Slashdot Mirror
BBC Reveals Its New Microcomputer Design
The BBC has revealed the final design for its Micro Bit computer, a programmable board the size of a credit card they hope will inspire the same love of technology that the BBC Micro did in 1981. The Micro Bit includes an array of LEDs, buttons, and a motion sensor. It can be powered via USB, or by an addon pack with AA batteries. It's not intended as a competitor to devices like the Raspberry Pi or the Arduino — it is intended to complement them while remaining simple for educational purposes. In October, the BBC will begin distributing the Micro Bit to students in grade 7. They expect to give away about a million of them. Afterward, the device will go on sale, and its specs will be open sourced.
They called it the Micro Bit, though. So it's the BBC Micro Bit. Considering their famous 1980s microcomputer, the BBC Micro... I think it's kind of an affectionate name.
It has a sort of poetry to it, too. The beeb made Acorn's BBC Model B (and later the Archimedes, which did well with compatibility) sell very well into schools. For the Archimedes, Acorn branched out into RISC chip design -- they literally designed their own chip for their computer. That little chip was the ARM -- Acorn RISC Machine... they used the second version of it in the Archimedes.
Unfortunately, they then made the foolish mistake of getting out of the thriving British-made home computer business, spinning off their chip design into a firm called Advanced RISC Machines, and they were never heard of again. Or something like that anyway.
CAPTCHA: yawner. RUDE!
It isn't just that modern computers are 'completed.' They are essentially closed off. The old machines some of us grew up with powered up to a programming interface. A prompt at which you could start typing in a BASIC program for the most part.
Modern software systems have abstracted things completely away from this sort of interface, for better in the case of usability but for worse in terms of prodding a young new user to actually learn to program it. There are huge abstract toolchains that have to be installed and a budding programmer can only write code at the topmost layer of the abstraction. No kid is going to write an 'Android app' straight out of the box after reading a few chapters in the introductory manual that comes with an Android device.