Raspberry Pi Hardware

Raspberry Pi Hardware

CPU 

Early in this chapter we touched upon ARM – the British manufacturers of central processor unit (CPU) cores. The Raspberry Pi comes equipped with a 700 MHz, ARM1176JZF-S core – part of the ARM 11 32-bit multi-processor core family.

The CPU is the main component of the Raspberry Pi, responsible for carrying out the instructions of a computer program via mathematical and logical operations. The Raspberry Pi is in good company using the ARM 11 series and has joined the ranks of the iPhone, Amazon Kindle, and Samsung Galaxy.

GPU

The graphics-processing unit (GPU) is a specialized chip designed to speed up the manipulation of image calculations.

In the case of our Raspberry Pi, it comes equipped with a Broadcom VideoCore IV capable of hardware accelerated playback and support for OpenGL.

This is especially useful if you want to run games or video via your Raspberry Pi, or work on 3D graphics in an open source application such as Blender.

RAM

The Raspberry Pi comes equipped with 256 MB of SDRAM on older versions of the model B and 512 MB on the newer revisions. This isn't a huge amount, and much less than you would expect on a PC, where RAM is available in gigabytes. However, for the type of applications we will be building, 256 MB or 512 MB of RAM will be more

than enough.

SD card port

The main storage mechanism of the Raspberry Pi is via the SD card port. The SD card will be where we install our operating system and will act as our basic hard disk. Of course, this storage can be expanded upon using the USB ports.

USB Ports

USB is one of the most common methods for connecting peripherals and storage devices to a computer. The Raspberry Pi comes equipped with two of them, allowing you to hook up a keyboard and mouse when you get started and a micro USB port for powering your device.

HDMI port

The High Definition Multi-media Interface ( HDMI ) port allows the Raspberry Pi to be hooked up to high definition televisions and monitors that support the technology. This provides an additional option to the composite RCA port for video and additionally supports audio.

Should you wish to stream video and audio from the web to your TV, this is the port you would want to use.

Ethernet port

The Ethernet port is the Raspberry Pi's main gateway to communicating with other devices and the Internet. You will be able to use the Ethernet port to plug your Raspberry Pi into a home router such as the one you currently use to access the Internet, or a network switch if you have one set up.

GPIO pins

The General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pins on the Raspberry Pi are the main way of connecting with other electronic boards such as the Arduino.

As the name suggests, the GPIO pins can accept input and output commands and thus can be programmed on the Raspberry Pi.

3.5mm analog audio jack

The 3.5mm analog audio jack allows you to connect headphones and speakers to the Raspberry Pi. This is especially useful for audio and media player based projects.

Composite RCA port

You are probably familiar with the composite cables used to hook up your DVD player to the TV. They usually come in the red, white, and yellow plug variety.

The Raspberry Pi has a port for attaching the yellow video cable from your TV to it, allowing you to use your TV as a monitor.

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