05-01-2012, 09:02 PM
I've been reading up on this for some months now, and am rather excited about it. I need to get out more! I especially love the way there is an A model and a B model, just like the original BBC Micro...
As well as Linux (Debian), there will be RISCOS. This is very exciting - especially as I could never afford to buy an Archimedes back in the day.
The possibilities are endless. Combined with a big USB hard drive, it's a file server. Connect a USB printer, it's now a print server. Then install a web server package and it will do everything my current server does, only with no fans and a fraction of the power consumption... The OS is installed onto an SD card, so bootup should be nice and quick if you've bought a decent card.
The target consumption for this is less than a watt (obviously not including and USB peripherals). Amazing.
It can play back movies with Blue Ray 1080p quality (has an HDMI port onboard). Audio can be delivered over the HDMI port or via the onboard 3.5mm socket. So now it's a media player, ready to be integrated with your AV system.
There are some headers for connecting to external hardware. Just like the original BBC Micro. And 3rd party PCBs are being developed to extend this further. People who build robots are very, very interested in this.
Best of all, it will run BBC BASIC. We can only hope that the stated aims are achieved; that our kids will learn to programme rather than run Word, Excel and a web browser.
They are about to start the first production run, which I believe will be 10,000 units. I predict that these will sell out very quickly indeed.
As an aside, last night I finally got around to watching "Micro Men", a BBC4 docu-drama about Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry, the latter being one of the founding members of Acorn. If you haven't seen it, it's worth seeking out. But perhaps I'm feeling over-excited about the Raspberry Pi because I've just watched this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_pi
Cheers,
Mark
As well as Linux (Debian), there will be RISCOS. This is very exciting - especially as I could never afford to buy an Archimedes back in the day.
The possibilities are endless. Combined with a big USB hard drive, it's a file server. Connect a USB printer, it's now a print server. Then install a web server package and it will do everything my current server does, only with no fans and a fraction of the power consumption... The OS is installed onto an SD card, so bootup should be nice and quick if you've bought a decent card.
The target consumption for this is less than a watt (obviously not including and USB peripherals). Amazing.
It can play back movies with Blue Ray 1080p quality (has an HDMI port onboard). Audio can be delivered over the HDMI port or via the onboard 3.5mm socket. So now it's a media player, ready to be integrated with your AV system.
There are some headers for connecting to external hardware. Just like the original BBC Micro. And 3rd party PCBs are being developed to extend this further. People who build robots are very, very interested in this.
Best of all, it will run BBC BASIC. We can only hope that the stated aims are achieved; that our kids will learn to programme rather than run Word, Excel and a web browser.
They are about to start the first production run, which I believe will be 10,000 units. I predict that these will sell out very quickly indeed.
As an aside, last night I finally got around to watching "Micro Men", a BBC4 docu-drama about Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry, the latter being one of the founding members of Acorn. If you haven't seen it, it's worth seeking out. But perhaps I'm feeling over-excited about the Raspberry Pi because I've just watched this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_pi
Cheers,
Mark
