Divide by zero
Les Pounder interviews Eben Upton about the Pi Zero’s journey and some good advice that helped pave the way for a $5 computer.
With the surprise release of the new Raspberry Pi Zero, we sat down with Eben Upton, the head of Raspberry Pi Trading, to talk about its genesis and the journey that it has taken along the way. Linux Format: Why does the Pi Zero exist and how did it come to market? Eben Upton: There’s an element of ‘because we can’ and if you can build it, why wouldn’t you? The reason we made Pi Zero is because the Raspberry Pi is still too expensive, not for a lot of people, but there is a subset of people who are wondering if coding is for them and this is their ‘first toe in the water’.
The idea was to provide something of a stepping stone to general computing at a low cost. If people like it then they will move on to Raspberry Pi 2 and use their Pi Zero for another project. When we first thought about making a low-cost device we first thought shall we make a Pi or make something with the Pi name but using a microcontroller? We very quickly backed away from that idea because we felt that it had to be a bona fide Raspberry Pi that runs Raspbian and has the GPIO which also enables users to be part of the community – and the community is the big thing about the Raspberry Pi. I now find that if I Google generic Linux questions I get answers related to the Pi, which is nice. We do see the Raspberry Pi as bringing Linux to a whole new generation and different type of person who wouldn’t of imagined using Linux. LXF: Initially your idea for the Pi Zero was to create a more powerful Pi? EU: Yeah, we started thinking about what was to become Pi 2 in 2013, and this was to be a more powerful board but after a chat with Google’s Eric Schmidt, where he said that “was a stupid idea and that you should try and make things which are less powerful and cheaper”, which was great advice. So we scrapped work on what would of been a Pi 2 in late 2013/early 2014. We chose to take a longer route to produce Pi 2 for the same price as the original Pi. This enabled us to work on another strand some way off whereas Pi Zero is here already. EU: The Pi Zero isn’t a mean-spirited attempt to knock over other people’s business models; this is the best Pi that we could make at the lowest price. One of the things we are proudest of is that before Pi there just weren’t machines like this for less than $100. Now we have this enormous world of cheap Linux computers and we are never upset when another one is introduced by another business. LXF: PI Zero sports a 40-pin GPIO, so does that mean it’s compatible with existing add-ons? EU: 100%, if it fits on a previous model then it will work with Zero. We haven’t released a formal specification for future Zero add-on boards but third-party suppliers are already releasing boards with a pretty close specification. LXF: Now that we have a $5/£4 computer do you think that users will think about purchasing an add-on with a greater price? EU: Suppliers are already doing great things with smaller add-on boards, and because you can fit less stuff then they work out cheaper, but I suspect that add-ons priced around £10 to £15 will have a great market as people will want to but accessories for these devices.