Blog posts by Andrew Back

Now that the Raspberry Pi has started to ship excitement has notched up a level as tweets and blog posts provide tantalising insights into early experiences with the computer. Spurred on by this excitement, a few of us decided that it would be fun to have a meetup to discuss these experiences in person and to share ideas. Thus the London Raspberry Pi Meetup was born.

People started arriving around 3PM and most of the first hour was spent in introductions and chatting. Slightly more formal proceedings then got off to a start when the Centre for Creative Collaboration's Debbie Davies provided a background to the centre and its work. This was followed by an introduction to the Open Source Hardware User Group from Omer Kilic, who then handed over to DesignSpark's Pete Wood for a potted history of Raspberry Pi, which nicely framed the open discussion which was to follow.

Pete Wood holds a Raspberry Pi

One of the attendees commented that the timing for the Raspberry Pi is perfect, in that the computing curriculum for schools is presently in flux. Going on to note that even though it's availability is limited at t… Read more

Why engineers should care about licensing hardware designs

In this post we take a look at open source licensing and in particular when used with hardware designs, rather than software. Of course, hardware can include software—or “firmware”— elements, but the case being made here is of the importance of providing explicit licensing information with a design if you intend for it to be freely used, and improved upon, by others.

A clear signal of intent

Back when we only had top-down media, such as books and magazines, things were much simpler. A publisher would have to be clear about the rights associated with a design they printed, and for simpler DIY circuits found in hobbyist magazines it was probably safe to assume you're free to do with them as you please (but perhaps not reprint them verbatim!) The same could also be assumed for reference designs such as those provided by semiconductor manufacturers — after all, why would they not want you to adapt them for use in 101 different products all using their components. Read more

Miles Berry is Chair of the National Association of Advisers for Computers in Education, Subject Leader for ICT Education at the University of Roehampton, and a consultant and frequent speaker and author on the future of ICT education. In this interview Miles gives us an insight into his experiences of teaching computing and the challenges faced by schools, and considers what can be done to help ensure that the Raspberry Pi is a success in education.

Can you give us an insight into how you gained your introduction to computing

I have some recollection of reading, or looking at the wonderfully evocative pictures in, Ladybird's 'The Computer' at a very early age, and of my father's Sinclair Cambridge calculator perhaps a year or two later. I was given a Commodore programmable calculator for Christmas at the age of ten, and recall typing in the keystrokes for a moon-lander game. At secondary school, a few of us were taught BASIC programming by our head of maths, and then came the ZX81 (with a wobbly RAM pack) and later a BBC Micro at home, which I recall doing some semi-serious mathematical programming on. All of which was down to a combination of interest and opportunity. Read more

Dr Jeremy Bennett is Chief Executive of Embecosm, a provider of embedded development tools and services, and is former Champion for Embedded Systems at the Technology Strategy Board's ESP Knowledge Transfer Network. In this interview Dr Bennett reflects on his own experiences of teaching computer science, suggests challenges the industry faces, and considers how the Raspberry Pi may go on to foster a whole new generation of engineers.

Can you give us an insight into how you gained your introduction to computing

My Physics teacher, Mr Barker, when I was 11 years old in 1971. Imperial College offered local schools the opportunity to submit programs on punched cards to run on their IBM 7094. I started on FORTRAN, but over the next few years had a chance to dabble with many other languages (Algol60 and SNOBOL4 are two I particularly remember). We used "port-a-punch" cards - pre-scored Hollerith cards, where you knocked out holes with a stylus. Each card took several minutes to prepare, so it did instil a discipline of care when programming.

How do you think the opportunities for young people … Read more