16 Issue 1404
already said that features will be added to the Pi if they can
be done so without affecting the overall cost of the product,
and some of those wouldn’t pose a problem to learning.A
switch to USB 3.0 would not perplex youngsters or teachers,
for instance, and neither would the addition of extra RAM.
For now, though, the Raspberry Pi 3 continues to allow
people to delve deep into their machines. It’s a computer that
shows how the processes work and how coding can achieve
all sorts of weird and wonderful outcomes. Some people have
suggested making the Pi powerful enough now for a full-
blownWindows 10 to be installed, but that’s going back to
the initial problem of creating computers for consumers and
not developers. While that could be good for people who
are simply after a cheap workhorse, it’s notreally what the
foundation founders were thinking ten years ago.
So yes, buy a Raspberry Pi 3 and enjoy the extra benefits
it brings. Use it to produce projects that equal or better
those we looked at a few issues ago. The Raspberry Pi 3
delivers two things that people have wanted for a long time–
speed and connectivity – without going crazy and adding
any perplexing technologies. It tastes as good now as it
always has.mmIngredientsForAPi
The idea for the Raspberry Pi was formed almost exactly
ten years ago when Eben Upton, a lecturer at Cambridge
University, was finishing his PhD and realised that the
A-level students he had been asked to interview for the
Computer Science degree were severely lacking the level
of knowledge of their predecessors.
He realised that a generation of children were
dropping down an educational hole in terms of
computing and he felt that most teaching of IT
tended to revolve around familiarising students with
MicrosoftWord and Excel rather than programming.
This approach, combined with the fact that the glossy
front-ends of computers had persuaded people not to
tinker ‘under the hood’, got him thinking.
Having been brought up hacking and
programming on his BBC Micro, he felt that making
a similar system available for children today would
be hugely beneficial. As luck would have it, he
wasn’t the only person thinking of solutions to the
same problem. His friend Jack Lange, a demonstrator
at Cambridge University’s Computer Laboratory,
also noted the problem, and David Braben, the joint
coder of the space trading gameElite, was rocked
by children who found ICT to be the most boring
subject at school. Computer science applications
were substantially dropping even though the
university population was rising. Something, they all
surmised, needed to be done.
Initially, they considered producing a software
platform; they also thought about snapping up lots
of retro computers and flooding schools with as many
as they could find. But neither were seen as ideal,
and the latter, in particular, would have led to the
secondary problem of having to share computers. It
would be natural for a select few to start hogging the
machines and leaving others behind. The solution was
to produce an inexpensive bare-bones machine that
could potentially be handed to every child.
Upton began to crack on. He produceda
few prototypes, his first an Atmel Atmega
microcontroller-based platform that ran at 22.1MHz
and had 512K SRAM for data and framebuffer
storage. Colleagues Rob Mullins, Alan Mycroft and
Lang helped, Braben got on board, and they touched
base with Pete Lomas, who was the managing
director of hardware design at NorcottTechnologies.
In 2008, a charity that became the Raspberry Pi
Foundation was formed to promote basic computer
science in schools.The fact Upton began working for Broadcom went
in the group’s favour, because they were able to get
a good supply of cheap chips. They used Broadcom’s
system-on-a-chip, which is designed for phones, but as
much as the hardware was important for encouraging
children to be curious and inquisitive, the software
had to be right too. They went for an open source OS- Linux – which also cut costs, and they encouraged
programming in Python and Scratch.
With the hardware and software coming along,
they visited the BBC and tried to persuade the
Corporation to put its name to the machine.
Technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones was
rather taken by it and made a video with David
Braben holding the computer, which went viral.
The BBC didn’t lend its name to the machine in the
end, but the publicity was enough to reaffirm the
Raspberry Pi Foundation’s conviction.Two models
were worked on: Model A and Model B with their
varying RAM, USB ports and Ethernet (or not).
The Raspberry Pi was launched on 29th February
2012, and the first production batch of 10,
units sold out within hours. It led to massive delays
and caused a lot of stress, but it also helped to
increase the hype and publicity around the machine.
Since then, schools and hobbyists have taken the
Pi to their hearts and there have been two further
major iterations, together with a small-form
Raspberry Pi Zero. Everyone, it seems, has wanteda
slice of the action.