The making of the Raspberry Pi Model B+ #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi
Raspi.today featured a great piece on the Raspberry Pi Model B+ with Director of Hardware at the Raspberry Pi Foundation James Adams.
The Director of Hardware at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, James Adams, walks us through the making of the new and improved Model B+ and more…
Before designing the Raspberry Pi Model B+ Adams’ first major role as Director of Hardware at the Foundation was to design the Compute Module, the more ‘industrial’ cousin of the Raspberry Pi.
“The Compute Module was kind of my project,” says Adams. “Before I even joined the Foundation I thought this would be a really cool thing. Similar things have existed and it’s not a new idea to put a little computer on a little board and let people plug it in to a simpler system, but nothing else has quite the special sauce of the Pi, like the software and the price…
As well as being the driving force behind the Compute Module, Adams also designed the Raspberry Pi Model B+, taking over from Pete Lomas, who designed the original board.
“Pete Lomas designed the first Pi and he was going to do the Model B+ too, but now as a full-time employee of the Foundation it made more sense for me to do it.
“All the founders have day jobs… everything they do at the Foundation is effectively done in their spare time. It made sense that the project was handed to me, so we decided to go all out and make it as good as we could,” says Adams.
Adams did the schematics and design of the Model B+ and managed the project too. “Obviously the other engineers helped… we bashed questions backwards and forwards and it was a real group effort, but I was managing it and doing most of the donkey-work! [laughs]”
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