https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/celebrating-50-years-of-basic/

Request: Could an freely obtainable “audio only” version of this be posted for those who want to listen to this on the go? The typical workarounds for Youtube are not working these days.

Great video – well done Eben & Jason.

What an excellent video interview. Yes, much of what was discussed had been recounted elsewhere, but this was entertaining enough to hold my attention throughout.
And, it was just sheer pleasure to see all those BBC Micros and CUB Monitors dotted around the lab in the background – I hadn’t seen so many since I purchased 14 from Nazeer Jessa of Watford Electronics back in 1988 (to help transmit data across a land-based radio-navigation system that put the North Sea ‘where’ it is today, pre-dating the advent of GPS by a decade).

Cheers,
Niall

Great vid. Very inspiring.

Great stuff. Will have to take a good look at the full video {first 10 mins is fun already…}

I am delighted to say I got to visit the brilliant Centre for Computing History when I was over in the UK for the 4th Pi Birthday Party […no I wasn’t *just* trying to skive off the party set-up on the Friday afternoon – sorry Mike & Tim].

It was one of the many highlights of my “Pigrimage to Cambridge” to get to the museum : goosebumps from seeing all those “old-friend” machines and having so many flashbacks to yesteryear! And a whole room of BBC Micros…[1984 School report : “Alan shows a keen interest in computer work…”]

I remember talking to someone who mentioned they were doing video interviews of various important figures… and apparently Eben too… ;oP

It was an excellent and informative and entertaining talk by Eben. I knew some of the history of the Raspberry Pi from listening to previous Eben talks, but this was more inclusive.

Very engaging and intriguing video. Thank you very much for highlighting this on the blog Liz. I visited the museum last week, to recce the site for a school visit. Staff were incredibly helpful and the exhibits were well presented. I got a little bit sentimental on Twitter about seeing machines from my childhood too :-) So good that Eben and other notable figures have been able to take part in this project and record their stories ‘for posterity.’ Thank you.

Excellent video. Awkward freeze frame. Why does it always end up like that? YouTube needs an algorithm to fix that.

Great interview. Just hate it that in some spots the audio is loud and other times it is soft. Though some of this is because of his tone on the subject, other times it is because of the editing.

I thought he said the first prototype board by Broadcom was called SexCam2! Then I decided may be he said XCam2 but googleing doesn’t seem to find it (Marmitek make something of the same name but it doesn’t use the same SOC as a Pi)
Eben also refers to it as the microDP which presumable stands for micro development platform but searching for ‘microdp pi’. I’m a bit surprised that for something so historic it’s not out there. It does give me a warm feeling to have been part of the Pi community since the launch:-)

Thanks for posting this informative and entertaining video (with its nostalgic BBC-Micro-Computer-Science-room background) on the blog Liz – it’s a geeky-treat! :-)

Eben provides great insight into the genesis of the Raspberry Pi Project (with its attendant organisational development).

The technical ingenuity, brilliance, genius and sheer luck – this is something that’s worth celebrating – and it takes someone who has a holistic perspective of the technology (and its many tentacles of business operation) to tell it.

I’d already seen Eben’s Atmel ATmega644 prototype computer on the internet; but it was nice to get a “higher resolution” shot of the initial project drive, technical components, challenges and anecdotes from the man himself.

There’s fascinating insights into the pricing challenges and production problems during those early days – so inspiring to hear about the risks that key individuals took on behalf of the Raspberry Pi project. I think that if you have faith in your baby some of it will rub off on the individuals that you deal with (to realise your project goals).

It’s easy to forget the human dimension in the genesis of a stellar product like Raspberry Pi – enormous co-operative effort is needed to physically create and deliver Pi into the sweaty hands of its adoring fans.

It would be cool if those Raspberry Pi elves could be acknowledged in a future product … how about making an Easter-egg acknowledgment (webpage?) with names, small photos and bios of key people (and places) who made the project happen … maybe burned into a ROM (a modern equivalent of the operating system ROM locations 0xFC00-0xFDFF on my beloved Acorn Electron). You could encrypt and compress the info with a secret message for a member of the public who discovers it first (maybe reward them with a cool prize) – wouldn’t that be a wonderfully geeky way to promote a new product?

Re: “Hacking could be a generational thing” – people have hacked various types of technology since fire was discovered – it’s hardwired into our DNA. There will always be some form of hacking going on…. :-)

(Finally, the David Braben “SexCam2” reference and VHS-style add-on at the end made me laugh! :-D )

“An Amigary amount of memory” – lovely expression. I do so miss my A1200 :)

I’m curious…what is the computer in the background printing out on screen?

“I’m curious…what is the computer in the background printing out on screen?”
If it is in true BBC tradition it will be “Chris is brilliant. Chris is brilliant. Chris is brilliant. Chris is brilliant….. “

New Entry for the OED
CBE:- a computing TLA (see TLA)
Translates as Computing Boffin Extraordinare.

Congratulations to the whole team and welcome home Tim P..

Cor Blimey Eben! congratulations to you (and the whole team) for the Birthday Honours – well deserved recognition by Her Majesty for your stunning Raspberry achievements! :-)

This is the most amazing, incredible, outstanding, excellent, exciting, entertaining, and even informative spiel Eben has given on the subject of Pi history to date! It was especially nice to hear what the roles of the Cast of Characters involved were, instead of the usual laundry list of just names. The inability to get the Original Flavo(u)r Model B manufactured in the UK was one thing, but the tale of how the DRAM price nearly wrecked the whole plan is so typical of the kinds of manufacturability issues that crop up in the way of many products. That aspect is unknown to the tech-only types who blather on about “Why can’t you just [fill-in-the-blank]?” An entire book could be written about this entire adventure that highlights the trials and tribulations experienced in a lifetime … that occurred over a period of about 16 months, from kick-in-the-arse-we’ve-gotta-do-it to volume production sufficient for any-quantity individual orders.

My ears fell off when I thought I heard “SexCam”, too! I’ve seen the photo of the Atmel prototboard from 2006 on the eLinux.org site, but it would be a hoot-and-a-half to get the BOM and higher-res photos (so the printing on the ICs can be read) of both the top and the underside. If the schematics and code listings can be resurrected (I assume they’re somewhere in an attic above the Kitchen From Hell :) that would be of enormous interest to those of us at the Computer History Museum (the one down the street from the Googleplex in Mountain View, SillyCon Valley, California, USA) who run the Raspberry Jams there. I think we could fund our Jams in perpetuity from sales of reproductions of that puppy, complete with blue jumper wires!

I’m not complaining in the least since it’s great to have them done at all, but a common issue with these interviews is that Jason’s … I mean Eben’s … sonorous, resonant baritone demands an equalizer be applied to the audio to bring up the high end and push down the low end. Compression of the amplitude wouldn’t hurt either, as previously noted by another poster. Why is it that video production people are apparently all genetically deaf? :) Here’s how you monitor your production – don’t edit it on a 48-track console with JBL studio-quality monitor speakers – have it routed through the cheapest cell (not smart) phone, tablet, or netbook you can find, and make it sound good on _that_! The most popular music is mixed listening through an AM radio while sitting in a cheap car in noisy traffic, which would be a good place to be doing that for these videos using the phone/tablet/netbook, BTW. Oh, and please, please, please mike the interviewer(s) and all participants off-camera and/or put in subtitles if they’re inaudible and it can’t be fixed in post-production (assuming there _is_ any post-production ;) Thanks!!!