I came across Pi-Supply’s Pi-Crust add-on board quite by chance, but it immediately caught my eye as quite possibly the most useful add-on for the Raspberry Pi there is. Having ordered one, received it and soldered all the parts together, I’m no longer sure that it is.
Author Archives: smittytone
The Sinclair ZX81: a Raspberry Pi retro restyle – Part 2
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Previously on ‘ZX81: a Raspberry Pi retro restyle’: I used a headerless Arduino Leonardo to connect a ZX81 microcomputer keyboard to a Raspberry Pi via USB, using code to handle normal, shifted and function-shifted key presses.
After some searching on eBay, I found an old ZX81 going cheap because it lacked cables, though when it arrived, I found the computer itself to be in excellent condition. Possibly it has never been used, though how if that were the case the cables were lost and the box got so tatty is a mystery I will probably never solve.
Continue readingThe Sinclair ZX81: a Raspberry Pi retro restyle – Part 1
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I love the design of the Sinclair ZX81. It was never a great computer, even in 1981. It only had 1KB of on-board RAM, it was slow, it was small, it could only do black and white graphics, and it’s membrane keyboard was useless for fast typing. But it looked fantastic: black, sleek and totally futuristic. Almost all other 1980s microcomputers now look very dated. No surprise there, of course, but the ZX81 still looks amazing.
Practise what you preach
Some months back, I posted a guide to backing up a Raspberry Pi SD card using a Mac. I tested it at the time and it worked. It’ll be good to share this, I thought. So I did.
How to build your own Apple iBeacon… with a Raspberry Pi
US department store Macy’s recently said it is implementing iPhone-based tracking tech the better to encourage browsing punters to buy. Of course, Macy has chosen to pitch this as an Apple technology – figuring, presumably, iPhone owners are more receptive to inducements delivered through technology and have more cash to splash than Android fans.
Review: the Fuze, a Raspberry Pi keyboard case and electronics kit
Back in the day of the board computers of the late 1970s – your Scrumpi, your Nascom 1, your UK-101 et al – it was customary to build a case for it out of wood. If you were a better equipped ‘constructor’ – what we used to call ‘makers’ in those far distant days – you’d build a box out of metal.
Raspberry Pi Case Review 2: Cyntech and ModMyPi
A little while ago, I tried a pair of the early Raspberry Pi cases. Desiring a change, I fetched myself two more, one from British online retailer ModMyPi, the other from UK electronics firm Cyntech, which also worked with Pi specialist Pimoroni on the Pi Hub, reviewed here.
Raspberry Pi Thermal Printing: an update
Reader Daniel Boira recently asked me if I’d experimented with printing large characters on the SparkFun thermal printer (see Hacking a Thermal Till Printer…) that I’d rigged up to my Raspberry Pi’s GPIO. I hadn’t done so, so I thought I’d give it a try.
Review: the Pimoroni Pi Hub
Raspberry Pi accessory specialist Pimoroni reckons it has the answer to one of the tiny ARM-based computer’s signal limitations: too few USB ports for all the add-ons you might want to hook up to it at any one time.
Hacking a thermal till printer to work with the Raspberry Pi
I’ve always had a soft spot for Sinclair’s ZX Printer. Yes it was slow and the print was poorly rendered on its special aluminium-coated paper, which picked up greasy fingerprints like they were going out of fashion, but it was cute, compact and cheap.
Source: Carlos Pérez Ruiz
smittytone messes with micros 