back to article UK plant bakes its millionth Raspberry Pi

A Sony-owned factory in South Wales has now punched out more than a million Raspberry Pi board computers. This is laudable, but it shouldn’t be taken as a sign that Britain is going to ride to economic recovery on the back of a new generation of young programmers. The Raspberry Pi is a fortysomething’s wet dream of early 1980s …

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  1. Joe K
    Thumb Down

    Well done

    What an unnecessarily bitter, pointless article.

    They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine.

    1. hplasm
      Devil

      Re: Well done

      I blame the Department for Eduction.

      1. Frederic Bloggs
        Unhappy

        Re: Well done

        Well I don't. As far as I can see the DoE has done its level best to do the exact opposite, as this article on Auntie published today, helpfully lays out.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Well done

        What for? wasn't it Gove who said IT should teach development skills instead of using MS Office? he took the advice of Google and others.

        He's doing a lot more than Blair and co did, who just asked Microsoft what to do.

        http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2280102/gove-s-new-ict-curriculum-sees-five-year-olds-writing-programs-and-3d-printing-in-schools

        1. WhoaWhoa

          Re: Well done

          "wasn't it Gove who said IT should teach development skills instead of using MS Office? he took the advice of Google and others."

          I'm not sure that Google boss slating UK's 'computing' in schools when speaking in Scotland a month or so before Gove knee-jerked in embarrassment amounts to Gove "taking advice".

          And what credentials, exactly, does Gove have to say anything about IT (did he really drop the 'C'?) anyway?

          What credentials to say anything about education, come to that?

    2. Stevie

      They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine

      Numbers?

      Cos not for nothing, if you *don't* have a spare keyboard, mouse, USB hub, decent power supply and HD capable monitor lying around, the uptake is about the cost of an E Machine and the experience significantly less fulfilling.

      And if you have those things at a school already, chances are you have the rest of the kit to go with it. Python will install just as readily on Windows as Linux, a far cheaper and less bothersome thing all round if you already have the windows investment.

      And I speak as an early adopter, someone who has been running two Pis (that original one I waited six months to receive and the newer, better model that I got two weeks later) for fun and after six moths buggering about still thinks the GUI is so slow as to be an impediment (especially if you don't put in that powered hub - you'll be plagued by the secret double click insensitivity issue that no-one talks about openly).

      I think there are a few kids messing with them, because I've seen them doing so on the web and here in the pages of El Reg. But I don't think those truckloads of Pis are being bought for kids in the main. Nosiree. I think they are being bought by college kids and professors, hobbyists who need a cheap controller and don't want to use Arduino and people who want a cheap set top box.

      Because that is what the vast majority of web traffic about Pis is telling me.

      There is a great clamour for the Pi here in the USA, where they can at times be hard to find, but they are being sought by old farts like me, not by kids.

      1. James Hughes 1

        Re: They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine

        Does that eMachine come with a monitor?

        Because that is the big cost. The rest? $30 if you don't already have some bits lying around.

        As for the faults you are seeing - upgrade your firmware and/or your power supply. It's not the Pi's fault if you don't feed it enough. GUI, yes a bit slow - should get much better soon with the Wayland support going well.

        1. Jess

          GUI, yes a bit slow

          Try using RISC OS

        2. Stevie

          Re: They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine

          "Does that eMachine come with a monitor?"

          Yes.

          "Because that is the big cost. The rest? $30 if you don't already have some bits lying around."

          I *said* all that. Are you including the cost of the case to put the Pi in? And the special cable you'll need to connect the Pi (relatively seamlessly thank Azathoth) to a non HDMI monitor? Or the SD card?

          "As for the faults you are seeing - upgrade your firmware and/or your power supply. It's not the Pi's fault if you don't feed it enough. GUI, yes a bit slow - should get much better soon with the Wayland support going well."

          Firmware at latest level. "Six months of buggering about" is short hand for technical stuff that includes that.

          Power supply rated over and above that required by the Pi as recommended and supplied by Sparkfun - who can be trusted to do a decent job of vetting before vending and won't sell poorly designed cheap power supplies. Also - power supply used for heavier loads as test and came through with flying colours.

          The GUI is slow and stutter and completely unfit for purpose. A slow GUI is like a blunt knife - worse than not having one in the first place.

          However, the problem I see is with mouse click registration, specifically the double click, and has to do with the pixel spread over which the activity is detected as much as the speed. This verified in tests (included in "buggering about"). The only reliable way to use an icon to open an application or utility on the first try is to right click on it and select from the menu.

          Just because you are in love with the idea of what has been attempted with the Pi, don't get over-invested with the thing. It has severe limitations that make it less-than ideal for the avowed job it was intended to do. Personally, I think the "off message" uses people are putting it to are the only thing saving the project. I acquired two of them for a colleague who won't buy stuff on the internet (Unix Admin, Properly Eccentric) and he has no kids. Wanted them for some bitcoin thing he was noodling with. I digress.

          Even if every child with access to one at school had their own at home it wouldn't have driven one million units in sales.

          In fact, the target use for the Pi for me was that I wanted to use it in a number of prop projects I have on the boil, but the power consumption makes it a non-starter for most of them. I'll probably be using Arduino in those. I'd rather have the British kit, but physics is getting in the way.

          That said, the firing-up experience with the Pi was has been better all round on toast than the nightmare of the Beaglebone Black Evaluation of Frustrating Bollocks.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: the nightmare of the Beaglebone Black Evaluation of Frustrating Bollocks.

            "the nightmare of the Beaglebone Black Evaluation of Frustrating Bollocks."

            Where can I read more?

            I have a couple of possible opportunities where a BBB is on paper a better fit than a RasPi, but obviously the RasPi has a much broader "community", and that is itself worth something.

            1. Stevie

              Re: the nightmare of the Beaglebone Black Evaluation of Frustrating Bollocks.

              I did what all proper Unix admins do and eschewed this "writing down what I did and why" step of the game for fear someone else would be able to do it without learning how the hard way and anyway I had more pressing things to do than documentation.

              It amounted to the following:

              Initial purpose-bought 32 gig micro SD card turned out to have *too much* memory for the BBB. I had to comb the area for an 8 gig card (becoming hard to find in my neck of the swamp) before the BBB would do more than do a lego brick impression when booted.

              Odd as in "hard-to-find and expensive to acquire a cable for" mini HDMI slot parked so close on the board to another component (don't have the board here ATM but I *think* it was the USB port) that precluded using a simple adapter to step it up to the regular easy-to-find and cheap as chips size for fear the mini HDMI port would be torn from the board (it's a tight squeeze even with a purpose bought cable). Why was this port not shimmed to mitigate this obvious problem? None can say.

              Then the bloody thing would not play with an old monitor via a HDMI-to-VGA coupler, though the same hook-up gave the Pi no problems at all apart from an initial blank screen when the firmware is polled instead of the startup console blither, and which doesn't happen on subsequent tries unless you plug the Pi into a bona fide HDMI capable monitor.

              Oh, and the external USB Hub took a couple of restarts and a couple of different ones before it was recognized though both were named brands of hub.

              That about covers the "Console Mode" boot.

              Since sourcing that effing HDMI cable took forever I attempted to access it via the USB interface, from which an administrative webby control port and programming API for the main app (whose name I cannot remember). This is the primary way it is thought the device will be spoken to anyway, and the BBB runs a webby app server to facilitate doing so which on paper looks great.

              Problem 1 - the initial "is the app working properly" page with embedded tests showed the page was *not* working properly though the programming workbench app was. I was instructed to download and reburn the OS image, at which point the app test page worked but the programming workbench stopped working.

              Problem 2. The SSH app that loads in the browser (same as program workbench etc) would not open a session to the console. This was working fine before I reburned the SD card. I finally solved it by connecting using Putty, but I could not tell you why after that the browser-based thing started working. I made zero configuration changes. The workbench started working too after this. Obviously the problem was in the session, but what, why and how it got fixed? Put me down for a "Splunge" on that one.

              At which point the cable arrived in theater but by then I'd lost the adapter I needed to daisy chain the other end to a useful connector (couldn't find a cable that would do everything itself) and after buying another for a mere $25 I was able to connect my HDMI monitor and a keyeboard and mouse to it and get it sizzling using the console.

              The cost for all this ran to many times the costs incurred in acquiring the Pi and getting that working. The GUI on the BBB is more responsive than that on the Pi but the overall experience was better for me with the Pi.

              That said it should be front and center in everyone's mind that the two machines are very different and intended for different markets. The Pi is primarily a programming workbench in intent, with a tiny but adequate amount of memory available. The BBB is a professional prototyping tool with no fixed mission in life with a large amount of memory on board.

              Neither is an economic way of putting together a general use desktop machine given the availability of x86 type hardware and the wide variety of mature(ish) Linux variants that will run on 'em, though the BBB has more carpet for you to spread your digital crap over than the Pi does.

              Both could be used in small and specialized devices/applications. The easiest ride and widest support would seem to be for the Pi, though the community has dirty laundry it doesn't like to talk about (as you've seen here).

              I don't think either is a particularly good platform for teaching newcomers how to program in an age when struggling against the limitations of a machine for their own sake will be seen as a waste of time, but that is my opinion and not some sort of universal truth.

              Good luck with whatever your project is.

              1. Stevie

                Re: the nightmare of the Beaglebone Black Evaluation of Frustrating Bollocks.

                Forgot to mention: Extremely early adopter of both Pi and BBB. The Pi just took so long to arrive that two weeks after it was in my sweaty paws the new version with twice the memory was available in the US, so I got one of them too. The BBB I acquired was one of the first batch to roll out of the factory, and there were clear warnings on the thing that it might not be ready for prime time.

                Mileages will hopefully vary. I encourage anyone who has had a better experience with the BBB to weigh in with their assurances of an easy time.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: the nightmare of the Beaglebone Black Evaluation of Frustrating Bollocks.

                  Thank you for the writeup, sorry about the pain.

                  Maybe I'll go back to tidying the shed for a while, unless a happy BBB user can persuade me otherwhise.

                  Cold and damp in the shed though.

                  Are the pubs open yet?

      2. Steve Todd

        Re: They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine

        Who said you needed a monitor? The Pi outputs it's video via HDMI, the intention is that you can use it with a TV set like the BBC B of old.

        1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

          Re: They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine

          Have you seen many classrooms with enough HDMI-input TVs lying around for every child in a programming class? 'Cos I haven't.

          1. Steve Todd
            Stop

            Re: They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine

            Again with the assumptions that the only way anything can be educational is in a structured classroom environment (if there's one way to take all the fun out of something then that's it). The Pi is the kind of thing that kids can plug into the telly at home and explore. They'll learn a good deal more that way, and the worst damage they can do is to trash the SD card, which can be re-written with a fresh image or replaced for a few pounds.

            Oh, and just to add, HDMI to DVI is a simple cable. Old monitors from 10 years ago will work just fine.

          2. DaneB
            Mushroom

            Re: They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine

            Spot on that man!

            Add to that a bunch of unruly 8 year-olds who mostly couldn't give a shit about your command line and you've got a recipe for coding = boring.

            Get over it coders, it's a niche market for the few who want it - albeit a much more useful market than Latin is, Gove, you twat.

        2. Stevie

          Re: They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine

          Because schools have thirty odd TV's in the classroom to hook the Pis up to?

      3. jonathanb Silver badge

        Re: They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine

        Everyone[1] has an HDMI capable monitor, it is called a television set. The power supply is the same one you use to charge your phone, and everyone[2] has one of those. That just leaves the USB keyboard mouse and hub, which are not expensive.

        [1] TV licensing certainly thinks it is everyone, but a lot of people do have one. I use one as a 27" monitor because it was cheaper than the equivalent screen without a tuner.

        [2] Not quite everyone. People who have not yet graduated from nursery school to primary school don't generally have them. Some tin foil hatters and other luddite weirdos don't have them.

        1. Sheep!
          Stop

          Re: They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine

          I don't have a screen with an HDMI input, I'd really like one but there's no reason to get rid of our perfectly good screens just for a new input. I don't actually know anyone who has a screen with an HDMI input.(really).

          However this discussion about HDMI is completely fucking POINTLESS as the pi comes with RCA out which will connect to practically every older style rca/scart connection. You do NOT have to upgrade to an HDMI-capable screen, so even poor people like me can afford one and connect it to our existing screens just like when my dad spent a large portion of his redundancy money back in the 80's to buy me a ZX81 for xmas to hook up to our little black and white portable tv. And I loved it. And I think similarly minded kids will love the pi, especially if their parents can't afford to buy them all shite pads or crapintoshes.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well done

      <quote>What an unnecessarily bitter, pointless article.

      They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine.</quote>

      Great comment, I can see why everyone has voted it up

      <article>Education Secretary Michael Gove, who appears to have decided it’s more important to teach little'uns how to program than to use the technology they will sit in front of when eventually they enter the workplace.</article>

      What a stupid comment. So you're saying you, me, most El Reg readers, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Charles Babbage, Alan Turing all suffered because we weren't taught Word and Excel in school? I think we did ok without it, don't you?

      1. Jason 24

        Re: Well done

        <article>Education Secretary Michael Gove, who appears to have decided it’s more important to teach little'uns how to program than to use the technology they will sit in front of when eventually they enter the workplace.</article>

        "So you're saying you, me, most El Reg readers, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Charles Babbage, Alan Turing all suffered because we weren't taught Word and Excel in school?"

        I deliberately chose not to not take "IT" at GCSE level because I know it was actually "office drone 101", so yes, that section is completely off the mark.

    4. Jim 59

      Re: Well done

      Author is right about the Pi's biggest fans being forty-somethings. Disagree with the rest of the article though.

      Eben Upton ... devised the Pi as a modern take on the low-cost machines on which he says he cut his own coding teeth.

      Cheap ? Dragon 32 in 1982 cost £200. That's about £700 today. Ker-ching. Likewise BBC = £400 -> £1200. Even the zx81 (release price £70) works out at £210 in today's money. There was nothing cheap about home computers, except that they were cheaper than minis /mainframes.

      But how many have those have gone into schools?

      You miss the point. Pi was designed to be cheap enough for individual ownership, not as a school platform. Schools are still in "IT = Excel" mode.

      Michael Gove, who appears to have decided it’s more important to teach little'uns how to program than to use the technology they will sit in front of when eventually they enter the workplace.

      If Gove has done that, he is to be applauded for reversing the actions of Labour, which killed Computer Studies and replaced it with ICT, ICT being "how to use Excel". Unfortunately in out hi-tech world, "how to use Excel" is hardly a rare or marketable skill, it is a is a basic life skill, like tying your laces.

    5. Julian Taylor

      Re: Well done

      Agree totally. This is like someone whining that why should kids be taught art if only a very few are ever going to go to art school.

      Sorry to say but The Register seems to have been letting more and more of this type of article in recently.

    6. Tom Samplonius

      Re: Well done

      "What an unnecessarily bitter, pointless article.

      They've done more than you ever will to promote some classroom coding, sunshine."

      Who is the bitter one? The Pi is a single-board-computer not the messiah. The Arduino was similar vaunted when it was released. It is still cheaper, and better for some hobbyist projects than the Pi. It didn't change the world either.

  2. Graham Marsden
    Holmes

    "it made an entire generation of youngsters want to play Jet Set Willy"

    Yes, that's true.

    But some of them, like me, learned 6502 Assembly Language after hacking Jet Set Willy (and Chuckie Egg and Monsters and...) for infinite lives.

    1. Blane Bramble

      Re: "it made an entire generation of youngsters want to play Jet Set Willy"

      If Tony Smith really had a ZX81 then he would know that once you had exhausted the joys of the included "1K Games Tape 1", there was little else to do but start reading the BASIC manual and learning how to program the thing.

  3. Mondo the Magnificent
    Go

    Old fart's plaything or educational masterstroke?

    In my case an "old fart" undergoing an educational process via the PI

    Does age matter? Either way someone's getting an education....

  4. Peter Mount
    Thumb Down

    Electron?

    Sadly I've got to disagree with you here, although as a 40 something I do remember those years well.

    Yes agreed many couldn't afford a BBC micro back then, but a lot of us ended up with the Electron instead & other than a few features missing it was just as good (although a touch slower).

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm still not convinced that the hobbyists community which has grown around the Pi helps with the educational aims of the foundation. Why would kids bother to work out how to make something work, when all the work has already been done by that community. Kids are no more going to piss away hours of their lives doing something that has already been done (and is available for them to use) that any of us are. To me that's the part which existed in the 1980s but which doesn't exist for todays kids, and without that, I'm not sure you can motivate any but the hardcore geeks (of their generation) to be bothered.

    1. NomNomNom

      yeah wiring up a redstone trap in minecraft is more rewarding than making some frickin leds flash on and off

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Joke

        There is a difference between the two? If they are red LEDs it's the same thing, right?

  6. monkeyfish

    Should we stop teaching art then?

    I'm no artist. I didn't do well in art lessons. But they taught it anyway because it allowed you to find out if you were any good at it. I think you'll find that applies to any subject, including programming.

  7. Stoke the atom furnaces

    Nostalgic fortysomething

    I am a nostalgic fortysomething, with a RaspberryPi ready and waiting to teach my daughter to program when she is old enough :-)

    1. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Re: Nostalgic fortysomething

      "...fortysomethings?"

      Damn Noobies.

      Signed,

      Nostalgic fiftysomething.

      1. Efros

        Re: Nostalgic fortysomething

        Damn right, did my teething on an AIM65 development system.

        1. Oldfogey

          Re: Nostalgic fortysomething

          All noobs.

          Bought my Beeb at the age of 35.

          Now have a project for a Pi, so shall be ordering one soon.

          Project? To display the output of my car's diagnostic computer on a small onboard screen, so that I can read all the information the dashboard doesn't give me.

          Two geekdoms merged! Result!

    2. Stevie

      Re: Nostalgic fortysomething

      And if you move sharpish when she is really young you might finally be in a position to see the Pi do what it was thought up for, because young children will delight in a thing for its own sake.

  8. Salts
    Thumb Down

    Designed to ruffle feathers

    or just a piss poor article, I will go with the latter and agree with Joe K's comments.

  9. James Hughes 1

    Article of the Straw variety?

    There seems to be an either or attitude in the article. But that is not what is needed. Children need to be taught how to use computers - they will ahve to sue them as they get in to the workplace (although, one could argue that by the time they get to school they are better at uses the current devices than the teachers are).

    But teaching programming also helps teach logical thinking. And by teaching it you find out who is good at it. Just like any other subject. Those that ARE good at it and enjoy it go on to study it further. Those who are hopeless don't. Just like any other subject. But what these hopeless ones will hopefully have picked up is a basic idea of what is involved and hopefully it will have improved their logical thought processes.

    Whether the Raspi is the right tool for the job, well, that remains to be seen, but the Raspi foundation is spending a lot of time and money on educational materials and suchlike, and hopefully that won't be going to waste.

    Note: Had a BBC micro, played games, learned assembler. Now volunteer on the side for the Raspi Foundation and have been gainfully employed for most of my working life. Because of that BBC Micro.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Article of the Straw variety?

      Another vote for the Pi is that teaching computer science/programming in schools is a disaster, it has always been a disaster and always will be a disaster.

      We (40something 1st gen of BBC in schools/Vic20 at home) didn't learn anything in O level CS, we learnt by playing with the machines. The same will happen with the Pi - there will be an a official curriculum meeting the standards of "keystage Pi, subsection e, attainment level log(2)" with suitable gender neutral and culturally sensitive pictures on the cover - and it will be ignored by anyoen with a real itnerest.

      The big win of the Pi, any why it isn't equivalent to just having a VM or online JS environment - is that it allows kids to play with a computer themselves, without being bound to classrooms rules or school access policies.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Article of the Straw variety?

        Yes, arguing about the numbers of Pis used by old farts and that most kids won't be interested in programming is rather missing the point.

        A small number will enjoy using Pis in school and will go onto be programmers. It might be small, but it is a lot more than the near zero that schools are currently churning out with their, what amounts to, Microsoft Office indoctrination courses masquerading as "computers".

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Article of the Straw variety?

        Also, it puts a controller in people's hands. I've a friend who hooked it up to record motorcycle telemetry. It isn't the flashing LED's, its the interaction with the real-world which is fun. Too long has that aspect of computing been obscured by libraries requiring a desktop computer just to load.

    2. The Indomitable Gall

      Logical thought? Define "logic"...

      Why is we always talk of computers in terms of "logical thought"? Computers are built out of logic gates, but in operation these gates function neither in the modes of mathematical logic (whether predicate logic or sequent logic) nor in a way that mirrors human thought.

      The basic paradigm in computing isn't Prolog-style logic programming, but declarative programming.

      Declarative programming teaches far more generalisable skills than logic anyway. It teaches clarity of expression and it teaches to consider all the side-effects and consequences of your actions.

      Declarative programming doesn't teach "logical thought", but rather process thinking, a skill required not only for programming, but for almost every field of human endeavour, encompassing all engineering disciplines, transport and logistics, corporate planning, politics and even war.

      I cannot tell you how many corporate policies I've seen handed down from the Management "Science" grads upstairs that failed the tests of clarity and unintended consequence, when any of us trained programmers on the factory floor could have "debugged" the policy in half an hour....

  10. bed

    Yes, well done

    Undoubtedly a large number of the 1980s micro users played games but a certain, perhaps significant, percentage also developed useful skills and that is all that is required this time round so don’t decry either the 40+somethings reliving their youth or next generation, some of whom will, this time round, also develop useful skills. The 1980 micro generation was partially stimulated by a BBC Horizon program “Now the chips are down” and subsequent UK government funded Microelectronics Education Program and, then, the BBC Computer Literacy Project, BBC micro, and not forgetting the ZX80/81, Sprectum, Tangerine, Oric, Nascom, etc.

    It is interesting to read today the BBC has announced plans to "bring coding into every home, business and school in the UK"… 30 years on from a BBC push to make computing mainstream by putting BBC Micro computers in the majority of schools.

    Raspberry Pi, along with a number of other single board computers, many of which will have been bestowed as gift to the young by 40+somethings and will probably end up at the back of drawers, may help the next micro generation develop useful skills and, perhaps, stimulate development of the “Internet of things”.

    1. VinceH

      Re: Yes, well done

      The BBC announcement bed speaks of.

  11. Spiracle

    Order of magnitude problem

    "We all made do with lesser machines, among them Sinclair’s genuinely low-cost ZX81, which is perhaps a more appropriate role-model for the Pi: cheap enough for a “what the heck, why not” purchase that might not get used after all."

    The ZX81 launched in 1981 at £49 in kit form, which in 2013 money is about £160. To hit the Pi's current £33 it would have had to have sold for less than a tenner in 1981.

    An assembled 1981 ZX81 would set you back £70 (or £230 today).

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Order of magnitude problem

      Good point. £70 in 1982 was not a "what the heck" purchase. Just goes to show how cheap computer power has become.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Order of magnitude problem

      And then add on the extra memory pack and purchasing a "proper" keyboard, in our case a bunch of switches on a unboxed PCB.

      In fact I made a case for our keyboard in metalwork at school, so there is cross fertilisation opportunities:

      Don't want to program? Use other people's and use the time saved to build add on components - engineering

      Don't want to build add-on? Buy them and use the time saved to integrate all in a case - design

      Don't want to integrate case? Buy one and use the time saved to paint it in clever scheme - art

      Don't want to paint case? Get another student to and use the time saved to market it - business skills

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The few who did are the inspiration for the likes of Education Secretary Michael Gove, who appears to have decided it’s more important to teach little'uns how to program than to use the technology they will sit in front of when eventually they enter the workplace."

    This is something that people really need to realise - ICT and Computer science aren't the same thing. ICT is arguably more important in that a very high percentage of jobs will use ICT skills, so it should be taught to everyone. That said, Computer Science is an important subject in and of itself, but is far more like classic sciences, in that not everyone needs to know them all.

    1. James Hughes 1

      This is indeed a big problem - a lot of people think computers are computers. And ICT teaches you everything about them. It doesn't, just how to use them, which as you say is a fantastically important skill nowadays, but not CS. The teaching of CS should go hand in hand with the ICT curriculum (which needs revamp anyway), in fact perhaps slightly preceding it - it's always useful to have some background in to how stuff works before actually using it (not essential - but helpful)

      1. Jim Hague

        My youngest is one of the last year forced to do the horrible, pointless, enthusiasm-destroying ICT GCSE. She's had ICT from primary school. All attempting to teach her, not principles, but by rote how to use a desktop Windows machine from 10 years ago.

        The prediction I made when she started school, that the stuff they were teaching here would be utterly obsolete and useless by the time she left school is looking a good 'un.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Not sure about that - ICT is part of education from primary school, but it's not necessarily taught by rote. I know my sister, a juniors teacher, particularly likes the "minibeasts" module they do, it introduces students to datasets, computer decision making, data structures and many other concepts, through use of a branching database used to store information about the insects they just collected on the school playing field. The vast majority of her class have no idea that they've just learned about all these fundamental concepts, they just think they've told a computer about some bugs. Some of the most important learning that pupils do at school is in the guise of something else.

    2. The Indomitable Gall

      " ICT is arguably more important in that a very high percentage of jobs will use ICT skills, so it should be taught to everyone."

      By that token:

      * schools shouldn't be teaching basic mathematics to all pupils beyond that which is necessary to operate a MacDonald's cash register;

      * art lessons should consist of identifying the font impact on your computer, and using it to write a meaningless phrase on pictures of kittehz;

      * music lessons should teach only the skills necessary to select an appropriate playlist for a birthday party, wedding or road trip

      * no more "creative writing" in English lessons -- how many of us would ever get a publishing deal anyway?

  13. Charles 9

    As much as I appreciate the ability to tinker around with the Pi, perhaps it's time to look for something with a little more oomph. My eyes have been drifting towards one of the Cubieboards. The main thing I'm interested in with this is the additional memory it packs (at least 1GB), so you can dedicate such a device for more utilitarian things (I'm wondering if I could turn a Cubieboard into a Freenet server; CPU isn't a big thing, but you need plenty of RAM to keep things running at a smooth pace).

    1. James Hughes 1

      Horses for courses really. If the Cubieboard is a better fit, fit it. It's more expensive, because you get more.

      I think they can happily coexist for a few years until things get upgraded.

  14. Ben Norris

    We throw away tons of laptops that have screen, keyboard, powersupply, etc. built in. A far more useful exercise than the Pi might be to put a sandbox on them to bring them to a common standard, coupled with a cheap USB IO device. Much more practicle than a classroom of kids huddling round a TV.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Ben Norris

      If they are working, a reasonable spec and in good nick why are you throwing them away? If they are battered to all hell or so old nothing works on them, what use are they going to be to schools.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Volume rollout vs three or four scrapped PCs

      "A far more useful exercise than the Pi might be to put a sandbox on them to bring them to a common standard, coupled with a cheap USB IO device. "

      OK, off you go then. You get a collection of random junk-ready boxes together, with negligible local support, no compatible spares, no guarantee the low level hardware or software is compatible amongst them all (do I have a parallel port or not?, etc), negligible supporting materials (training, courseware, etc - you want it, then DIY). Then roll it out across not just one classroom but one hundred, one thousand, maybe more. Good luck with that.

      You have just shown very clearly that you have no idea about what a "cost effective volume rollout" involves. That's OK. Lots of people don't.

      Be grateful that some of the people in this program apparently do have a clue, and in the meantime us outsiders can observe, listen, maybe learn, maybe occasionally suggest. There's more to a program like this than a collection of a few disparate reject and often unrepairable PCs supported part time by a school IT technician.

    3. rurwin

      Firstly, there is no classroom of kids huddled round a PC. Everyone gets one each, or maybe one between three.

      Secondly, Your throwaway Laptop needs to be purchased, wiped, installed, and the USB hardware needs to be bought. I bet you can't do all of that, including the labour and the thrid-party insurance, for under £30 each.

  15. Suricou Raven

    Was I the only one to start out on a CPC?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You youngster :D

      Mind you, I started with a Vic20 and graduated to a CPC6128. Great little machine with the 3" drive made more useful with a 3rd party 3.5" drive.

      I really liked to inbuilt extension mechanism invoked with what I think was the | symbol. Wrote some machine code to add some commands for printing graphics for a project I was doing. Lots of fun.

      Did you have the RomBox extension? That was really cool. Got a rom for an editor and disk extensions with the disk drive. Very nice.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I set one up for a friend's kid

    Installed scratch on it, and got Scratch working with his Littlebits collection via a custom board.

    Will he use it? Don't know. Is he now destined for a career in IT? Statistically unlikely. But at £30, frankly who cares? He didn't previously have a computer he could tinker with, and now he does. Maybe he'll like tinkering. Which I think was the point of the Rasberry Pi all along.

    You can add me to the list of those scratching their heads over the tone of this article.

  17. RISC OS

    Great idea....

    ...all i learnt in secondary school in computers was that "station 6123 isn't listening", and when it was, just playing battle of the bulge. Then in the real world I discovered that no one ever used BBC computers or arcs.

    Like I said, great idea, but I think the vast majority of PIs have been bought up by nerds, the kind who run linux... I can't see this doing much for children's education.

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Great idea....

      Weird. I had a BBC micro, used it through school (A level CS) and University (had a Pascal compiler, and was faster than using the overloaded MicroVAX), and when I left, had no problem at all adapting to the PC which by this time were taking over.

      A computer is a computer - learn to use program using one language and it's not a huge move to another one. And Linux is getting bigger (if not on the desktop, but that's another story).

    2. Haku

      Re: Great idea....

      I think the fact that so many hardware hackers have embraced the Pi is actually a good thing for its image, if kids learn to use them at school they'll likely discover a whole world of non-school people using for a vast array of uses. Never had that with the BBC Micro when I was young as they were mostly confined to schools, although I still have my BBC Master Compact in a drawer somewhere.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Great idea....

      Except all of those train stations that used BBCs with Mode 7 for the passenger info displays. Leeds certainly did, because I remember seeing a "BBC Microcomputer Model B" announced on one of the monitors one day. I've also seen the distinctive Viewdata/Mode 7 in other stations.

  18. Mage Silver badge
    Coat

    Teachers

    The problem in the 1980s was that almost no teacher had a computer of their own or any training.

    Today the problem is training. If the Teacher knows nothing about Computer Science and interfacing hardware and electronics, the kids might as well learn at home with a Pi.

    The interfacing hardware and electronics is very important or else a cheap tablet or laptop with "Scratch" would be better. When Lego Mindstorms 1st came out I had high hopes of it for schools.

    Maths is important to decent computer programming and HW I/O. Schools have difficulty finding people to even teach that.

    A Pi can only be part of the Technology Teaching to Kids Solution. The biggest hurdles are the Dept of E. Lack of suitable teachers and commitment of schools.

    They don't even do ICT properly. When I gave courses at a Business college for trainee secretaries, the best students hadn't done ICT at school. The ones that had (a) needed to unlearn rubbish, (b) thought they knew it all, so didn't listen.

    Mine's the one with Z80 instruction set in the pocket.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Teachers

      Problem with Lego Mindstorms is that although it is a cool idea, it's so expensive.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Teachers

        Well yes, but my local primary school has cupboards of the stuff. They used them once and once the teacher moved on, have had no idea how to use them.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Pointless Sarcasm

    "Education Secretary Michael Gove, who appears to have decided it’s more important to teach little'uns how to program than to use the technology they will sit in front of when eventually they enter the workplace."

    Unless Gove has become psychic he has no way of knowing what technology primary school kids will be sitting in front of when they enter the workplace, and even GCSE pupils are probably 7 or 8 years from their first "proper" jobs.

    In that light, teaching them a general purpose skill like programming would appear to be the right move.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Pointless Sarcasm

      >technology primary school kids will be sitting in front of when they enter the workplace,

      Powerpoint - it will be @#$%$ing Powerpoint

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pointless Sarcasm

        It wasn't long after entering the workplace that I started to hate Powerpoint, and the whole notion of droning on with some bland slides behind you. I would have hated being exposed to it at school.

  20. rurwin

    Five percent is enough.

    Eben Upton has said that in the 1980's, maybe 5% of all kids who had a computer, learned to program it. That was enough to significantly affect the country's IT skills.

    The dynamics are different these days. If kids want to play games they get a Wii/XBox/PS. But if kids are exposed to the Raspberry Pi, maybe in school, or by a friend, then that same 5% may be interested enough to buy one for themselves.

    And this mass uptake by hobbyists is just the sort of exposure that could lead to those kids learning about the Pi and deciding that they want one.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Re: Five percent is enough.

      I couldn't agree more. If from one million units sold we get a single Berners Lee, Stallman, Torvalds, etc, then it will have been worth it.

  21. Alistair
    Pint

    Raspberry PI. Pie. Piiiiiie. -- oh look pumpkin!

    must be lunchtime.

    What my pottering about on a PET, Sinclair, ZX80, and a TRS 99 did not really teach me:

    how to code (although I did learn several good basic bits)

    how to use a computer (although I did get a pretty good basic idea)

    how to create pretty pictures (something I've never done)

    it taught me how to understand the inner workings of a piece of machinery that did not have obvious cams, cranks, connectors, wheels, or springs. It taught me the fundamental bits of logic used still, to this day, in managing systems, solving problems, and setting up environments. Now admittedly I've added a hell of a lot to that knowledge over the last 30 years of this, but the basics came from there.

    And dear god, I've been doing this for far too long I think.

    And -- just because they're cranking out a really neat item, that is apparently selling reasonably well, BEER.

  22. peter collard

    Got no further than this...

    " than to use the technology they will sit in front of when eventually they enter the workplace"

    Perhaps if author had done his sums he would have realised that what you teach a 10 year old will have no value at all applicationwise by the time he's 21. Its a bit like training someone to drive a ford focus as a precursor to flying a spaceshuttle.

    10 years of applications is a long time. Just think back 10 years - twitter didn't exist, no kindles, no ios or android

    The next 10 years - quantum computing, or. wiped out by a EMP bomb and back to core memory.

  23. netean

    dammit

    dammit, Stop reminding me that I'm old enough to remember my dad getting a ZX81. I'm trying to pretend that I'm just 36!

  24. phil dude
    Thumb Up

    thumbs up all the way...

    The price/performance nails it. Will it transform schools? We can hope. Is it useful? YES!!

    If only because you can use it as an XBMC frontend (and it is more functional than the google dongle) which is infinitely preferable to the "smart" TVs that really are not.

    And ultimately if the next rev is the same price but follows the technology curve, there could be benefits further down the line.

    P.

  25. PJI

    Perhaps computers in junior/primary schools are wrong

    A report just published in various media concerns the literacy and numeracy of people around the world. Oddly enough, England (it did not cover all of GB) comes out really badly, better than Spain, Italy and USA, but towards the bottom of about 25 countries (too idle to find a report for accurate figures). What is really interesting is that those above middle age are significantly (in GB) more literate and numerate than under 35s and under 24s. The tendency worsens with youth.

    This seems, to me to coincide with the availability and use of computing in some form in education. So, perhaps the real lesson is: first teach school pupils the traditional three Rs so that they are really confident and competent with numeracy and literacy; build on this to teach them critical appraisal, logic and problem solving. Finally, when they have demonstrated competence so far, teach them informatics, in all its broad and glorious diversity, from using spread sheets to amassing, assessing and using information, ensuring that they apply the basic tools that they learnt to understand and keep control in informatics (rather than the current haphazard way in which, it seems, the technology takes control of the people). Give them a strong sense of their own (not some internationalised, anodised) culture. Then they have a chance of understanding and using the newest tools.

    Simply learning to program or to use a word processor or calculator does not teach critical thought, context, logic or problem solving. These are prerequisites. It is notable that the really big advances in informatics were made by generations educated in a very different, traditional way, often with heavy doses of classical languages, literature, basic and not so basic mathematics, history and so on. They were taught in breadth and depth if not according to the latest theories of easy learning, entertainment and avoiding "overloading". It seemed to result in good, logical, lateral thinking and the ability to use and link disparate ideas and fields.

    In short: there are no short cuts.

  26. billat29

    Whose idea was it anyway?

    This all stems from this report http://royalsociety.org/education/policy/computing-in-schools/report/ which makes interesting reading. The problem statement nicely defines what has been wrong with ICT teaching in schools and the cynics amongst us might be unsurprised at the recommendations given the authors of the report (playing with the BBC Micro et al worked for us).

    However, although PC's / laptops abound in schools, they are usually so locked down as to be almost useless for any interesting work. So from a hardware point of view, the pi is a great choice.

    The problem, as it has always been, is the lack of suitable teaching staff particularly in "bog standard" comprehensives.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Whose idea was it anyway?

      >The problem, as it has always been, is the lack of suitable teaching staff

      But we have unfortunately gone from: you once saw a computer in college = you're the new CS teacher.

      Which at least allowed kids to run rings around them.

      Now we have: these computers were very expensive and are managed by G4S, I don't know anything about computers, I just know my job is on the lien if you do anything to them, so my job is to stop you kids touching the computers.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bought a PI, had high (but vague) hopes of 'doing stuff' with the kids.

    The problem is, on the rare occasions I have time (and inclination) to get it out, by the time I've worked out how to do anything, they've wandered off, bored of waiting. At which point I also tend to lose interest too...

    I bought the pi-face in the hope that would make 'interfacing with hardware' easier, but then couldn't really work out what I might do with it. Lack of imagination I guess.

    So though I don't like the tone of this article any more than the rest of you, I'm not personally swaying the statistics in the right direction...

  28. HippyFreetard

    It Should be Mandatory

    Like a school calculator, or a slide rule in the olden days, every kid should have a Pi when they first start high school. Primary schools should start with stuff like GreenFoot and Scratch, so that by the time the kids hit high school, they're ready for Pi and Python. Schools seem to have enough money to put SmartBoards in every class, run multiple instances of MS-Office and Windows, and in some cases give their pupils tablet devices, so why not? Part of the BBC's success were the school projects, so this would put the Pi firmly in place market-wise, and also give a chance for kids on the other side of the divide to learn computing. It could also make good use in other classes. Adventure games projects for English class, animations for Art, a nice case for it in CDT, you could run a tracker on it and learn scales and sequencing for Music lessons. We're not talking Granny's Garden here (the secret word was "fig" or "cig" yn Nghymraeg).

    There is also a need for better literature for the Pi. When I had my Electron, there were two books you got with it. Start Programming (a step-by-step tutorial), and the User Guide (a BASIC manual). I was also given Computer Fun, and Machine Code Programming for Beginners. These had cartoon monsters (CF) and programs to type in, eg what day of the week were you born on, simple secret coder/decoders, or little cartoon robots (MCPB) that taught you how to use PEEK and POKE, and taught you about buses, registers, and mnemonics. I was nine when I wrote my first little number adder in machine code.

    The BBC was so named because of a TV tie-in. There were a couple of series explaining computers and teaching BASIC with the BBC Micro. The Pi people should emulate that with their YouTube channel, make videos specifically tuned for curriculum viewing (remember how much cooler watching videos were than real lessons?)

    If Eben Upton wants the Pi to be the BBC of today, this, in my opinion, is how to do it.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: It Should be Mandatory

      Graphing calculators are required here (which is why they still cost the same $150 that they did 20 years ago)

      Odd to require a tool which stops you thinking over one that makes you think

      No I'm not saying calculators are bad, but if you are doing maths you should know what 1/x looks like without having the calculator draw it

      1. HippyFreetard

        Re: It Should be Mandatory

        I agree.

        I suffer from problems learning abstract things. So when I was in school, they taught us trigonometry straight off with a calculator, and it didn't sink in at all. So I got my maths teacher to explain it. He sat me down with pencil, paper, ruler, protractor and compass and made me draw circles and measure angles to obtain (rough) answers to trigonometric problems. After that, it made sense.

        But the reason they teach calculator use is because there's a lot of extra variations of trig (for instance) that need to be explored, and using a calculator speeds the student through the process. After you hit high school, it becomes less about solving actual arithmetic problems with numbers, and more understanding the equations and jiggling them around.

        But I don't think they necessarily stop you thinking, as you're just prioritising what it is you're thinking about...

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    For teaching a higher level language I recommend anyone to check out Colobot.

    It's a great game in its own right but the underlying programming engine is really good and holds the attention of a child far more.

    1. HippyFreetard

      Thanks! I might try Colobot on my kids, see if it takes :)

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