What is Raspberry Pi ?

Some of you might have seen in the news this week that Raspberry Pi have released a new board: B+.  This is the third iteration of this single board computer in the two and a half years that they have been around.  Before I talk about their wonderful new product, first a quick history of where the Raspberry Pi came from.

Origins

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a registered educational charity which is based in the UK.  The idea behind it all started back in 2006.  In the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory, Eben Upton, Rob Mullins, Jack Lang and Alan Mycroft raised the concern of the lack of Computer Science students and the fact that the few who were applying had very little experience in things such as web design.  This might not sound too bad, but taking into consideration that the numbers of potential students applying to read Computer Science were dropping year on year paints a desolate future for programmers.  In my opinion, this is probably because kids these days have access to so many entertainment platforms such as games consoles, they no longer get bored and feel the need to entertain themselves through creative means.  In addition, computers have become easier to use so you no longer need to have a basic understanding in order to use them: you just turn them on and everything’s there for you already.  So these clever guys decided to put their heads together to address this problem.

Raspberry Pi Prototype. Photographer: Paul Downey, Source: Wikipedia

After a couple of years of tinkering around, the Raspberry Pi started to become a reality.  The aim of it was to allow people of all ages (children included) to be able to easily learn how to program.  Come 2008, mobile devices were becoming more prominent, thanks probably in part to the release of the iPhone in 2007.  Where mobile devices were more common place and the technologies used in them were coming on in leaps and bounds, the processors themselves became more affordable and powerful.  This was fantastic for the team behind the Raspberry Pi because it enabled them to source processers which would support multimedia, a necessary feature when getting kids interested.  In time, Eben, Rob, Jack and Alan teamed up with Pete Lomas (MD of hardware design and manufacture company Norcott Technologies) and David Braben (co-author of the seminal BBC Micro game Elite) to form the Raspberry Pi Foundation.  The idea that started all those years ago was starting to become a reality!

Initially, the Raspberry Pi Foundation expected to sell about 1,000 units which would be for the new undergraduates at Cambridge University.  However, three weeks before the launch, initial demand was for more than 200,000 units.  Although this sounds great, it actually posed a lot of problems as the Raspberry Pi Foundation had to dramatically scale up their operations.  This lead to them creating a partnership with element 14/Premier Farnell and RS Electronics.  This initial interest didn’t wane after launch and in the time since it first went on sale and now, they have sold over 3,000,000 units (that’s three million for anyone who can’t be bothered to count the noughts)!  Quite a dramatic increase from their initial 1,000 they thought they’d be producing.

Raspberry Pi Model A. Photographer: SparkFun Electronics, Source: Wikipedia

What Actually Is A Raspberry Pi?

So now you know where the Raspberry Pi came from, I’m sure you’re keen to know exactly what it is.  Well, to quote the Raspberry Pi website, it is a “low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse”.  The Raspberry Pi itself has General-purpose input/output (GIPO) pins, USB ports, and SD card slot.  It is aimed at people of all ages and facilitates the learning of programming languages such as Scratch and Python.  However, you can do other things other than programming: you can do everything that you could do from a standard desktop, from surfing the net, to writing a blog, to playing games, just to name a couple of uses.  All of this for less than £25!

There are a multitude of other uses for the Raspberry Pi as well.  The ethos of the Raspberry Pi Foundation encourages people, especially children to use it for digital maker projects.  These can range from photo booths, to motion detecting cat sensors which tweet a picture of the cat, to breaking a skydiving record, and everything in between!

Raspberry Pi B+

The Raspberry Pi B+ has built on its predecessor and is backwards compatible (although the B model is still available to buy so that manufacturers who use it currently do not have to change their designs).  The number of GPIO pins has increased from 26 to 40 which allows the addition of more sensors, connectors and expansion boards.  The first 26-pins on the B+ board are identical to the B board to facilitate backwards compatibility.  Like the B model, the Broadcom BCM2835 Chipset has remained, as has the 512MB of RAM and the Ethernet port.  However, the SD card slot has been replaced with a micro-SD slot which is positioned underneath the board.  Another addition to the board is a four-pole connector which compliments the existing HDMI connector allowing AV connections.  Furthermore, the number of USB ports have been doubled from two to four which allows you to attach more USB peripherals such as a 2.5” hard drive.  That’s not the only improvements that have been made however, the clever guys at Raspberry Pi have not only made all of these improvements but have also managed to reduce the power usage from 750MA down to 600mA.

Raspberry Pi B+

Conclusion

Raspberry Pi seems to have been the catalyst for a revolution in computer programming.  It has brought together people from all ages and all walks of life together in their love of this tiny computer.  I think that part of the success is down to the low price: it has allowed it to be rapidly take up as it is so affordable.  It’s lovely to see the next generation putting down their games consoles and actually creating things again.  A wonderful community has sprung up around the Raspberry Pi who will welcome anyone into the fold.  Not only are there multiple forums and blogs online about it, but there are also things like the Raspberry Jam.  This are events which are family centred, allowing the whole family to get into programming.  It has also made hacking more main stream.  I know that when I used to think of hackers, I always envisioned a geeky guy sat in his bedroom by himself.  Now anyone can get into it and share their work with others, just head over to the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s blog to get a glimpse into what some people have been up to.  So what are you waiting for?  Go and get your very own Raspberry Pi and join in the fun!

 Source: Wikipedia

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