It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them - Alfred Adler
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UK developer creates £15 computer for kids
A UK DEVELOPER has created a computer for school children that will cost as little as £10 to £15, potentially ending the education gap between wealthy and poorer families.
David Braben, who co-developed the Elite space trading computer game, has developed a tiny computer based around a USB stick called the Raspberry Pi. The little device will plug into a HDMI TV for video output and will allow a keyboard to be plugged in via the USB port.
There was no word about using a mouse in addition to a keyboard. It appears that there is only one USB port, which means users will not be able to plug in multiple peripherals, but that might change for the finished product.
The computer has a provisional specification of a 700MHz ARM11 processor and 128MB of SDRAM, a general purpose I/O interface for USB and HDMI, SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slots, support for Open GL ES 2.0 and HD 1080p H.264 high-profile decode. It will also feature a slew of open source software, including Ubuntu, Iceweasel, Koffice and Python. Not bad for 15 quid.
The device could feature more than this, however, as there is a version with a 12 megapixel camera module attached. This is likely to up the cost, but it means that more advanced versions could be made available.
Braben said that since the proposed price is so low for the computers they could even be given away to children for free, with funding coming from other means.
Critics of the idea might highlight the fact that the TV required to use the device will be significantly more expensive, even at the lower end of the market, but this allows a family to invest in a TV that doubles as a computer monitor. The computer can also be plugged into a touchscreen or low-cost tablet.
Braben was critical of the ICT classes taught in school these days, which mainly focus on Microsoft centric office skills like using Word, Excel and Powerpoint, instead of teaching the wider skills of computer science. He said college applications for computer science dropped by around 50 per cent in the early 2000s, calling it a shocking indictment of ICT. He hopes that the Raspberry Pi will encourage children to learn more about computer science.
A prototype of the computer is available and Braben expects the finished product to be available within a year. µ
Tags: Hardware
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If they try to sell it at a higher price, that leaves the door open for him to come in and undercut them.
See, “stealing an idea” gets you nothing, because ideas are a dime a dozen. The crucial thing is in the execution, not the idea.
@humanist - No Ethernet? Not heard of a USB hub and USB ethernet adapter then? You can even get versions that do wireless.
@rage - The thing is, there is a world of difference between an estate where everyone is playing call of duty and an estate where people know how computers work. I grew up in the 80s, I did computer science at school. You had to write programs, not just use excel. I did my O level project in 6502 machine code!
I for one hope he succeeds in getting these off the ground, even if he can't get the education authorities to take and interest, there is a world of people who grew up in the great geeky 80s who are already dreaming up 101 uses for this thing, myself included.
no mention of ethernet. none.
What divide between wealthy and poor kids? I work with some of the most deprived kids in one of the most deprived cities in the UK. They have all got computers. And im not including the waste of money "computers for pupils" hand outs some of them got. These people lead the way in home technology. Can we not remember how council estates resembled Jodrel Bank when satalite tv first came out?
Too Jimmy, you are so right they will steal the idea off him, then bang go's the £15 selling fee and bang go's his great idea for the poorer kids.
In every way - go for it :-)
Congratulations to you Mr Braben. This can be expanded into many developing countries. Just imagine the number of kids (and adults for that matter) who will be able to benefit from this rich ocean of knowledge (i.e. Internet). And just imagine the effect it will have on so many aspects of life such as pro-democracy movements in the world examples of which are the recent uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East through social networkings etc...
We are on the right path towards "Technological singularity" which in turn will assist other singularities (e.g. social, musical, medical,cultural,etc...). May we live to see the fruits of such efforts in the next couple of decade?
Let's hope so.
It has great military applications. Plug it into a multi purpose display and an array of io devices where it can fit in your pocket or concealed.
Having a look at the official site, it's also supposed to support composite video out, so maybe it could come supplied with a standard AV to phono cable (maybe with one of those AV ports that digital cameras etc use to keep the size down) and a Scart adaptor.
Sure it's not going to look as good as HDMI on an LCD TV but most folks at least have TVs these days with Scart sockets (or maybe an old video recorder with composite video inputs).
I for one am looking forward to these little devices coming out. I'm sure I can think of a few uses for them (although all my monitors have analogue VGA, only our telly has HDMI, oh well, maybe an excuse to upgrade my monitor).
Rob
How about incorporating one of those tiny projectors thus removing the need for a monitor? Might up the price a bit though....
http://www.raspberrypi.org/
Ugliest USB hub ever
Good luck Mr Braben.
Please could you also:
- include something like, say, a wireframe space trading/shooting game including all the source for anyone to pick over and change?
- cater for the use of USB hubs so that one USB port doesn't become it's achilles heel. Or better yet release a top end version featuring a little black rubber keyed keyboard with Raspberry Pi and USB hub integrated. There's got to be some money to be made from a retro feel machine like that, surely!
- add some form of integrated support (rather than just through the browser)for an online community or services such as DropBox so users can more easily share creations with their peers. I'm sure fostering a sense of community would do wonders for the Raspberry Pi's uptake.
- make it instant on. I don't want to wait 4 1/2 minutes for it to start, even if it does make me nostalgic for loading games off tape.
- Add a command line from where I can type: LOAD "KOFFICE",8,1 ...OK, I'm joking.
I think I'll be buying several when they appear anyway, it sounds exciting. As for colours, I'll take one in black with rainbow stripes and my daughter will have one in Raspberry, please.
Yours
Mostly Harmless Minor
I'd buy one as long as it was a compitent web browser.
I would hope that the box can handle a USB hub or a keyboard with a USB port (Macs used to have them, maybe they still do) because if it has a built in card reader it should be able to handle more than one USB device at a time.
It's safe to say that a lot of poor kids don't have a tv with HDMI at home, but a feww of them just might have an older set with DVI and HDMI to DVI connectors are as cheap as chips.
Besides, you can't make everyone happy. I suppose you could have S-video out or composit, but then you've just got a crappy image that can't even show a proper web page so what's the point.
So a child with no computer at home is bound to have a HDMI capable TV?!
Wonder if you have to rotate the telly and yourself in synch when docking the USB.
I can almost guarantee that big computer manufacturers will steal this idea and this poor bloke will lose out