Friday, 3 July 2015

What's Raspberry Pi ?

Hello all…

Digital era continues to bring new changes in our life, perhaps the device or the electronics stuff that we are using now might get obsolete (old and obsolete yeah) within a couple of months. As Moore’s Law stated that progress of electronics will double its performance once every eighteen months. IF this statement is true…does that mean we have to sit and watch this pace-changing phenomenal happens and keep our self in a backward manner ? Well, personally I love to read technological magazines related to electronics stuff and hardware. What do these magazines introduce to me? One of the electronic hardware  is Raspberry Pi.

Yea it’s Pi not a pie. Mine? It’s Raspberry Pi Model B+ version 2.0.

I hope that you will like my previous posts about mini-robot making process along with my journey of hacking the Arduino Uno. Honestly, my Arduino Uno has served me well for two years. I love it so much. From blinking an led to writing a file into a SD card and making a portable motor shield on top of the Uno. Haha even accidentally soaked it with water. Well, I have thought of buying an Ethernet Shield to control arduino via Wifi. Perhaps it’s the time for me to pause my exploration on Arduino and pursuit my mission on other development board that can be found in the market. Another reason for choosing it; Raspberry Pi 2.

It has becoming more and more popular ever since it launched globally. Juniors of Raspberry Pi 2 are variety such as Pi model A, B and B+. When I was still in Year One, a company named Element 14 has brought its older version of Raspberry Pi at my Uni. The sales team demonstrates the possible tasks that can be done by using Raspberry Pi and  persuaded me to buy it. I was astounded at that point. I am wondering how could a small electronic board can interact with other accessories of a desktop and fully form a development tools. Yet, the memory which supported by the board is just 256Mb. I left that booth after that pre-knowing lesson.

Raspberry Pi 2 is a small computer which could perform extraordinary functions. Powered by 5 V source, it uses a Broadcom BCM2836 SoC chip with a 900MHz processing speed. It can go online as there is an Ethernet socket (10/100) built-in on the board. As I have said before, it has 40 GPIOs which allows user to get control of it. Furthermore, there is a Video output (HDMI port) and a 3.5mm jack for audio purposes. Four USB 2.0 connector allows us to put on keyboard and a mouse. Of course, a pendrive for extra external storage might as well stores our photos and videos.

It totally grabs my attention when I noticed its processing speed is 900 MHz for a small board like this. Besides, it has a supportable camera that is attachable on the board. I would like to used it to conduct image processing 

Sounds interesting?

Here’s the comparison made on criteria of Arduino Uno (Rev.3) and Raspberry Pi 2. The price judgement is made based on Element 14 online's catalog in 2015.



After making many comparisons and good point of it and its previous model,I have bought mine online from Element 14. It comes with a 8 GB-San Disk Ultra Slim Micro SD-Card. It has NOOBS files installed within the SD-card. I don’t even have to download it online. I love being convenient. Unboxing it, you will see a quick manual instruction, Raspberry Pi and a Micro-SD card.
































Yet it has dragged my delivery process for two months (so-called restocking). It was launched around February 2015. It sells like hot cakes (Hot Pi). According to its Raspberry Pi Foundation, they have verified that more than 5 million pieces of Raspberry Pi sold globally (Source: https://www.raspberrypi.org/five-million-sold/ ).



What are you waiting for?

Let’s grab one and start to fire this up!

My next coming story is about how I get started with Raspberry Pi 2 and the resources I am using.

See you.

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