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Raspberry Pi Arrives, With a School Debut In Leeds
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."
This is also a great way/price for people to get into building and operating clusters. I plan on dropped 200 and building a 8 system cluster, just for fun.
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.
I know about the target price. What is the actual price?
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
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.
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.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
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 concentrate on the "Educational Version" of the device which WOULD go through EC testing since it was being sold as a complete consumer product.
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 available and used in their BeagleBone, 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 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 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!
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The Raspberry Pi has a HDMI port as well, so your claim that you need a CRT is clearly wrong.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
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.
Property for sale in Nice, France
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.
How many more RPi non-stories are going to appear on /. before the device is actually released to the masses? The device sounds great and all, but this has gone past the point of absurdity.
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!
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..
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?
Ken
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
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?
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.
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.