Introduction
In this article, we will be talking about Raspberry Pi. It's not a fruit – it’s a $35 computer.
Getting Started
The first question that comes to our mind is what exactly is Raspberry Pi? - It is not a fruit. Read through the article below to know more and I am sure, you will be as hooked on it, as I was.
Hello!!! Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi is a tiny computer (size of a credit card) designed and developed in the UK. This tiny computer enables everyone (big or small) to learn physical computing, explore the basic electronics, and learn how to program. The main reason behind developing Raspberry Pi was to teach children about physical computing, make them understand how the computers work, and make them interested in programming.
It’s a computer - you can do almost anything with a Raspberry Pi, that you would with a normal computer. You can play music, browse the Internet, run applications, write the programs, using languages like Scratch, Python or C#, etc. Raspberry Pi is capable of running a full operating system. There are different OS (Windows, MAC, Linux version), which can be installed and run on a Raspberry Pi, the recommended OS is a Linux flavor OS called Raspbian (by Raspberry foundation maker of Raspberry).
As mentioned above, the size of the Raspberry Pi is that of a credit card. It is a single board, which has a Broadcom processor (SOC – system on chip) made by ARM. It’s similar to the processors, which are found on the mobile phone. The ARM processor is fast and light weight. Raspberry Pi does not have its own hard disk, keyboard, mouse, or monitor.
Hard Disk - Raspberry Pi does not have its own hard disk. You will need to use micro SD cards in place of the hard disk and the OS will be installed on these micro SD cards. (Minimum 2 GB micro SD cards is recommended for installing OS and running the normal functionality on Raspberry Pi). The benefit of using a micro SD card is you can easily swap this computer (Raspberry Pi) with the different OS on different SD cards. There is a micro SD card slot at the underside/bottom of the Pi board.
For monitor, keyboard, and mouse, you can connect Raspberry Pi via HDMI port to a monitor (you may need an HDMI to VGA connector to connect to the monitor), connect the keyboard and the mouse, using USB ports on it. Raspberry is powered up, using a micro USB connection and a power adapter of 5-volt output (adapter used in the mobile phones and the tablets). It also has a built-in Ethernet connection to connect to the Internet.
It is recommended to use a powered USB hub to power all the USB devices like keyboard and mouse etc. because powering (connecting) these devices directly to Raspberry Pi would leave Pi underpowered, leading to a shorter component life and even nonfunctioning Pi.
Raspberry Pi also has a bunch of GPIO (General Purpose Input Output) pins, which are open/ exposed, so that we can use it to build circuits, using sensors. GPIO pins are easy to configure, control and you can write the program to read the sensor data coming from the GPIO pins and send back the data to GPIOs pins after processing.
Currently, there are six different boards of Raspberry Pi, available in the market of which 4 are available for the purchase in the open market.
You can purchase these boards as an individual or as a part of Startup kits (recommended for beginners). Startup Kits contains Raspberry Pi board, 8 GB SD card with the pre-installed OS, Raspberry Pi Case, power cables, Breadboard, Wi-Fi dongle and other most essential items like the sensors (Temperature, Color, light, etc.), jumper cables, capacitor, resistors, LEDs (red, blue and Green), push buttons, etc. These startup kits are the best way to start doing some popular IoT projects.
NoteI hope this article gave you a good idea about Raspberry Pi, its capabilities, and its various boards. In the next article, we will go up close to a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B board and learn all its components.