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Comment by elviejo | Hacker News Reader

Nice summary on the history of Raspberry Pi And loved the fact that they use scratch to demo it :-)

Maybe this is closer to the OLPC original goal??

I don't think this is closer to OLPCs goal of providing a laptop per child. OLPC was, literally, "batteries included," they even had a charging solution for the batteries. The OLPC device as a tool for kids to learn about computers and programming was just one facet of its intended use. It was also a notebook, and a textbook and a communications device. The RasberryPi needs a screen, a keyboard and power, and even with those things, a Kid isn't going to be able to carry it arround and use it anywhere they want.

None of this is a criticism of RaspberryPi. I think cheap computers that kids can screw up and fix is a very good thing. And often, less is more.

You bring up an important point, I think, unintentionally. Kids may be able to 'screw up and fix' the software components, but it would be very cool to also allow the same interaction with the hardware.

I feel like maybe a version of the RaspberryPi that ships assembled on a breadboard with replacement parts - more expensive, of course, to cover the increased manufacturing costs and extra parts - would be extremely useful to anyone interested in hardware design. (Of course there are other kits that do this, but I think that there would be some benefit to RaspberryPi offering it as well.)

Not really practical with modern surface mount SOC components but there is always the Arduino.

There is an add-on I/O board for the Raspberry that has all the usual science class sensors and a proto area and links to the GPIO header

The OLPC has a battery, case, power supply, storage, keyboard, track pad, screen. It also releases source code to the OS binaries they ship. The raspberrypi needs a £150 TV, plus lots of other accessories to do anything.

It's nice to see another player in the educational computer market though. I don't think it's fair to compare to OLPC yet, because the raspberrypi has not finished their educational version.

I think that the Raspberry Pi is actually a perfect solution for developed countries. The peripherals needed to make a Pi work can usually be scrounged for free, or picked up very cheaply. 99.9% of UK households have a suitable TV. The vast majority have at least one HDTV with HDMI inputs. Mice, keyboards, wireless adapters and SD cards can be bought at computer fairs for a couple of pounds each, or scavenged as hand-me-downs.

For the first eight years of my computing career, all my hardware came out of skips (dumpsters) or was bought used at computer fairs and flea markets. IME there's a vast glut of basic peripherals in most developed countries, simply due to the turnover of computers in offices.

Exactly used TV markets are huge in africa and asia. So cheap that if they break they just buy a new one. Like can be appreciated in this image: http://i01.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/524/456/106/106456524_529.jpg

I think this could do more than the OLPC

One of the initial cristicism of the OLPC was that it wasn't what a starving child in a Somalia refugee camp needed. Their response was that it was aimed at letting kids in Peru grow up to do to S Korea and India what S Korea and India had done to the USA and Japan

Yes to a kid in an African village with no electricity an OLPC is more use - but to a kid in a CS class in Peru, a class with TVs and keyboard and kids with TVs at home this is what a Commodore 64 or Apple II was to us.

What is really better about this is that it will also be used by every other geek in the - world so it will have everything the rest of the world has. The OLPC kid will end up learning the Official Ugandan education ministry OLPC curriculum which won't be changed for 20years - they will be like Soviet CS grads in the 70s

Hardware is not the goal of OLPC. But it's an important component and a Raspberry Pi is not in the same ballpark as an XO laptop.

A kid in rural Peru is not going to have access to monitors, keyboards or the power required to run them. Nor will they sling a monitor over their back on the 5 mile walk back to their village every day.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this sort of comment is?

It probably isn't a direct replacement, but for low income children and schools serving those children in the US, it is probably a good alternative for a programming class. It will probably do better in the long run because of cost and availability to everyone.

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