I got my Raspberry Pi in the mail yesterday! It finally came. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, here are some Raspberry Pi FAQs!

Here are a couple photos of the top and bottom:

And now I get to figure out how to program my MCU with the Raspberry Pi and control the built in pins on the Raspberry. The built in UART pins would find very useful for on the go programming, or maybe for projects that feed from the computer. Here is a pinout of the Pi:

I'm going to have some fun playing with this, and I'll post back if I ever get anything working on it!

You OWE us some progress reports!!!!

That puppy is pretty awesome...have fun and please report on what you discover.

Will do ;) I'm currently taking Summer Gym so I don't know how much time I can have to play with it but I will try to keep you guys updated.

Thanks Pew.

I guess we won't be seeing too much of Rick S. around for a while since he was on the same mailing list ;-P

I got a couple... sold one on ebay for twice what I paid so the one I kept was essentially free.

Keep in mind if trying to interface with it, all the I/O is 3.3v and is not buffered. So all logic has to be 3.3v capable. The buss does have SPI, I2C, and UART connections as well (all 3.3v) so it can prove to be quite capable. I think once more people get these in hand, some pretty interesting things will come about.

I think it would be neat to develop an AVR dev kit on the pi and be able to program the AVR with it. I'd love to see AVRDUDE and the avrgcc tool chain be re-built and compiled on the pi for the ARM architecture.

This could make for a very inexpensive programming platform for Nerdkit Development.

If you work anything out, keep us posted...

Rick

Good to know, don't want to blow out the Pi I've been waiting so long for! I'm currently waiting until tomorrow when I can go to the electronics store and get some header connectors, because otherwise I have no way of connecting wires to the headers (unless I want to risk bridging pins)

Since the buss has SPI ports, couldn't I use the Raspberry as an ISP Programmer for the ATmega128? That would be useful. I got my connectors so I am going to play with it tonight.

Oops, ATmega168, not 128.

Not without level translators and software to do the communication. That was why I warned you about the 3.3v logic and mentioned it would be nice if AVRDUDE could be compliled for it. It is definitely possible though and I wouldn't be surprised is somewhere, someone, down the line writes a utility to do it. Way beyond my level of expertise though.

Rick

Ah I see now. Okay, thanks!

Hi - just thought i'd add that I've been using the Pi with the Nerdkit (over USB cable) and it all works fine - the AVRdude is available in the wheezy Raspbian distribution with apt-get - had to alter the makefile slightly to get it to work - link

Great write up Pete. I may have to break out the NK and the PI and see how it all works together.

Rick

So Pete are you using the Nerdkit USB cable?

I guess the Pi is receiving the Temperature readings just using the Nerdkit temp sensor project serial code. correct?

Now to breakout my PI of course I haven't even put an OS on it yet so I need to start from scratch.

Ralph

hi Ralph - at the moment I've just been running through the tutorials that came with the kit (temp sensor, initload hello world message on the lcd display) so I haven't had the pi running with constant communication over the nerdkit USB cable - but everything's working so far. My next project is the LED array - I've modified the Nerdkit version by mounting the LEDs in a array made out of transparent lego bricks and connecting the LEDs with rails that cross over on the back - I'm aiming to make a twitter controlled LED scroller using the Pi as it's lower power consumption makes it suited to being on all the time. I'll write up my progress as soon as I've got it working. By some strange coincidence the LEDs are exactly the right size to push fit into the lego bricks.

I believe the Gertboard which was recently announced has space for a MCU which you can program over the GPIO pins on the Pi - although I'm still waiting for this to arrive.

How are the Raspberry Pi's coming?

Do you have them running the Nerdkits Tool Chain? Do you like them? How capable are they?

What have your found you don't like?

Have you written any programs for them specifically?

I have a pair coming... (By Tuesday!, At least I hope!)

Pew446,

Have you been using your Raspberry Pi for anything?

Aw man I totally forgot, and to be honest I have no use for it :/ I want to find something to use my Pi for, but it just sits in my drawer, and has been there for a couple months now. If you have any ideas, I'd like to hear!

I know what you mean. I had one on order for months and when it came in there was a payment problem to resolve and after thinking about it a little more I just let it go. I didn't really know what to do with it either and I stay plenty busy with these mcu's.

Have 3 projects that I intend to use these for.
(In order of probable completion...)

1 - A Temperature/Humidity/Pressure Weather Monitor.
I had intended to make it all AVR at first, but using a Rasberry Pi gives me alot more flexibility, and also since this is mainly for my father he will be able to see a small 7" color display alot better than a small LCD... (It is also likely I will eventually have 2 or 4 of these. Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Philippines...)

2 - An Alarm Clock for my Daughter on her 2nd Birthday.
The alarm clock will show a representation of sunrise and sunset, and the phases of the moon. It will play music to wake her up, and play music for bed time.

I will have a couple games, and the ability for her to play some music. Maybe it will be able to play some her of videos as well.

3 - My aforementioned Water Flow Monitor Control Panel.
This will log, and monitor the AVR's that are used to monitor Water Flow to all destinations in the house.

(The only Project that is critical to me is the Alarm Clock for my daughter, so the other ones may fall by the wayside this year depending on "interference from the requirements of life"...)

The other BIG ADVANTAGE for using the Raspberry Pi is the ability to easily be able to connect to the Internet to report back to a central location, and/or download code updates.

As far as the Raspberry Pi...

I have been VERY HAPPY with it's performance.

One thing I knew would be a problem for me, mostly psychological for me but practical as well, is that there are several connectors coming off on different sides of the board. (I know why they did it that way, but I still don't like it.)

I haven't decided how I am going to put the case together yet. Either make a small one and keep the connectors accessible at the sides they are on or make a larger one and use extensions to put them all on one side.

I had intended to use Java to program my code for the Raspberry Pi, but Oracle has taken sooo long to get the Hard Float Version of Java out, I have given up. Additionally, there is no direct support in Java for serial devices, and the previous driver/library I have been using isn't available for the Raspberry Pi.

So I decided to try to use Python.
(I have avoided Python in the past because I didn't like it's structure, or really lack of what I would consider a nice formal structure.)

After using Python for a few weeks now I am VERY IMPRESSED with it's general speed and efficiency.

So now I have decided to just use Python for the Raspberry Pi side of the Projects.

Once I have something running in Python v2.x.x I will port it to Python v3.x.x and see if I can get it all running there to.

If I can, then I will just stick with Python v3.x.x after that.

Every Raspberry Pi will have an AVR Based Daughter Card that will have a realtime clock.
The AVR Based Daughter Card will also control power so the Raspberry Pi can be put to sleep while the lower power AVR is still functioning and will wake it up, by turning the power back on, at the appropriate time.

Damm, since Pew446's and Noters post I have been looking for the two Raspberry PIs I received back in August but I can not remember where I put the darn things.

I guess I must not have anything to do with them also, but I am curious so I'd like to find them just to boot them up if nothing else.

Ralph

well a month and a half later I have found my Raspberry Pi.

I possible will need one to run my CNC mill so I figured I better find them and get them working.

Ralph