Here's a list of things I am currently doing with a Raspberry Pi:
Yup, that'd be nothing
The A+ is still happily running the dice clock, but other than routine system updates nothing's changed since I wrote that code at the start of the year.
The original model B has been all but relegated to paperweight. I'm not even sure when I last booted it, so the operating system must be quite out of date by now. It's not compatible with HATs, and I still haven't had any genius ideas for it. Sorry little pi.
My original justification/inspiration for spending money on another pi plus pretty lights was this tweet - a word clock. Very cool!
However instead of doing that, I started thinking of other (easier?) ways of displaying the time, and this is what I came up with:
Obviously a normal (cubic) die only goes up to 6, but with 9 available dots it doesn't take too much effort to add in a few more numbers. Zero shows no lights, so midnight looks a bit boring...
The unicorn hat python library meant this was minimal effort, once I'd written out many lists of pixel co-ordinates -... continue reading »
As an early christmas present to myself, I've bought a second Raspberry Pi and a UnicornHat to play with (as my original model B doesn't have enough pins). I went for an A+, and couldn't possibly comment on rumours that this was simply due to the coupé case being purple...
Anyway, what can you display on an 8x8 grid? Lots of stuff. How about a snowman:
Or a christmas tree with flashing lights, which sat on the dinner table and then mantelpiece, and happily ran for many hours off dad's portable power bank. Technology is great!
I am still failing to think up an exciting project for my Raspberry Pi.
Previously it was running raspbmc, though I can't remember when I last switched it on. But that has now died a horrible death - partly because my homeplugs broke (top tip: don't buy Zyxel powerline adapters), but mostly because apparently you aren't supposed to upgrade it by typing 'apt-get upgrade'. Something I only found out after I'd done it and b0rked some important packages. Including ifupdown. oops. Time for a fresh install of Raspian (and at some point I'll buy a wifi adapter)
The Raspberry Pi. a small cheap computer - very exciting, all over the news, massive waiting lists, etc etc.
And I've finally got my hands on one. Ok, so it actually arrived several weeks ago, but I've only just found enough spare time to do anything with it.
I don't need another 'plain' linux machine, and haven't yet had any genius ideas for other cool projects, so it's currently sat next to my tv/stereo, running raspbmc and acting as a media centre.
This has led to more spending and general preparation - as well as the pi, cables, SD card, power supply etc,... continue reading »
