One of the scourges that education fights is illiteracy. An evil that continues to survive in countries around the world despite the many advances made. Although it fell by 25% between 1990 and 2015, according to UNESCO data, there are still more than 750 million people who cannot read or write . And to this problem is added another: digital illiteracy . Know how to handle a computer or electronic device, communicate by video call, make or send a simple email. Despite what some people think about the so-called digital natives , no one is born taught. And here cheap computer projects like Raspberry are key.
To combat digital illiteracy, many projects have emerged over the years. Already in the late 60s, the Logo programming language emerged with the purpose of teaching programming to children of all ages. More recent was the ambitious OLPC project , acronym for One Laptop per Child , One Laptop Per Child, created in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte.
But the most successful project related to education and computing has a fruit name. His name is Raspberry , he comes from the UK and has made millions of people buy cheap computers the size of a credit card. They are not the most powerful on the market. What's more, they don't have a screen or keyboard. It is a motherboard that integrates the components essential to function. From this card you can create a computer to use with Linux or any device you can imagine. Or as it says on its official website: “We work to put the power of computing and digital creation in the hands of people around the world.”
Cheap computers for everyone
Linus Torvalds is the father of Linux. Well, technically from its core. But thanks to him an ecosystem was created that today can look Microsoft or Apple face to face. The fact is that the first Torvalds computer was a Commodore from 1980. It came into his hands thanks to his grandfather, a mathematician and statistician from the University of Helsinki, in Finland.
Steve Wozniak is one of the founders of Apple and responsible for the Apple I, the first Mac in history. At the age of 20 he was the creator of one of the best blue boxes that you could find to call for free from public telephones. His father was an engineer at Lockheed Corporation, an icon in the aeronautical industry. And what about Bill Gates . His family was an institution in Seattle, in the state of Washington.
But not everyone has behind a family that supports them financially or gives them access to technology so that they can become the future Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page. Facilitating access to technology for any child of age regardless of their household finances evens things out a little more. And here Raspberry Pi comes into play.
Today, Raspberry Pi is divided equally between the school world and enthusiasts from all over the world who play with their Raspberry Pi, sometimes with several of them, creating original devices and gadgets that they use this tiny computer as their main hub. But its initial purpose was to democratize access to a computer. Cheap computers for everyone. How it all started? Who is behind Raspberry Pi and Raspberry Pi Foundation , the non-profit foundation that manages the project from the UK for the whole world?
Bring computing to schools
The Raspberry Pi Foundation was created in May 2009. It has been more than 12 years. Based in Cambridge, UK, its purpose is to promote the study of computer science or computer science in schools. And to make this possible, he develops his Raspberry Pi computers. Precisely, its key to success are these small devices.
The Raspberry Pi story begins three years earlier, in 2006. That year, the British engineer Eben Upton created his first computer prototype inspired by BBC Micro . This computer was released in late 1981 by Acorn Computers , and was discontinued in 1994. Popularly known as the Beeb, this computer was created at the request of the BBC to teach computing to through a television series.
BBC Micro Model B. Source : Steve Elliott (Flickr) For his part, Eben Upton combined his task of creating cheap computers with his work at Broadcom. Previously, he had also worked at Intel and IBM. Inspired by the educational project behind the BBC Micro, a computer that sold at a price of 350 pounds at the time, Upton wanted to do something similar, cheap computers to fill classrooms. The inspiration of the Beeb does not stop there. The Raspberry models that have been released are named after the BBC Micro computer models: Model A, Model B and Model B +. But let's go back to the beginning.
Upton tried his luck with processors Atmel , used in industrial electronics, medical equipment, various industries and also in consumer electronics. And most importantly, they are cheaper than the processors that we all have in our computers. But in his noble task he was not alone. Among the founders of the Raspberry Pi Foundation , names such as Rob Mullins, Jack Lang or Alan Mycroft stand out. All of them were part of the Computer Science Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. Others would join the project, such as David Braben , co-author of the Elite game created for, precisely, the BBC Micro computer.
AND then ARM came to the Raspberry
Between 2006 and 2011, Eben Upton and company tried different processors and boards to achieve something practically impossible at that time: cheap and functional computers . Both things seemed to be incompatible. Either they were expensive or they were too slow to perform basic tasks.
And then ARM came. ARM processors, an acronym for Advanced RISC Machine , although the A era of Acorn, its manufacturer, were launched on the market for the first time in 1987. But it was not until the 21st century that they experienced their Golden season. In 2005, 98% of mobile phones used an ARM processor. And they are also used in tablets, watches, game consoles, calculators, multimedia players and various peripherals.
The success of the ARM processor, licensed by its owner and manufactured by dozens of different brands, made its price and availability ideal for the Raspberry project. Hence, in May 2011 a Raspberry Pi prototype based on ARM v6 emerged. Designed by Roger Thornton , it was connected via USB and used Ubuntu 9.04 as the operating system. Its code name, BCM2763 Micro DB.
The following year, in January 2012, the Raspberry Pi Pre-Release was released. Here we already see what the Raspberry that we all know will finally be. A rectangular base plate that integrates all the necessary elements to be considered a computer. This device prior to its final release used a Broadcom BCM2835 SoC board. The processor was a 700 MHz ARM1176JZF-S. It also had a VideoCore IV GPU and two amounts of RAM depending on the model to choose: 128 MB and 256 MB. No hard disk or solid state disk , which would make the computer too expensive. Instead, boot from an SD card.
As a curiosity, ten copies of this first model were put up for auction on eBay. The idea was to raise money to finance the project and thus begin to manufacture the first definitive Raspberry Pi. The result was more than favorable, since their original price of 220 pounds they reached a price, among all, of 16,000 pounds. The number one, solo, went on to sell for 3,500 pounds.
Raspberry Pi: more than 12 years of successes
In such a demanding and competitive market as that of computers, that a non-profit foundation that manufactures and sells cheap computers is an anomaly. However, the versatility of these devices has generated an entire ecosystem in which similar projects such as Odroid, Beagleboard or Arduino also participate. Even big ones like ASUS or NVIDIA have decided to create their own cheap computers like SBC (Single Board Computer) .
Its low price, its versatility and the possibility of connecting all kinds of peripherals, sensors or extensions, have made engineers, enthusiasts and programmers from all over the world acquire this type of computers to create their own devices and gadgets . And the same happens in classrooms around the world, where thanks to these cheap computers it is possible to create robots, learn about automation and electronic engineering or teach programming.
Currently, Raspberry Pi has four editions of its computer, the most recent the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B . In parallel, a cheaper and smaller device, the Raspberry Pi Zero . However, you can buy the previous models, simpler than the last one but still cheaper. To this must be added the long list of official peripherals, such as cameras, touch screens, fans, sensors, etc.
The last great genius of the Raspberry Pi Foundation arrived at the end of 2020. A keyboard that integrated a Raspberry Pi 4. Accompanied by a mouse, you only have to connect it to a screen or television to have your own computer. The Raspberry Pi 400 is the best example of how much the Raspberry Pi project gives of itself and how easy it is to offer cheap computers to learn or teach in any setting and context.
Another attraction of the Raspberry Pi is that it has an aura of nostalgia that takes us back to the early days of personal computing with the first artisan computers such as the Apple I or the mythical Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC 464 that you had to connect to the TV.
