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BBC Reveals Its New Microcomputer Design

Posted by Soulskill on from the hackers:-the-next-generation dept.

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.

2 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. The difference... by julian67 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The real difference between the BBC Micro of 1981 and the BBC Micro Bit of 2015 is 34 years of changes in society and technology.

    I was at school when the first BBC Micro appeared. My school built a special computer laboratory to accommodate two of these mystical devices! (they forgot to add burglar alarms and decent locks so it all got stolen). A year later the school acquired a ZX Spectrum which was housed with the science block. It was all very exciting, such that it occasionally and temporarily displaced burning interests in alcohol, cigarettes and certain photo journalism features of traditionally attired ladies in National Geographic magazine.

    The BBC has a remit (to educate, entertain, inform). But this is not 1981. Which UK home that contains a person stimulated by maths, technology or computers science does not also already have a PC or and Android device?

    This looks a lot like the BBC puffing itself up, and trying to needlessly and damagingly compete with people who are already informing, educating and entertaining, in much the same way that they are destroying the independent local press in the UK and crushing small production companies. George Osborne was not kidding when he described the BBC's ambitions and actions as having an imperial taint. If there is one thing an empire cannot tolerate it is an entity which offers an alterantive, however good, bad, big or small.

    1. Re:The difference... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh get over yourself.

      What it looks like to me is that the BBC have done something interesting: they've made a tiny, simple, deliberately friendly little computer that is designed to be really programmed (unlike Android phones and countless other things), has sensors and inputs that are easy to use, has LEDs that make it cute and fun, could be used as a tiny little computer, in technology lessons, connected up to real things, with none of the distraction power of a tablet device, none of the 'just use it like a PC with a monitor and keyboard' aspects that are collecting around the Raspberry Pi, and WAY more of the imagination. Plus it can connect to all the devices you are talking about.

      The Beeb will make next to no money out of this -- if anything. They've already committed that they will not make money out of it on the world market, which is thriving and competitive. This is a perfectly Reithian thing; it's too small to threaten any competitor, and can indeed work with them.

      And do you know what is ruining the local press? It sure isn't the BBC. What killed the local press was the Daily Mail General Trust, which turned every single newspaper it earned into a small local paramilitary offshoot of their tawdry bullshit. Local papers were shit before the BBC went heavily local.