Getting Started with an Old Raspberry Pi #1 : Its a Model B (not a B+)

18 Feb 2019

As I am thinking of taking part in the Picasso Design Challenge that uses a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and not knowing very much about any Raspberry Pi I thought I would borrow one and see what I could do. I obtained an old one from my son which I am now attempting to get going.

I have searched some of the Element14 older material and managed to find out that I have a Raspberry Pi Model B (but not a B+). But so far I have not been able to find out how to connect it up so that I can at least turn it on and see what happens. I think I need an HDMI cable but what else? Can anyone point me in the right direction for this very old Pi which is way past its Best Before Date?

Dubbie

Top Comments

dubbie over 7 years ago in reply to jomoenginer

Jon,

These are really useful links, just the sort of thing I was looking but for some reason couldn't find. I guess you need the right keywords when searching. The pinout diagram is really useful, something about the Pi I can actually understand, plus th second link to using Python and Pi was going to be my first step once I can actually talk to the Pi. Ralph Yamamoto gave me a good link for using Ethernet to connect to the Pi so if that works I'll be on my way.

Dubbie
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dubbie over 7 years ago in reply to ralphjy

Ralph,

This seems to be exactly what I am looking for, a very low cost method of gaining familiarity with the Pi. I looked at the tutorial and it seems exactly right for me, even the picture of the Pi used looks the same as the one I have. I have an Ethernet cable salvaged from an old home WiFi hub which I hope will work and having just looked again a noticed a previously unseen slot of my laptop that looks remarkably like a SD card reader. If all these things go well then I might just be able to talk to the Pi. Wahey!

Still, it's time for lunch now, I'm off for an All Day English Breakfast, yum, yum.

Dubbie
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jomoenginer over 7 years ago

Is this what you have?
https://www.element14.com/community/message/171871/l/raspberry-pi-1-model-b-io-connector-pinout#171871

https://makezine.com/projects/tutorial-raspberry-pi-gpio-pins-and-python/

Outside of being a bit slower and less RAM and no WiFi and no HDMI, it should not be much different than the new ones. That is unless the newer images do not run on this.

Can you post an image of the top of the board to show the revision?
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ralphjy over 7 years ago

Hi dubbie ,

I think that I understand your situation. I'm used to having resources like peripherals and cables readily available......

Hope that the cake helped .

If you just want to get a feel for the RPi then you shouldn't need to make a large commitment. You definitely need to get an SD card reader/writer. You can easily configure the RPi to run headless over ethernet (slightly more complex to run wireless, but you don't have that problem). You do all of this initially on the SD card.

Here is a link to a short tutorial: https://hackernoon.com/raspberry-pi-headless-install-462ccabd75d0

If you decide to do something for the Design Challenge, I would definitely recommend buying the lastest RPi.

Ralph
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dubbie over 7 years ago in reply to luislabmo

Luis,

I am coming to the conclusion that if I want to use a Pi then I should get the latest model, plus I will need to buy all the other bits, (keyboard, display and so on) to go with it. It all seemed so simple when I started. Ah well, time for some cake.

Dubbie
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