Table of Contents for

Learn Raspberry Pi Programming with Python: Learn to Program on the World's Most Popular Tiny Computer

It is difficult to believe that it’s been four years since I wrote the first edition of this book. In 2014, there was one version of the Raspberry Pi, a comparatively underpowered board with only one core in its ARM processor and only twenty GPIO pins to play around with. I was excited to order my first Pi, and I actually had to get on a waiting list to be on the second shipment list.

In addition, it seemed that every time you turned around, someone else was introducing a single-board computer (SBC) that was trying to appeal to the same niche that the Pi did—mainly hobbyists and makers who were ready to step up from the Arduino to something a bit more powerful.

The Pi resisted all attacks on its throne, however (not that it was ever interested in competing), and thrived. There are now seven models of the Pi: the model 1, the model 2, the model 2B, the model 3, the model 3B, the Pi Zero, and the Zero W. The Pi 3 is a computing powerhouse compared to the original model; its quad-core architecture lets it perform tasks like computer vision and machine learning, and overclocking it can give you speeds up to 1.5GHz, compared to the original’s 700MHz. Meanwhile, the Zero and the Zero W have such a low price point ($5US and $10US, respectively) that I often have to field questions from readers like “Why should I use an Arduino? The Pi Zero is cheaper!”

And the Pi is not the only game in town. Depending on how much you’re willing to spend, there are quite a few other SBCs that can be used for whatever project you’ve got in mind, ranging from the $30 BeagleBoard to the $550 NVidia Jetson TX2. I still like the Pi, however; it’s the board that first got me started playing around with embedded computers and the hobby projects that you can do with them. It’s inexpensive, so when I burn it up or brick it (as I’ve done quite a few times) I can replace it without breaking the bank. And it’s still powerful enough for quite a lot of things.

Thanks for reading this new book with me. If you’re a fan of my original book, thanks for sticking with me and putting up with the several mistakes that made it through to publication, and if you’re a new reader and a new Pi user, welcome! I hope to use the following pages to introduce you to an exciting new world of projects and computing.

In 2006, when Eben Upton and the other founders of the Raspberry Pi Foundation looked at the state of computer science (CS) programs at universities, they were dismayed. Such programs were being reduced to “CS 101: How to Operate Microsoft Word” and “CS 203: Optimize Your Facebook Page.” Nobody, they realized, was learning how to program anymore, least of all before they entered college. So they hatched a plan—create a small, cheap computer that kids could learn to program on, like the Amigas, Spectrums, and Commodore 64s of yesteryear. They put an ARM processor on a board, gave it (eventually) 512MB of RAM and a VideoCore GPU, and allowed users to interface with it using a USB keyboard and mouse and an HDMI output. To make it easy to program, they designed it with Python in mind—a powerful, easy-to-learn language. And thus the Raspberry Pi was born.

I wrote my first program in BASIC on a Commodore VIC20, longer ago than I care to admit. At 5KB of RAM, it had less processing power than many of today’s microcontrollers, but I was still able to write a simple maze game on it, saving my progress as I went along to a cassette-tape drive. In the years since, I’ve traversed my way through the different computing platforms, from Windows 3.1 to Macintosh OS 8 to Linux, my OS of choice. It had been a long time since I was truly excited by a computer; the Pi was a breath of fresh air in a stale computing environment. Not only was it small and cheap, but it was also easy to get it to interact with the physical world—a real boon for anybody like me who was interested in designing and building physical systems. So, when I heard about its release, I signed up for the shipment like about a trillion other hobbyists/hackers/engineers and waited impatiently for mine to be delivered. Then, I started building stuff with it and writing about it, and I never looked back.

If you’ve bought (or were gifted) a Pi, but aren’t sure how to get started with it, this book is for you.

If you’ve got a Pi but aren’t sure about what you can or want to do with it, this book is for you.

If you’re even considering buying a Pi, for yourself or someone else, but haven’t yet because you keep wondering “What’s it good for?” or “Why not buy an Arduino?” then this book is definitely for you.

This book isn’t meant to be a textbook on Python, nor is it an exhaustive exploration of the Raspberry Pi and everything it can do. But it is meant to be a fun getting-started guide to this nifty little computer, in all of its possible permutations. I hope that after working through this book you’ll have an understanding of everything you can do with this little board when you mix it with some ingenuity and creativity.

If you want to work through the projects in order, feel free. If you’d rather skip around, doing only those projects that interest you, do that. Along the way, I hope you develop a familiarity with Python and Linux and the Pi that will enable you to continue on, building projects as you go, and perhaps inspiring others the way I hope to inspire you. Above all, I hope you enjoy the book and its projects. It was truly a blast to write. I always love hearing about your projects; you can reach me through the publisher or via Twitter: @wolfram_donat .

Happy computing!