Just before the days that I was in school kids used computers that did not do everything for them. They had to program them or load a program they or someone else made. Programming was partof the curriculum and all kids were taught how the computer worked and made it do anything they wanted. These kids ended up as the programmers that today make our phones work as well as operating systems for pc's and games.
Later the computers came with more and more software already written and programming was seen as less and less an important lesson. Kids started learning only how to format spreadsheets and not how to make a game or have
the computer do something that it didnt do before.
This did not stop me however luckily my first computer was a commodore 64. After turning it on it would sit there asking you for programming. All the other kids were moving from such machines to PC's and many never even felt the need to program them. At school the machines there were Acorns running RISC OS. They were fun to play with and hack ;-) but the most fun I had was with the older BBC Model B machine used during german classes. I went on it a lunchtimes, not to learn german but to program it. Other kids used to watch me as I made the thing beep and draw all sorts of patterns on the screen, simple things to me, that to them were like magic.
That all ended. Now some of these machines are sitting here in my bedroom. Turned on from time to time for a little bit of fun. The kids just use windows at school, loading programs that they have no idea how they work, written by the kids who learned to program in school all that time ago.
But some of those kids from that time wish to change that...
Now, from the creator of the best game the BBC computer ever had, "Elite", comes the Raspberry Pi.
The Raspberry Pi is a small, low power (can run off 5v USB or AA batteries), computer running linux with 128 or 256MB ram, USB, HDMI, Ethernet network port and an SD Card slot. Plug in an SD Card with the OS on it, a keyboard, mouse and screen and you have a fully functional linux computer for only about £20. Yes, the most expensive version of the Raspberry Pi will cost around £20!
It is hoped that schools can afford to give these to kids, so that every kid may have a programmable machine that can even fit in a pocket. They can learn to program and hack them using any programming language but Python is supported out
of the box.
I will be getting one once they are avaliable at the end of Feb.
Links:
David Braben, creator of Elite, shows off his Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi project page, and where to buy some Pi
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