Raspberry Pi 2 unboxing

     I arrived home today to see a lump under my front doormat.  I was excited to see that it was my brand new Raspberry Pi 2, just in time for the weekend.  I've been a huge fan of the original Raspberry Pi.  I started my Pi life with buying one because I saw the cool things that Ben Heck was doing with it.  I got so jazzed about a $35 Linux machine.  I had planned on making an internet connected scoreboard using some LED driver IC's.  While playing with it in the meantime I installed OpenElec on it and was blown away.  I've spent good money on media center builds and have never had anything work so well.  The best feature is the CEC feature that feeds remote commands from my Samsung TV to the Pi over HDMI so that I don't have to do some botch job to get a remote working.  I immediately went and purchased a second Pi.  I've since gone through a couple of prototypes of my scoreboard project and the Pi works perfect for it.  It's a little overpowered for what I need but for $35 and an old wifi dongle I had sitting around it was cheaper than any other solution.  After seeing Ben Heck use an Intel Galileo I realized that that is precisely the board I need but I still come out cheaper with a Raspberry Pi.  I can also cut my programming teeth with Python, win-win.

     As far as unboxing of the new Pi goes, it's pretty much what you expect.  As you can see it comes in the same sort of packaging as the original Pi.  It comes with the obligatory Quick Start Guide.  I'm not sure that anyone opens that booklet up.  The type of people who buy small hobby-style computers like this don't tend to read safety manuals or be unaware of how to get it up and running.

     I have always liked the new layout of the B+ but never needed to purchase another Pi with the same specs as I had.  I'm really excited to work with this new layout.  The mounting holes on the original Pi were not really ideal.  This new layout facilitates solid physical design and it never hurts to have access to more GPIO.  I like the uniformity of the port layout too.  This will make designing a custom case easier.  I'm also glad that they ditched the composite video and added more USB ports.  I like that it uses a Micro SD card but I had forgotten that fact so I get to go electronics shopping this weekend.  The quality of the board seems comparable to the original Pi and I have no complaints about them.  I leave the OpenElec system running 24/7 and it's been going for a couple of years now without any problems.  I expect the same results from this guy.

     As far as plans for this thing, I have a whole bunch of ideas.  One of those is creating a small handheld device that acts as a nice radio/aircraft tracker.  The idea would be to plug a RTL-SDR dongle into it and add a touch screen for a display.  I could have some hard buttons for power and volume functions and use the touchscreen for additional interfacing.  I'd like to be able to take it with me wherever I go and search for, and tune in, push-to-talk radios.  I'd also like it to run some ADS-B software so I can track aircraft in the area.

     Another obvious project would be to upgrade my Pi model B that I use for my OpenElec system.  Menus are slow sometimes on the current system so I'm interested in seeing if the new model is snappier.  This will be my first project with this Pi and I'll post results of that.

     Another test that I'm interested in doing is seeing what I can do as far as a retro gaming system.  Just the other day I borrowed one of my Pi's from its current project and installed RetroPie.  I came across a couple of PS3 controllers that will work great for emulating old consoles.  I'm interested in seeing if the more powerful Raspberry Pi 2 can handle newer systems and bigger games.  I plan on taking this with me on an upcoming deployment.  I can't wait to pwn my coworkers in some Dr. Mario.  I'll post my results from this too.

     Other ideas include a fuzzy clock with world time abilities, an internet radio, and an aircraft spotter.