Sunday, May 8, 2011

A $25 computer?

Not quite.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation seems set on bringing one of my favourite movies to life. And thankfully not the previously mentioned eXistenZ.



No, they're going the way of The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest. In that movie they are trying to make the PC $99, a computer that costs less than a hundred dollars to make. Now, if that seems kinda familiar, you might want to remember the One Laptop Per Child company, the one making a full-on laptop and selling them near-cost for $100 to impoverished children?
Yeah, this is kinda like that.

The Raspberry Pi is a computer that costs approximately $25 and is hoped to be used to teach computer programming to children. The little thing has no monitor or keyboard, but instead has two ports, an HDMI and a USB: One to plug in an HDMI capable TV or monitor, the other to attach a USB keyboard. (Is it bad to feel old that I remember the keyboards that used headphone-esque jacks?)
The little stick then allows you to boot up Ubuntu or another open-source OS.

Anyway, I'm not a very computer-y person. If it isn't working I can give some suggestions to how to fix it, but the jargon that surrounds the field goes way over my head. So instead of just lyring the specs, I'll just link you to a few places that have more info, in case you are on of the more savvy among us:

And of course, the previously linked foundation website, Raspberry Pi.

So what does this mean? Hopefully it will help bring about change in the computer world, much like the One Laptop per Child did, and unobfuscate the way the computer is built and functions. Hopefully it will bring more power to the young and trodden upon in places that are in desperate need of change.

If nothing else, hopefully it'll help bring about some more savvy people, and create a trend for lower cost, high function machines in this world.

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