Cyntech GPIO Breakout Paddle Board Review

 Input and Output, interfacing, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review  5 Responses »
Apr 282013
 
Cyntech GPIO Breakout Paddle Board Review

The Cyntech GPIO paddle board is a new type of breakout board for the Raspberry Pi. It’s nice and small (about half the size of the Pi) elegantly simple, and I like the connectors. To connect a wire, you hold down the orange tab, push your wire into the hole and release the tab. The wire is gripped by a spring-loaded contact. It comes with a very nice “rainbow” ribbon cable, which is much more cheerful to look at than a grey one and it’s a decent 20cm length as well. You don’t always want […more…]

Tandy Multiface Gertboard Compatible Interface Board for Raspberry Pi

 Gertboard, Input and Output, interfacing, python programming, Review  26 Responses »
Apr 102013
 
Tandy Multiface Gertboard Compatible Interface Board for Raspberry Pi

The Tandy Multiface is a brand new I/O interface board for the Raspberry Pi designed by Darren Grant from Tandy. The reason it came about is that, back in September 2012, Tandy was marketing a Gertboard kit, having bought a supply of official Gertboard PCBs from Farnell. This was a bit of a coup because Tandy beat Farnell to the punch with their own product. Farnell struggled to get their ducks in a row (I seem to remember comments about a shortage of one of the chips) and launched their kit about a month later. […more…]

Bramble Case for the Raspberry Pi model A review

 Review  No Responses »
Apr 032013
 
Bramble Case for the Raspberry Pi model A review

Nicholas Luzzietti, who runs Bitcrafts, based in Dresden, sent me a review copy of one of his Bramble cases for the Raspberry Pi. It’s a laser cut, 3 layer birch ply finger-jointed box construction. Mine has a very nice Raspberry Pi logo lasered into the top, but other variants are available. All the holes are in the right places and are a good fit for all the ports. All the parts fit together very well – so well in fact that no glue is needed. I wonder if they will loosen with time? The case […more…]

Guzunty Pi – Open Source CPLD board for the Raspberry Pi

 Electronics, Input and Output, interfacing, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review  65 Responses »
Mar 282013
 
Guzunty Pi - Open Source CPLD board for the Raspberry Pi

The Guzunty Pi board is an open source Complex Programmable Logic Device (CPLD) add-on for the Raspberry Pi. Derek Campbell is behind this project, and has clearly spent a lot of time and effort putting it all together. He describes it… “a CPLD is like several large breadboards laid out on your desk, full of every combination of logic devices you are ever going to need. It is waiting to be told what to do. It doesn’t need a host of jumper wires like a breadboard would. It can be reprogrammed again and again (even […more…]

Eben Upton meets RasPi.tv at Oxford Geek Night

 raspberry pi, Review  4 Responses »
Mar 142013
 
Eben Upton meets RasPi.tv at Oxford Geek Night

Last night I went along to the Oxford Geek Night #30 to see Eben Upton talking about the Raspberry Pi. It was a good evening, but it was absolutely wall-to-wall people. Fortunately, it was obvious that it was going to be busy, so I got there very early and got a seat at a table near the stage. But you can be too clever sometimes can’t you? The fact that there were so many people ‘standing in the gap’ meant that I couldn’t see the stage. :( I enjoyed Eben’s talk though. The sound system […more…]

Raspberry Pi Model A first impressions and photos

 raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review  14 Responses »
Feb 052013
 
Raspberry Pi Model A first impressions and photos

I was keeping an eye on the RS and Farnell sites on Monday morning because I’d heard a ‘reliable whisper’ that the model A was launching this week. I didn’t know what day, but I figured it might be Monday. No sign of anything early morning, but then I forgot and didn’t see Liz’s announcement on the Pi blog until a couple of hours after they went live. By that time, RS was showing back order, but Farnell had stock levels of ~1800, so I snagged one. I got a “shipped” email about 3 hours […more…]

HDMI to VGA converter part 2 – VGA projector

 Electronics, raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review  8 Responses »
Feb 032013
 
HDMI to VGA converter part 2 - VGA projector

This is part 2 of my review of the HDMI/VGA 1080 Ultimate HD Video Converter. It covers comparison of VGA and HDMI in the GUI; use of an old 1024 x 768 VGA monitor with the Pi; using a VGA projector to show a video; trying out an MHL adaptor with a phone and VGA monitor. If you haven’t seen part one yet, you can find that here. To complete the review, I set myself the following tasks… see if I can get it to go full-screen in GUI by tweaking settings do some side […more…]

HDMI to VGA Video Converter with sound for Raspberry Pi – Review

 raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review  19 Responses »
Jan 112013
 
HDMI to VGA Video Converter with sound for Raspberry Pi - Review

One of the compromises that had to be made in designing the Raspberry Pi to be so small and so cheap was the decision to exclude a VGA connection. The BCM system on a chip already has HDMI and composite onboard. Adding VGA capability would have needed additional hardware in the form of a VGA chip and a VGA port. VGA ports are quite chunky too. Adding one would take up as much “edge space” on the board as both HDMI and composite ports together. Have a look at this photo… I took this VGA […more…]

Plan 9 operating system for the Raspberry Pi – demonstration by Richard Miller

 raspberry pi, Review  7 Responses »
Dec 082012
 
Plan 9 operating system for the Raspberry Pi - demonstration by Richard Miller

There’s not much I can say about this except that it’s tremendously impressive – if you’re a bit of a geek (like me). If you think computers are all about fancy-pants graphics and visual effects, this one might not be for you. ;) Richard Miller demonstrated his recently finished Raspberry Pi port of the Plan 9 operating system at the Oxford Raspberry Jam in November 2012. I caught most of it on film. Plan 9 is a very lightweight and powerful operating system that is written for software developers. I find it very impressive indeed. […more…]

Quick2Wire Pi Interface Board Beta Review

 Input and Output, interfacing, python programming, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review  6 Responses »
Dec 072012
 
Quick2Wire Pi Interface Board Beta Review

Quick2Wire Pi Interface (Beta) review The Quick2Wire Pi Interface Board is a new interface board for the Raspberry Pi. It’s not yet released, but it is in Beta. I managed to get hold of one of the Beta kits for research and review. :) I also had a chat with Romilly Cocking, Director of Quick2Wire (more on that at the end).   So, What’s in the kit? 1 PCB 1 Ribbon cable (nice colours) 4 jumpers 11 assorted headers 2 FETs 1 tantalum capacitor 1 LED 1 push button 3V3 voltage regulator 1 diode array […more…]

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