Hobbyist machine, not a revolution, ffs
Come on people, this is 2011, not 1981. The "nightmare of frameworks and compilers" is what allows 90% of developers to earn a living programming. They neither need nor want to run "on the metal", or write "tight code". And neither should they; the democratisation of software authorship is predicated on machines having the power to run high-level systems and languages. This idea goes against that, and harks back to a time 30 years ago when only nerds programmed. It's a piece of nostalgia, plain and simple.
In case you guys haven't noticed, the marketability of low-level coding skills is diminishing year on year, and has been for over a decade. Sorry, but you don't expand the workforce to become coders by propagating an 80s myth about the level of elite skills required for the job, and going on about "coding to the metal" or how we did things when we were lads. Jesus. You may as well try to expand mining in this country by teaching kids to swing a pick-axe.
It's nice to have a cheap Linux board, but it's not exactly a revolutionary idea, and if cheap Linux boards are so desirable why weren't schools buying them in their millions at the £60 price point? We're being asked to believe this is a revolution, but the truth of that has to be based on there being this immense price sensitivity in the market, which doesn't seem likely given that the prices of bare-board systems have been dropping steadily for the last 10 years and they are still just hobbyist items. Is the next 50% discount really going to make them suddenly go mainstream?
I can't be the only person who thinks the hype around this is ridiculous, can I? Computers are all about SOFTWARE, it is software which makes them flexible, it is software where the cool stuff is happening that's relevant to a maturing market, and that software is becoming better because it leans on other software. And yet everyone creams their pants when a new piece of hardware comes out that is identical to a hundred other pieces of hardware, but at a somewhat lower price point. It's staggering.
Here's an idea - if you want kids to learn programming, demand they are given programming courses at school, on the existing kit. Create a demand for simpler development environments. And start by looking at what we already have - Javascript in the browser is an easy way for anyone to get started. You can begin simple and build up, it's a high-level language, it works, it's safe, it's sandboxed, it's fast compared to even the best 8-bit machines, it has its own sprite engine and lately its own 3D layer, and you don't have to buy any new hardware. Most importantly, it's a still-relevant skill, and will likely outlast the current generation of secondary school kids by some time.
Expecting to be downvoted for this, don't worry :) You do what you have to do :)