Back when I was doing the original Tech Tuesday on the radio station blogs, is about the time the first Raspberry Pi came out. And it really was a game changer! Inexpensive, small and powerful with a ton of features for the homebrewer and kit basher, as well as the all around loveable geeks like me.
Since the release of the original Pi, there have been 7-8 newer models that have come out, all with some awesome upgrades, and even add on hardware such as cameras. But this latest one that just came out is so perfect in my opinion, I have to gush about it. The Raspberry Pi 400. An upgrade to the recent Pi 4, it’s not one of those bare PCB exposed card the previous models have been, but it’s in a classic looking body, reminiscent of the old 80’s 8 bit machines that I just love. I still have a working Commodore 128D as well as an Apple //c! but the Pi400 is an all in one that makes me just want to buy it and look at it for a few hours. Not even touch it.
It harkens back to my days as a young geeky kid in middle and high school, and playing with my bread bin Commodore 64, playing games like Choplifter, Karetika, Ghostbusters and more. But this Pi is made for more than just retro gaming. You can code on it like all the other Pis and use the GPIO pins on the back for controller hardware as well as in conjunction the Arduino boards for bigger projects. And it’s ability to run Linux, allows users to just use it as an everyday machine. I encourage you to have at look at this guy if you’re a hardware person. I don’t think you would be disappointed in how versatile this little thing is. And for a whole kit at $100, it’s a bargain! Check out this unboxing and review by Perryfractic and Mrs. Fractic from the Retro Recipies Youtube channel.
and some specs…
…’nuff said.
The Big 94 - K2RHI - Troy, New York 