Introduction and the Raspberry Pi 2

    Welcome! This blog will showcase some of my current electronics projects, be it software or hardware. I will also post my thoughts on gadgets that I use and possibly my thoughts on gadgets that are relevant.
  
  So, to begin I want to do a quick over view/ unboxing of the new Raspberry Pi 2's hardware. This is of course the second generation pi, and it delivers high hopes. I personally have never owned a Pi, so I don't yet have a standard to set it against. 

The size compared to a credit card.

The Element 14 branded packaging.

      The packaging is exactly what I expected for a $35 device. Plain and simple. Inside there is only  a user manual and the credit card sized Linux jewel. In addition to the unit, I ordered a power supply, WiFi USB plug, and a 16GB Sandisk micro SD card to get things up and running. In the end my total cost was around $85. Not bad considering this little guy's power. You might have noticed that I didn't order a case, and my reason behind this is that I plan on 3D printing my own in the future.  

     As far as hardware, this little machine packs a lot of power for a $35 credit card sized computer. As you might have noticed on the box performance gains of 6x are promised, thanks to doubled RAM (1GB) and the new Broadcom quad-core ARM Cortex A7 clocked at 900MHz.

A veiw of the bare board.

        The gpu is the same as older models, but don't fret! The Broadcom VideoCore IV is fully capable of 1080p display output. Later I will post screenshots of some simple games running and of minecraft.
   
 The board itself contains several ports and interfacing methods. Starting from the bottom is a micro USB power plug, next to a full size HDMI out, and a 4 pole 3.5 mm plug on the right. The right edge of the board is home to an Ethernet jack and 4 full-size USB ports. The top of the board has 40 GPIO pins for inputs and outputs, similar to an Arduino. Also on the board are two long black clamping slots, one is for a camera and the other for a screen. The back side of the board has a lone micro SD slot, capable of reading cards up to 32GB.

Bottom of the board

    
 That's all for now! Simply a basic overview of the boards hardware. In the next few days I will be posting an overview of the Raspian software. I  will also answer the question, "can the Raspberry Pi replace an everyday computer?"