Chapter 6 ■ Building low-Cost MysQl data nodesIn this section, you explore the origins of the Raspberry Pi 2B, take a tour of the hardware connections,
and discover what accessories are needed to get starting using the Raspberry Pi.
Noble Origins
The Raspberry Pi was designed to be a platform to explore topics in computer science. The designers saw
the need to provide inexpensive, accessible computers that could be programmed to interact with hardware
such as servomotors, display devices, and sensors. They also wanted to break the mold of having to spend
hundreds of dollars on a personal computer and thus make computers available to a much wider audience.
The designers observed a decline in the experience of students entering computer science curriculums.
Instead of having some experience in programming or hardware, students are entering their academic years
having little or no experience with working with computer systems, hardware, or programming. Rather,
students are well versed in Internet technologies and applications. One of the contributing factors cited is
the higher cost and greater sophistication of the personal computer, which means parents are reluctant to let
their children experiment on the family PC.
This poses a challenge to academic institutions, which have to adjust their curriculums to make
computer science palatable to students. They have had to abandon lower-level hardware and software
topics because of students’ lack of interest or ability. Students no longer want to study the fundamentals of
computer science such as assembly language, operating systems, theory of computation, and concurrent
programming. Rather, they want to learn higher-level languages to develop applications and web services.
Thus, some academic institutions are no longer offering courses in fundamental computer science.^3 This
could lead to a loss of knowledge and skillsets in future generations of computer professionals.
To combat this trend, the designers of the Raspberry Pi felt that, equipped with the right platform, youth
could return to experimenting with personal computers as in the days when PCs required a much greater
commitment to learning the system and programming it in order to meet your needs. For example, the
venerable Commodore 64, Amiga, and early Apple and IBM PC computers had limited software offerings.
Having owned a number of these machines, I was exposed to the wonder and discovery of programming at
an early age.^4
WhY IS It CaLLeD raSpBerrY pI?
the name was partly derived from design committee contributions and partly chosen to continue a
tradition of naming new computing platforms after fruit (think about it). the pi portion comes from
python, because the designers intended python to be the language of choice for programming the
computer. however, other programming language choices are available.The Raspberry Pi is an attempt to provide an inexpensive platform that encourages experimentation.
The following sections explore more about the Raspberry Pi, including the models available, required
accessories, and where to buy the boards.
(^3) My alma mater has suffered a similar transition. I mourn for the loss of knowledge.
(^4) My first real computer was an IBM PCjr. I followed it by building my own IBM PC AT computer, complete with a
10MB hard drive. Ah, those were the glory days of personal computers!