Three years back, the Raspberry Pi Foundation did what many thought was impossible when they launched a computer not much bigger than a credit card. And they priced it at $35, making it accessible to everyone, and a centerpiece in electronics projects, assisting experiments, and teaching kids how to code.
And now, we have its successor, the aptly named Raspberry Pi 2. It still costs the same, but has been updated with some seriously beefy hardware from its size and price.
The team at Raspberry has upgraded the on-board processor to a 900MHz quad-core chip and has loaded in 1GB of RAM, which the foundation reckons will offer at least six times the performance of the old Model B+. It may look the same, but the board (with that processor which has apparently been in development for years), also has a special a tweak connecting to the quad-core brains to ensure it handles the gig of RAM on board. Like before, owners will need to add their own keyboard, a MicroSD card containing a copy of an operating system, and television/monitor-connecting cables in order to start programming. Enclosures bought for earlier models will also fit the new one.
“We think it’s about six times more powerful for most applications,” Eben Upton, founder of Raspberry Pi, told the media at the launch. “This means this is really a PC now. You can do most of the things with this that you can do with a PC. You can surf the web, you can watch videos, you can play games like Minecraft. But we also bundle it with the tools that children need in order to learn how to program.
“The great thing is – apart from those two changes – that we’ve managed to keep everything else the same. So, all of those tutorials that people have developed over the last few years will carry on working with this device. It just kind of broadens out the range of interesting stuff kids can do.”
The good news doesn’t end there though. Microsoft has just announced that it is handing it its Windows 10 operating system for free to the Maker community through its Windows Developer Program for IoT later this year. While you’ve never been able to officially run copies of Windows on the Raspberry Pi without resorting to an old version or tricks and hacks, Microsoft says it’s “delivering a version of Windows 10 that supports Raspberry Pi 2.” With the pricing of the Raspberry Pi 2 and Microsoft’s free copy of Windows 10, you could have a full PC for just $35 later this year.
