BBC to give 1 million Micro Bit computers to schools
Leon
Posts: 7,620
The BBC is giving 1 million Micro Bit computers away:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31834927
The initiative is supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, as well as other organisations such as ARM, Samsung and Microsoft. It presumably uses a ARM processor and will be programmable in Touch Develop, Python and C++.
I saw it on the lunchtime BBC news programme, running a changing pattern on the LED matrix. It is quite tiny.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31834927
The initiative is supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, as well as other organisations such as ARM, Samsung and Microsoft. It presumably uses a ARM processor and will be programmable in Touch Develop, Python and C++.
I saw it on the lunchtime BBC news programme, running a changing pattern on the LED matrix. It is quite tiny.
Comments
I bet the parents are going to be upset - imagine what that will do to the household electricity bill! Plus having to put a raised floor in little Bobby's bedroom!! Yikes!!
Perhaps an LSI 11 then?
Probably about as powerful as that PDP-11
Yes, more 'creative' English, and perhaps unwittingly proving just how desperately short of digital awareness the average reporter IS.
["The BBC will be giving away mini-computers ....
One million Micro Bits - a stripped-down computer similar to a Raspberry Pi "]
Oh dear, clearly, the concept of Microcontroller has eluded many. - and "similar to a Raspberry Pi" is also very large leap.
Seems to be still under discussion - and considerable morphing
["The final version will have a [B]Bluetooth link [/B]enabling it to be hooked up to other devices such as a Raspberry Pi. "]
["The tiny programmable machine is still a prototype and the BBC is working with several partners, including chip-designer Arm, Microsoft and Samsung, to get the end product right. "]
NONE of the above hints at ATMega32u4, and the Bluetooth link points to a different direction entirely.
The best fit device for that, would be
http://www.cypress.com/?rID=102523
["Offers the industrys widest operating voltage range from 1.9 V - 5.5 V including full analog operation across the range"]
followed by maybe
http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/32-bit/Pages/blue-gecko.aspx
or some yet to be released part, with
* Wide Vcc (like the Cypress offering already has)
* Bluetooth in 'ROM', or protected Flash (ie very hard to brick )
* Possibly Dual Core, to protect the user & Bluetooth code from each other.
Samsung is the only hardware vendor mentioned, and they have deep pockets, but do not have the proven Wide Vcc of Cypress.
Given Cypress have just swallowed Spansion, Cypress could offer a [Bluetooth + Hyperflash], which would
be a serious platform, with a lot of code elasticity.
ARM3 at 48MHz
128KB Flash
8KB Cache
20KB SRAM
Minus for the CC2640 is the narrow supply, but a plus is it seems to have 3 cores and good ROM resource.
The 3rd core says this ( a MSP430 COG here, perhaps ?)
Ultra-Low Power Sensor Controller
Can Run Autonomous From the Rest of the System
16-Bit Architecture
2-KB Ultra-Low Leakage SRAM for Code and Data
Not clear if the Cypress part supports over-the-air updates, but is has a good ADC & DAC and some models have the UDB logic fabric too.
The Cypress device looks more real-world connectable, eg to Ardunio Shields or to RaspPi
Here is a better picture where you can read the part number: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-03/12/bbc-micro-bit/viewgallery/343369
No doubt it's subject to change though.
With ARM and Microsoft and Samsung & Bluetooth all in the Mix, an AVR is looking like not the eventual device.
Of course, they could try a "mini-mini-computer" with the AVR or a Miniduno ....
They want to give a way a million devices. Perhaps they can justify 3 million pounds on the project not 30 million.
Yes people might be selling of old models cheaper, I doubt if you will find a million of them. Still a lot more expensive anyway.
Developing the board they showed would probably take some guys around here a whole week end!
I wouldn't give away one bit.
Erlend
"The greatest thing since the British discovered that they they could trade in tea."
"Was this really Camilla's idea? How clever!"
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I am curious about Touch Develop. Those pictures look like they just might be exploiting the Mims Effect with LEDs as a keyboard.
It seems obivious you will need to compile your C++ on a Raspberry Pi to get this runniing.
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Dennis: Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
King Arthur: Be quiet!
Dennis: Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.
The BBC sponsored the BBC Micro back in 1980. An 8 bit computer intended to bring the modern world of computer literacy to the young of Great Britain. It inspired a generation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro
One could argue that a state funded broadcasting company should not do such things. But, hey, they made many TV shows around what kids were doing with those machines at the time. I would argue it was a good way to make cheap but interesting TV shows. Certainly other TV projects have cost a lot more.
So, this little gadget is over three decades after the "first welfare" computer. A proposition that I reject any way.
Now, about that Raspberry Pi. There is a reason why they have a "Model A" and a "Model B". They are named after the models of that original BBC computer. A mark of recognition of the effect those machines had.
By the way, the company that was making those original BBC Model A and B was Acorn Computers. Now known as ARM. You know, the guys who designed every processor that is used in every mobile phone, and tablet, from Apple to the cheapest Chinese vendor.
So, to today, if the BBC blows a million or ten on this "welfare gadget" I'm all for it. Kids, as far as I can tell now a days, need such a stimulous. and it will make interesting and cheap again.
By the way, where do you get this from: There is no basis for this "obvious" thing. I'm pretty certain they will go for a gadget that can be programmed with the Arduino IDE.
Seems we are nearly there.
Meanwhile, good old fashioned working man's Fish and Chips has become very expensive!
In my mind, that would be a good thing - the tools can run on an inexpensive SBC (possibly a Raspberry Pi, possibly some other flavor of Pi type device) instead of a more expensive standard PC. I think cost is still a barrier to creativity - I'm much more willing to try something with my $35 Raspi than I am with my $1000 laptop - but that may just be me! I'm more likely to let my kid do anything with a $35 SBC than their PC they use for school work.
Plus wrapping it all together with TV programming,
Way to go BBC!!
You had to be keen in those days.
Instead of £25 for a Raspberry Pi, or even a MicroBit for FREE you had to spend £235 for a Model A BBC and £335 for a Model B in 1981; - 34 years ago!!
I wonder what the inflation adjusted value of £235 is now in 2015, and would you spend that on a beginners computer?
Dave
I do agree the BBC Micro was not exactly cheap.
However, remember that computers were expensive. The crappy IBM PC came out in 1981 at a price of $1,565, whatever that is in pounds. Previous 8 bit CP/M machines cost a couple of grand.
The Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64, machines that were a lot less functional, did not arrive till a year later.
Yes, you had to be keen. Many were...because it was so cheap!
And I did. And I am happy I did. Numerous phonecalls to Britain, imported a model B to Norway. I still remember that brilliant spring Friday morning, unpacking the computer and a Hantarex monitor and a 2 x 160k floppy station. The first lines of BBC Basic code. Then later Pascal, Lisp, Forth, BCPL - you could get them on ROM. I learnt a lot! I have in some ways felt a British citizen ever since.
Christ, I realize I am getting old.
Erlend
I met a couple of smart 20 something year old brothers recently. When I told them I was in the programming business the younger one said "Oh, old guys don't know anything about computers". I bit my lip.
After a while our conversation passed by the topic of the Arduino. At which point I pulled the Propeller ASC board out from my pocket (Why do I always have such things in my coat pockets?)
This lead to a two hour exposition on my part on micro-controllers, programming in C, Pascal, Spin whatever, driving LEDs and servos etc. Driving robots, flying quad copters. I was on a roll because their eyes were wide open with curiosity. They had questions that needed answering.
When it was time to depart we shook hands and I looked the younger brother in the eye and said "It seems the young guys don't know anything about computers".
Forgive my shameless lampoon. There are just some days when other microcontrollers seem to get more praise and support here than the Parallax products.
How is any 'for profit' enterprise supposed to compete with a media giant like the BBC giving away free boards?
And yes, we must give hommage to the BBC and the British role in the development modern computing. It would be disrespectful to not do so.
"All right ... all right ... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order ... what have the Romans ever done for us?" --- Monty Python's Life of Brian
But please don't forget that Philo Farnsworth did contribute something to the development of TV.
Knowledge is not always limited to age however, experience seems to be.
Note that there are for profit interests in this BBC project, Microsoft, ARM and Samsung for example. How much more "for profit" do you want to be? I can do that, you don't have to. Just watch their shows which your TV provider will have paid for and hence you have paid for. The BBC is a for profit organization outside of the UK. Who?
Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish immigrant that did invent the telephone prior to acquiring US citizenship. Some of the work was done in Boston, some in Canada. He patented it first in the USA in 1876. I can't sort that one out at all. But I was taught in elementry school that an American invented the telephone, and the television. British claim yet another Scot invented TV, John Logie Baird -- the mechanical TV.
The BBC Computer in 1980 was something I was something else entirely unaware of until this thread. At that time, I believe I was living in a small fishing village on the Oregon Coast, and rebuilding a sea-side cottage that I called home. We didn't have TV in town, just one movie theater and a local radio station. Local newpaper was published weekly. It wasn't until 1983, when I left Newport, Oregon that I became aware of the possiblities of personal computers.
I learn something new every day. Recently it seems that it has been revealed that the Wright Brothers were not the first to successfully fly.
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Sorry, but i am still a bit conflicted by the mass media promotions of the latest educational micro-controller. When I think of educational resources I think curriculum, syllabus, course materials, and textbooks.
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I doubt the BBC considered opening up production of these boards to companies from all over the world. It certainly would be wonderful if they would consider the Propeller a possible candidate for educational board distribution.
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I don't quite follow that the BBC is a non-profit in the UK and a for-profit everywhere else. I guess I am not clever enough for that. I don't see how I can sort out whether the BBC serves the public or its owners.
re:Farnsworth invented the electronic TV.
On 25 December 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated a TV system with a 40-line resolution that employed a CRT display at Hamamatsu Industrial High School in Japan.[38] This was the first working example of a fully electronic television receiver. Takayanagi did not apply for a patent.[39]
On September 7, 1927, Farnsworth's image dissector camera tube transmitted its first image, a simple straight line, at his laboratory at 202 Green Street in San Francisco.[40][41] By September 3, 1928, Farnsworth had developed the system sufficiently to hold a demonstration for the press. This is widely regarded as first electronic television demonstration.[41] In 1929, the system was further improved by elimination of a motor generator, so that his television system now had no mechanical parts.[42] That year, Farnsworth transmitted the first live human images with his system, including a three and a half-inch image of his wife Elma ("Pem") with her eyes closed (possibly due to the bright lighting required).[43]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_television
The Brits invented BCPL, took it over the pond, where they worked out B, then had another go at it, and this turned out C - the programming language most know about.
My contribution today,
Erlend