Pi in the sky

[camallison]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21243825

Alan

Shades of three decades ago - ho hum, what goes around comes around!

1981: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro

The tinnitus-inducing screech of those primitive programs being loaded into my son's Spectrum from a cassette player echoes down the years as if it were yesterday!

My son learnt to program (Basic) on the BBC B not long after it was launched. I was already in the industry and introduced the Commodore PET and Vic-20 to production in Europe for the European market. He is now 38-years old and has a successful career in the industry too.

In May last year, we each bought a Raspberry Pi, mainly out of curiosity. Now his son (9-years old) and another of my grandsons (12-years old) each have one too. By starting on the Raspbian platform in a Windows-style environment, they were both able to learn "programming" with Scratch a graphical method of programming, and later move onto Python. The older grandson is now working up a skill in C#, a language much in demand in industrial apps. It seems to have worked for them as an entré to the world of programming and controls. In both cases, their schools (in Gloucestershire) have also taken the Raspberry Pi on board with a good success record already.

The Foundation have recently announced that sales have now passed the 1 million mark, and today announced a version produced in China, specifically for the Chinese markets. Licensing precludes parallel marketing outside of the stated territory.

After seeing the PET and Vic-20 into production and market, I suspect that the Pi has and will have far greater influence on the young - and positive too!

Let's see

Colin