Game developer David Braben creates a USB stick PC for $25

[itoikenza]

from: http://www.geek.com/articles/games/g...or-25-2011055/

David Braben is a very well-known game developer who runs the UK development studio Frontier Developments, but is just as well known for being the co-developer of Elite.

Over his career his studio has brought us the Rollercoaster Tycoon series, Thrillville, Lost Winds, and most recently Kinectimals. In the background, however, Braben has been trying to tackle another problem: getting programming and general learning of how computers work back into schools.

Braben argues that education since we entered the 2000's has turned towards ICT which teaches useful skills such as writing documents in a word processor, how to create presentations, and basic computer use skills. But that has replaced more computer science-like skills such as basic programming and understanding the architecture and hardware contained in a computer.

His solution is not to create his own course, but instead to manufacture a very low cost PC that can be given to kids for free and courses built up around their use. When we say low cost, we mean so low even the OLPC would be impressed.

Braben has developed a tiny USB stick PC that has a HDMI port in one end and a USB port on the other. You plug it into a HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux. The cost? $25.

The hardware being offered is no slouch either. It uses a 700MHz ARM11 processor coupled with 128MB of RAM and runs OpenGL ES 2.0 allowing for decent graphics performance with 1080p output confirmed. Storage is catered for by an SD card slot. It also looks as though modules can be attached such as the 12MP camera seen in the image above.

We can expect it to run a range of Linux distributions, but it looks like Ubuntu may be the distro it ships with. That means it will handle web browsing, run office applications, and give the user a fully functional computer to play with as soon as it’s plugged in. All that and it can be carried in your pocket or on a key chain.

This tiny, cheap PC is going to be distributed through a new charitable foundation called the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It will also promote computer science studies in schools.

As for when the Raspberry Pi device will become available, Braben says he hopes to be distributing it within the next 12 months.

[Lazy Bastard]

Very cool.

One question, though: how did you post in this forum? Or, did someone move this thread here?

[dlevere]

I wasn't here at 9:30 last night, I didn't move it.

[Lazy Bastard]

The last edit before yours was by LMZ; perhaps he moved it.

[rimsky82]

[22:56] <itoikenza> The post is done. Check the lounge. Hope thats the right place to post that $25 linux pc. 
[22:58] <~LiquidManZero> Hmm... Let me make a couple edits and move it to a better location...
[22:59] <~LiquidManZero> Somehow you pasted with some really nasty excessive line breaks
[23:00] <~LiquidManZero> Done
[23:00] <~LiquidManZero> It's now in news, since I think that's apropriate

[kh2k4]

I get the feeling I know these guys from somewhere but can't put my finger on it, hmmm
But yeah basically everything he said was true they don't teach what you need or what you want to learn you have to do it as a seprate course at college and even then it's all text walls with little hands on experience.

[itoikenza]

update: http://www.raspberrypi.org/?p=28

Over the past three months, we’ve been working hard to finalize the specs for the Raspberry Pi device, and to produce schematics and a PCB layout. Last Tuesday, we sent an alpha release of the board for manufacture. From an electrical perspective, this board is intended to be identical to the final device; the resulting units will be used to validate the schematic design, and will serve as our interim software development platform.

Raspberry Pi alpha PCB

Key differences between the alpha and final boards are:

The alpha board is roughly 20% larger than the credit-card-sized final board. As you can see, our size is already dominated by the area of the various connectors.
The alpha board has six layers rather than four, and uses a variety of expensive HDI features (blind and buried vias, via-in-pad) which we wish to eliminate from the final board.
The alpha board has various test and debug features which will not be present on the final board.

The ICs used in the design are an ARM-based application processor (center) and an SMSC LAN9512 USB 2.0 hub and 10/100 Ethernet controller (right and down from center). The SDRAM is mounted on top of the application processor in a PoP configuration.

Following the example of the BBC Micro, we intend to launch both a Model A device (lacking the LAN9512, and with 128MB of RAM) at the $25 price point, and a Model B device (including the LAN9512, and with 256MB of RAM) for a $5-10 additional cost. We remain confident of shipping before the end of 2011.

Check back in a couple of weeks to see how the alpha boards turned out.

[kh2k4]

So it only has 1 usb port? to connect extra peripherals / storage devices you have connect them in tandem using a hub?

Is it going to have Wi-Fi?

Will it allow one to use the SD up to SDXC? and the abilty to use unsed space as extra ram / gpu ram like virtual memory?

HDMI output you exspect all these broke ass kids to be able to afford a HDMI enabled TV yet can't afford a computer maybe you should offer RCA, S-Video, Component version also.