altendorff.co.uk

Those of you who follow this blog know I have an "attitude" when it comes to the big marine electronics companies.

I’m sorry, but very few of them seem to bring any real innovation to the table given the prices that they can command and the captive audience that they can "manipulate" or is it "influence".

Yes, yes I know that the market size is less than that for consumer electronics but I don’t care they could still produce a lot better products than they do… IMHO.

Now here is a small bunch of people that show the sort of spirit that I am talking about – Rasberry Pi.

It’s a prototype ARM GNU/Linux computer for $25 !

The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. The intention is that it will be used by kids all over the world to learn programming.

There are two version of the Pi Model A and Model B. The Model B version of the device includes 10/100 wired Ethernet. There is no Ethernet on the Model A version (which they expect to be taken up mostly by the education market), but Wi-Fi will be available via a standard USB dongle

This clip below is from Eben Upton – the brains behind the idea of a miniature computer for kids.

Just like the old days when some of us discovered the fun of programming on Amigas, BBC Micros, Spectrum ZX, Commodore 64 and even the old Apple pc…

…do you think kids are really interested? – lets hope some of them are – I want to know that there will be people alive who can still fix stuff when I am 80