The Concept
The concept behind Raspberry Pi is simple, to encourage school pupils to learn how to develop programming skills.
The tiny computer is the product from Raspberry Pi Foundation, a charitable organization setup for the aforementioned goal for young children.
The Hardware
The board is available in two models, Raspberry Pi Model A and Model B. Both share the same level or RAM, chip and video output via HDMI. Model B however has an additional USB port and an Ethernet port.
The board is centralised around a Broadcom System on Chip, a small package that controls the video and audio output, includes the RAM and CPU.
Applications
Since the hardware is powerful enough to play 1080p video content, this has sparked a few ideas in the minds of tinkers and hobbyists.
Collective minds from around the world have banded together in online communities to share their take on the revolutionary small computer. Ideas such as a set-top box media player appear to be a very popular choice.
A favourite among the hobbyists is to use XBMC on Raspberry Pi. The software allows playback of many types of media from the Internet with a unique – easy to use interface. This combination of hardware and software creates a robust platform to view and listen to media through a television set.
Another hit with the hackers is to utilise the hardware for gaming. Linux is home to many emulators ranging from a Commodore 64 emulator to Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Mega Drive and MAME.
