammer 15y ago
Wow, the things must be pretty bad if UK's (software) engineering future depends so badly on this piece of hardware. Personally I doubt that RPi will change anything.RPi is just a bigger and more powerful Arduino. If you wanted to do embedded devices experimentation, you would have done it by now with Arduino. Basic programming can be done on any netbook and I refuse to believe that even the poorest kids in UK can't afford a cheap netbook. Is there anything else revolutionary about RPi other than the price ?
mikecane 15y ago
>>>This is where the Raspberry Pi can save us: it’s now affordable for the government to equip any child in this country with a machine which they could take home with them and play with. I have a problem with idealism like that. Andrew Carnegie thought if we had public libraries, it would enable people to help themselves. And where are we today? Education is free too, and where are we today? I'm not saying that it might not help a small crucial group of children who -- through their own motivation -- will go on to do great things that will change their lives. But recognize that is the likely reality instead of pining for a universal enrichment that is never going to happen. A chicken in every pot sounds good, but not everyone knows how -- or wants to learn how -- to cook.
- pm90 15y ago
  You are greatly underestimating the value of public libraries. Even if we agree that only a few motivated individuals actually used the libraries, that itself is enough justification for their establishment (IMO). For instance, Richard Feynman used the public libraries extensively, and he has been a source of motivation for many generations of physicists/ engineers (including myself). (Being from India, when I was younger, I really did feel the disappointment of not having access to a public library.)
- wladimir 15y ago
  I don't really understand your negativity. I agree it's impossible to help everyone. But what could be the possible downside to trying? Why is idealism a dirty word these days? I mean it is the idealism that motivates him to do this in the first place, if it turns out the raspberry pi motivates a few kids to become great engineers/inventors/scientists, that's great right? Would it have been better if he was cynical about it?
paraschopra 15y ago
Off topic, but I LOVE how every post on your blog has a different background image. Is there a theme for this or you did it custom?
- husky 15y ago
  This is a custom theme called: five3 Personally I really like it too
lucidguppy 15y ago
Is the beagleboard all that different from the rpi? The beaglebone is $90 bucks - but you can actually get it. With video - its $150. So the price is much lower for the rpi - would you pay $150 to get an rpi right now?
DanBC 15y ago
Cultural note: Several huge industries have been closed down in the last quarter of the 20th century. Governments were adamant that subsidies absolutely were not available to those industries. Many people have lived in relative poverty for years, in areas with very high rates of unemployment. And then the banks went into meltdown, because of greedy irresponsible sometimes criminal behaviour; and these were the same banks that were talking about the importance of pure market forces and no government intervention; and these banks were propped up at vast expense to the UK taxpayer; at a time when many well loved public services are being cut; and those same greedy bankers (despite being in position when their banks lost billions and needed support from tax-payers) are taking huge bonuses.
- gaius 15y ago
  Oh PLEASE. Do you honestly believe this? I suggest you do a little reading, start with the Industrial Reorganization Committee and the Wilson government (1964).
andrewcooke 15y ago
what's with the increasingly histrionic posts here? one small computer will not "save" a particular country any more than one hack of github will destroy software development as we know it. did "raspberry pi might increase interest in software development slightly, although it's hard to see why this should be restricted to the uk since it's available internationally" not sound catchy enough?
fmstephe 15y ago
I love this article. While reading the comments I had the following thought. That the RP is somewhat intimidating and exposed as a raw piece of electronics. While you or I have plenty of keyboards and mice around, and no doubt schools do too, what about the people who don't? Has anyone reading this had any experience building something like this? If we could package the cheapest screen with the cheapest mouse with a small case some people might find this a useful package. Seems like a good candidate for a kickstarter project? To be clear I wouldn't intend this as a business, but as a way to contribute to the RP project. (I think I would actually like to buy on e of these as I ony own laptops, so I have to buy all these peripherals anyway when I get my RP)
ktizo 15y ago
This article reminds me of the description of the economy of post-collapse america in Snowcrash. “When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else: music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery”
ivix 15y ago
Sorry to go against the herd mentality, but what? "I write this as the Raspberry Pi is selling at 700 units a second" Really? That's 42,000 per minute, or a million a day. Sure about that? This is apart from the fact that the rpi is _just a PC_. There's no new software, educational or otherwise. You can't just give every schoolchild one and expect anything particularly new to happen on it's own. Finally the claim that a new model of computer will 'Save' the UK is so beyond ludicrous that I don't know where to begin. The device is not even manufactured in the UK! I'm all for the sentiments expressed in the article, but let's try and keep the hysteria in check. There's a lot more work ahead.
alan_cx 15y ago
I grew up on Apple 1 and 2, BBC Micro, and Sinclair ZX80/81 and Spectrum. Computing was new, exciting, available, and there was nothing like it or better at the time. These machines and what they represented were the future. They were even trendy. They were a 4 day week even!!! That is not the case now. While I admire the great priced hardware and look forward to playing with a Pi applying them to various "problems", I cannot see this kids lark at all. I showed my kids these things, and they have no interest in them what so ever. They have PC's, laptops, tablets, smart phones, Xboxs, PS3's, etc, etc. What do these things do? Not a lot. What can they be made to do? Less than everything we all ready own. They are impressed with it's size and price, but that is all. All they see is a very small computer that can do these same things their current machines can do, just. Education? Think about schools (UK schools in my case). Budgets are squeezed, curricula locked down and time tight. Not to mention the lack of low level computing skills in the staff. Well, high level isnt much better, one of my kids acts as a class assistant because the teacher is pretty much clueless. Who is going to champion this and when? How are kids going to be motivated to do this low level stuff when they have alternatives that are much more exciting and "hip"? Im sorry, I don't believe the Pi is going to solve the education aim at all. The idea is commendable, and I recognise the problem and support any attempt. But I honestly don't see kids getting excited and I don't see any structure that will either capture or motivate them. Sure, they are selling. Rightly too. But who too? 8 year olds, or geek experimenters like me? I mean, I can see loads of geeky uses. Im loving it. But any kids? Any primary schools? I was in primary school when I first encountered a computer. Secondary school it too late. I dont want to be down on it in any way, it is a brilliant bit of kit, incredible price too, loads of uses, I must have one, but cant see it starting an educational revolution like BBC Micro (and many others) did. I mean, its just too darn complicated. The old ZX81, 4 chips. The circuit is so simple. The software was simple. You know, its just so darn complicated now. There is too much of a gap. Ooooooo. That was long, and a bit garbled. Sorry.... :)
drucken 15y ago
Interesting that this article does not mention three things: 1. The designers of the Raspberry Pi have said that while their intention was to design and manufacture the device fully within the UK, the latter turned out to be impossible from a business perspective due to the high import taxes of materials for electronic assembly. 2. Why will the untested potential of the Raspberry Pi "save the UK" when an already extremely successful and much older electronics company like ARM (also based in Cambridge) has already got there first? ARM's devices are used all over the world for the lower power efficiency of their CPU designs, most notably in Apple devices. ARM's success has had no impact on the trend towards services in the UK economy since its founding in 1990. 3. When the size (GDP impact) of the City relative to the UK real economy is six times larger than the size of Wall Street relative to the US real economy, you can be sure that if there is any change it will be very slow indeed. The UK long ago given up the many benefits of engineering and manufacturing. It takes a considerable amount of time to ramp up the expertise to build competitive products in the world today. Just look at the centuries old Germanic Mittlestand and the 40-year Korean engineering sector development - the formerly fastest economic developer in the world. Also, engineering in the UK (unlike in the rest of the EU) has serious cultural and financial downsides plus little government support.
kamjam 15y ago
But won't somebody think of the children!!! Oh they are. I'll shut up then... :)

87 points by husky 15y ago

This is largely the argument I made in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/11/ict-british-computing-renaissance http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/11/ict-brit... Let's hope it comes true!

husky 15y ago
Yes - I read your work in January and it invaded my consciousness. Sorry if I have regurgitated anything but this message needs to be spread!
- jgrahamc 15y ago
  No need to apologize at all! Let's hope it comes true (and let's hope I can get my hands on a Raspberry Pi one day :-)
blasterford 15y ago
> People often argue that children don't need to know how to program just as they don't need to be a car mechanic to drive a car. The analogy is useless because a car is a one-use machine (it moves), whereas a computer's very essence is its programmability, its ability to be a universal machine. Surely a better analogy then would be that kids don't need to learn how to build things out of metal (Unless they particularly want to). Welding and metalwork is for some people. Just as programming is for some people and not others. Personally, I don't think we have fallen behind at all. Kids are still learning to program, just as they used to. Being taught in schools is (I guess) a nice to have, but not necessary. It's easy for programmers to think that programming is the only thing that matters and it's crucial everyone learn it. But it's really not. All that matters is that people who wish to learn it, can.
- graphene 15y ago
  I think a better one is something like "ICT skills are like being able to take the bus; programming skills are like being able to drive a car"
  - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
    Maybe just ICT = passenger, programming = driver?

rmc 15y ago

I share the authors desire for there to be more programmers and that software will eat the world. However why do we need a Raspberry Pi? Can't you make software with any computer (except recent things from Apple)? Or is it a case that RP, being so popular will get people talking about creating and playing with stuff?

mvanga 15y ago
I imagine the price being extremely low is a very useful factor when you are talking about giving every kid his own computer. With a Raspi, you can give your kid a decently powerful computer for around $100 (assuming you buy the keyboard, screen, mouse etc.).
- Maxious 15y ago
  Just like the computers of yore, the screen is the family TV. And USB keyboard/mouse are a couple of dollars second hand - I'd bet if UK school districts are anything like the ones I worked with in my youth, they have rooms filled with peripherals waiting to be recycled.
  - mvanga 15y ago
    I had forgotten about the TV! I imagine a lot of people will go that route to save the money on a new monitor. Though, I think about the insane hours I spend tinkering with my computer when I was a kid and it makes me wonder how many parents would be happy to let their children go on tinkering for hours like that on the commong family screen!
dazzawazza 15y ago
This is true but for a lot of parents there is one computer in the house and it's pretty precious, the kids can't 'fuck it up'. Now, with a rp, when a kid says "I'm gonna strap my computer to this servo, and that servo to some junk in the garage and throw it all off of the roof AND IT WILL FLY!" a few less parent will freak out and there is more of a chance we can all benefit from what ever is in this kids head..... and latterly smashed on his lawn :) There are a lot of ideas in kids heads that just don't see the light of day.

gacek 15y ago

A webdeveloper blog that does not work in an up-to-date browser (Opera)... I get it when it is WebGL, but not for static text.

makepanic 15y ago
it works fine in opera, if you disable the 'overflow: hidden;' on the body element
- husky 15y ago
  Thanks - I did that quick
husky 15y ago
Sorry - but I just used a pre-built theme - because if I didn't do that then I would never get time to actually write any blog posts as my own site takes a very low priority for coding time! Saying that I do like this theme and think the dev did a good job. I have removed that overflow hidden on the body - thanks for the suggestion - so let's hope it's readable now
- xlevus 15y ago
  for what it's worth, I found the parallax effect on the background image rather annoying. Every time I scrolled every single visual reference point of where I was reading changed.

gaius 15y ago

Elephant in corner of room: The City which he is so contemptuous of is the one industry in the UK that pays technical people fair wages. I studied Mech Eng at college; no-one does that who doesn't want to be an engineer. When I graduated in the mid-90s there were no jobs, so I went into high-tech. But my CV is still floating around, and I occasionally get called by recruiters in engineering. Now I am no rock star, I am paid well (market rate) but not extravagantly so. But these engineering jobs pay a fraction of what I earn, for the equivalent years of experience. And they wonder why no-one wants to do it? This comes back to the old class system which is still strong in the UK. No matter how educated, an engineer is not "one of us" to the management class, and will never be paid fairly in the old industries, never more than a paper-pushing middle management bureaucrat who went to the "right" school. Only high-tech (enlightened) and The City (where managers are so well paid that they don't feel threatened) pay technical people fairly. Anyone smart enough to be an engineer - and there are plenty who want to be - is smart enough to not be exploited in that way. And that is why manufacturing died in the UK.

dasil003 15y ago
I'd be curious about City vs Wall Street salaries for engineers. Even in the US they are paid more than the vast majority of other programmers. I wouldn't be so proud of the financial sector paying engineers fair wages, because the bottom line is it's crumbs to them. They are skimming more cream off the economy without producing anything tangible than anyone else, so they can afford to pay above market to the privileged few. It's not a scalable model for increasing average salaries though. The UK (and Europe) really needs to figure that out. I was able to move to London because I was moving from SV and I got a cost of living increase on top of my US market salary. If I was born here and forced to accept London market salaries I would be looking for my ticket out of here ASAP. As technology and mobility increases it's going to be increasingly important to economies to retain talent, something which I believe is obscured for the super rich who make money by arbitrage highly abstracted from the value in the base economy.
- gaius 15y ago
  It's not "above market"; that's the point. Why shouldn't engineers be paid as well as doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc? What The City pays is what all should pay. Engineering died in the UK because the management class can't tell the difference between a professional mechanical engineer and a car mechanic (not that the latter isn't a skilled worker). In the rest of the world "Engineer" is a meaningful, exclusive title.

revorad 15y ago

I'm also hoping that RPi will kick off something here in the UK. But is there evidence that access to a computer is the main hurdle for kids wanting to learn programming in the UK? Clearly, the US hasn't had a Raspberry Pi.

timthorn 15y ago
It's not about access to a generic computer - it's access to a computer that positively invites tinkering.
- ocdprogrammer 15y ago
  Old computers, netbooks, arduinos. They are here for some time now and no miracle happened. Raspberry Pi might help eastern europe and africa but not UK.
- ashleyf 15y ago
  Absolutely! RPi is cheap but every bit as powerful and complicated as a full PC. I don't see why everyone is saying it will revolutionize programming education for kids. They don't need cheap computers. They need simple computers; a "microworld" in which to play as Seymour Papert would say. That's not the same as an abstracted away or dumbed-down machine. Give them a constrained, simple environment and they'll have fun stretching it in ways you'd never imagine. Something closer to the Fignition side of the spectrum. (I've personally liked taking my kids back to Papert's Turtle Graphics on such a simple machine: http://bit.ly/figlogo http://bit.ly/figlogo)

willvarfar 15y ago

I remember the BBC Micro! Oh for our kids to learn how and why of computers, and grow up to rule them instead of be ruled by them!

ocdprogrammer 15y ago

Wow, the things must be pretty bad if UK's (software) engineering future depends so badly on this piece of hardware. Personally I doubt that RPi will change anything.RPi is just a bigger and more powerful Arduino. If you wanted to do embedded devices experimentation, you would have done it by now with Arduino. Basic programming can be done on any netbook and I refuse to believe that even the poorest kids in UK can't afford a cheap netbook. Is there anything else revolutionary about RPi other than the price ?

mikecane 15y ago

>>>This is where the Raspberry Pi can save us: it’s now affordable for the government to equip any child in this country with a machine which they could take home with them and play with. I have a problem with idealism like that. Andrew Carnegie thought if we had public libraries, it would enable people to help themselves. And where are we today? Education is free too, and where are we today? I'm not saying that it might not help a small crucial group of children who -- through their own motivation -- will go on to do great things that will change their lives. But recognize that is the likely reality instead of pining for a universal enrichment that is never going to happen. A chicken in every pot sounds good, but not everyone knows how -- or wants to learn how -- to cook.

pm90 15y ago
You are greatly underestimating the value of public libraries. Even if we agree that only a few motivated individuals actually used the libraries, that itself is enough justification for their establishment (IMO). For instance, Richard Feynman used the public libraries extensively, and he has been a source of motivation for many generations of physicists/ engineers (including myself). (Being from India, when I was younger, I really did feel the disappointment of not having access to a public library.)
wladimir 15y ago
I don't really understand your negativity. I agree it's impossible to help everyone. But what could be the possible downside to trying? Why is idealism a dirty word these days? I mean it is the idealism that motivates him to do this in the first place, if it turns out the raspberry pi motivates a few kids to become great engineers/inventors/scientists, that's great right? Would it have been better if he was cynical about it?

paraschopra 15y ago

Off topic, but I LOVE how every post on your blog has a different background image. Is there a theme for this or you did it custom?

husky 15y ago
This is a custom theme called: five3 Personally I really like it too

lucidguppy 15y ago

Is the beagleboard all that different from the rpi? The beaglebone is $90 bucks - but you can actually get it. With video - its $150. So the price is much lower for the rpi - would you pay $150 to get an rpi right now?

DanBC 15y ago

Cultural note: Several huge industries have been closed down in the last quarter of the 20th century. Governments were adamant that subsidies absolutely were not available to those industries. Many people have lived in relative poverty for years, in areas with very high rates of unemployment. And then the banks went into meltdown, because of greedy irresponsible sometimes criminal behaviour; and these were the same banks that were talking about the importance of pure market forces and no government intervention; and these banks were propped up at vast expense to the UK taxpayer; at a time when many well loved public services are being cut; and those same greedy bankers (despite being in position when their banks lost billions and needed support from tax-payers) are taking huge bonuses.

gaius 15y ago
Oh PLEASE. Do you honestly believe this? I suggest you do a little reading, start with the Industrial Reorganization Committee and the Wilson government (1964).

andrewcooke 15y ago

what's with the increasingly histrionic posts here? one small computer will not "save" a particular country any more than one hack of github will destroy software development as we know it. did "raspberry pi might increase interest in software development slightly, although it's hard to see why this should be restricted to the uk since it's available internationally" not sound catchy enough?

fmstephe 15y ago

I love this article. While reading the comments I had the following thought. That the RP is somewhat intimidating and exposed as a raw piece of electronics. While you or I have plenty of keyboards and mice around, and no doubt schools do too, what about the people who don't? Has anyone reading this had any experience building something like this? If we could package the cheapest screen with the cheapest mouse with a small case some people might find this a useful package. Seems like a good candidate for a kickstarter project? To be clear I wouldn't intend this as a business, but as a way to contribute to the RP project. (I think I would actually like to buy on e of these as I ony own laptops, so I have to buy all these peripherals anyway when I get my RP)

ktizo 15y ago

This article reminds me of the description of the economy of post-collapse america in Snowcrash. “When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else: music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery”

ivix 15y ago

Sorry to go against the herd mentality, but what? "I write this as the Raspberry Pi is selling at 700 units a second" Really? That's 42,000 per minute, or a million a day. Sure about that? This is apart from the fact that the rpi is _just a PC_. There's no new software, educational or otherwise. You can't just give every schoolchild one and expect anything particularly new to happen on it's own. Finally the claim that a new model of computer will 'Save' the UK is so beyond ludicrous that I don't know where to begin. The device is not even manufactured in the UK! I'm all for the sentiments expressed in the article, but let's try and keep the hysteria in check. There's a lot more work ahead.

alan_cx 15y ago

I grew up on Apple 1 and 2, BBC Micro, and Sinclair ZX80/81 and Spectrum. Computing was new, exciting, available, and there was nothing like it or better at the time. These machines and what they represented were the future. They were even trendy. They were a 4 day week even!!! That is not the case now. While I admire the great priced hardware and look forward to playing with a Pi applying them to various "problems", I cannot see this kids lark at all. I showed my kids these things, and they have no interest in them what so ever. They have PC's, laptops, tablets, smart phones, Xboxs, PS3's, etc, etc. What do these things do? Not a lot. What can they be made to do? Less than everything we all ready own. They are impressed with it's size and price, but that is all. All they see is a very small computer that can do these same things their current machines can do, just. Education? Think about schools (UK schools in my case). Budgets are squeezed, curricula locked down and time tight. Not to mention the lack of low level computing skills in the staff. Well, high level isnt much better, one of my kids acts as a class assistant because the teacher is pretty much clueless. Who is going to champion this and when? How are kids going to be motivated to do this low level stuff when they have alternatives that are much more exciting and "hip"? Im sorry, I don't believe the Pi is going to solve the education aim at all. The idea is commendable, and I recognise the problem and support any attempt. But I honestly don't see kids getting excited and I don't see any structure that will either capture or motivate them. Sure, they are selling. Rightly too. But who too? 8 year olds, or geek experimenters like me? I mean, I can see loads of geeky uses. Im loving it. But any kids? Any primary schools? I was in primary school when I first encountered a computer. Secondary school it too late. I dont want to be down on it in any way, it is a brilliant bit of kit, incredible price too, loads of uses, I must have one, but cant see it starting an educational revolution like BBC Micro (and many others) did. I mean, its just too darn complicated. The old ZX81, 4 chips. The circuit is so simple. The software was simple. You know, its just so darn complicated now. There is too much of a gap. Ooooooo. That was long, and a bit garbled. Sorry.... :)

drucken 15y ago

Interesting that this article does not mention three things: 1. The designers of the Raspberry Pi have said that while their intention was to design and manufacture the device fully within the UK, the latter turned out to be impossible from a business perspective due to the high import taxes of materials for electronic assembly. 2. Why will the untested potential of the Raspberry Pi "save the UK" when an already extremely successful and much older electronics company like ARM (also based in Cambridge) has already got there first? ARM's devices are used all over the world for the lower power efficiency of their CPU designs, most notably in Apple devices. ARM's success has had no impact on the trend towards services in the UK economy since its founding in 1990. 3. When the size (GDP impact) of the City relative to the UK real economy is six times larger than the size of Wall Street relative to the US real economy, you can be sure that if there is any change it will be very slow indeed. The UK long ago given up the many benefits of engineering and manufacturing. It takes a considerable amount of time to ramp up the expertise to build competitive products in the world today. Just look at the centuries old Germanic Mittlestand and the 40-year Korean engineering sector development - the formerly fastest economic developer in the world. Also, engineering in the UK (unlike in the rest of the EU) has serious cultural and financial downsides plus little government support.

kamjam 15y ago

But won't somebody think of the children!!! Oh they are. I'll shut up then... :)