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.
Review: the Pimoroni Pi Hub
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
How to program the Pebble smartwatch: Part 3
Update Pebble has released version 2 of its OS and this invalidates much of what follows, which was written for an earlier version of the OS.
As it stands, the app I created in Part 2 appears in the Pebble’s menu simply as a name, Ball, which is entered into the boilerplate PBL_APP_INFO created by the SDK’s create_pebble_project.py script. This also sets the app’s unique UUID, which you’ll see at the top of the file. You can also modify this to set the app’s version number and to add your name as author. But what’s really needed is a menu icon, and you can add one by editing the resource_map.json created for you in the /resources/src folder within the project folder.
How to program the Pebble smartwatch: Part 2
Update Pebble has released version 2 of its OS and this invalidates much of what follows, which was written for an earlier version of the OS.
In Part 1 we got our basic Pebble app up and running, but it doesn’t do very much. Let’s add some user interaction.
How to program the Pebble smartwatch: Part 1
Update Pebble has released version 2 of its OS and this invalidates much of what follows, which was written for an earlier version of the OS.
Pebble didn’t invent the smartwatch, but it has done more than most to bring this new product category to the attention of the world, largely thanks to its hugely successful and well-reported Kickstarter funding campaign.
Back-up a Raspberry Pi SD card using a Mac
I’ve re-installed my Pi’s SD card storage more times than I care to recall. New cards, programming glitches, messing with Linux’s settings files – all of these reasons have forced me to go through the process of re-flashing the Pi’s storage card. That’s bad enough – what’s worse is having to re-download the applications I’d added since the previous install, applying updates and choosing again all of my system preferences.
Continue readingReview: the Pimoroni PiGlow
Pimoroni is without doubt one of the most colourful companies to have come to market in support of the growing community of Raspberry Pi fans. The firm shot to fame last year when it released Pibow, one of the first cases for the Pi.
Review: the Ciseco Pi-Lite
Not so long ago, a hardware hacker called Jimmie Rodgers decided to solder 126 LEDs onto a small board that could be plugged into the Arduino microcontroller kit. He dubbed it the LoL Shield: ‘LoL’ for ‘lots of LEDs’, and ‘shield’ because that’s that’s what Arduino add-ons are called.
Retro Review: Thorn EMI Liberator (1985)
In November 2012, I wrote and published the definitive history of the Thorn EMI Liberator, the first British laptop computer, over at The Register. I’d never even heard of the machine when I first saw a picture of it. I spotted the snap while researching the story of the Dragon 32 – some of the Dragon engineers went on to develop the Liberator after Dragon Data, by then a subsidiary of electrical industry giant GEC, was closed down.
RIP: Dragon 32 (1982-2013) my first 8-bit colour microcomputer
My Dragon 32 – bought from Boots, Central Milton Keynes by my father for my Christmas 1982 present – passed away this weekend during routine maintenance. It was 31.
