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by subsystem 4985 days ago
"in families that couldn't afford a 'real' computer, or couldn't/wouldn't allow kids to try potentially damaging things on the family machine."

How many of those families are going to buy a rpi, have the knowledge to teach set it up and teach their kids, etc? What's going to get kids programming is a really cheap "normal" computer, just like it always has.
1 comments
stan_rogers 4985 days ago
Schools were and are the primary target. Just go back and read the story behind Raspberry Pi[1]. The point always was to get back to the days of the BBC Micro and a general introduction to computing fundamentals (as opposed to mere "using the applications" training) for British kids (although kids in other places can benefit as well), based on the notion that broad exposure would mean a larger cohort of people to draw upon as adults in the tech sector (commercial and academic) in later life. Full-featured computers in schools are expensive for this sort of task, and not everybody can take their work home with them to expand upon it—or even just to do homework. At around the price of a textbook, the Raspberry Pi makes that at least possible.

The low price, suggested curriculum, etc., are a big part of making it work. Or is it your contention that computing should be restricted to people who can afford a "proper" computer?

[1] http://www.raspberrypi.org/about

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guiambros 4984 days ago
Thanks Stan, for setting the record straight.

It's amazing how many people totally miss the point about R-Pi. There's so much hate (here and in other forums) because the Pi is not fast enough, or open enough, or supported enough, or available enough.

People don't realize that it was never intended to be a replacement to your desktop computer, or a completely open hardware platform, or widely available at retailers, or a commercial system widely supported. The primary target are schools and young developers, interested in learning. Honestly, kids don't really care if the GPU is open sourced or not. But they'd love things like this: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/freshers/raspberrypi/tutorials/os/.

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