Missed Pi Day

I've pretty much missed it.  Most of my readers will see this on 3-15, not 3-14.  Plus, to be honest, I don't tend to do posts for Pi Day.  Searching on the phrase only turns up two.  Of the two, my warped sense of humor tends to prefer this one:

Which doesn't mention pi at all.  

So let's go somewhere else.  As a rule, I try not to post about things I know virtually nothing about but tonight I'll make an exception.  

The subject is the world of the Raspberry Pi single board computer (SBC).  Yes, I have one, a Raspberry Pi 2.  That was (relatively speaking) the New Hotness when I was retiring and I was thinking seriously of putting all of my ham shack's Windows software into Linux and using the Pi 2.  Today, if you look at their hardware page, you'll find options from a $4 Pi Pico microcontroller to a $10 bare bones, Pi Zero SBC, all the way up to a $100 full Pi computer built into a keyboard, with a mouse and Wall Wart-type power supply.  Most of their hardware is sold by other sources that experimenters will know.

Which you should buy depends on your budget and what you'd use it for.  The Raspberry Pi concept is to be a desktop computer, running on a distribution of Linux.  It's also really being pushed as way to "learn to code" for kids and others farther along in life.  It's capable of doing most anything a desktop can do, although the Arduino seems to be the microcontroller that's most preferred.  I see far more projects based on the Arduino than the Pi. 

I've used my Pi 2 with my 3D printer, running an open source SW package to help with some infrequent tasks, but what I find interesting is using it with ham radio.  I need to look into this more because it's over 6 years since I spent a couple of months trying to find Linux alternatives for some Windows software.  It's very possible there's new software out there.  A friend does a lot of activity centered on his Pi (don't recall which model) and one of his main resources is YouTuber KM4ACK, Jason Oleham.  Jason's channel has dozens of videos on various things you can do with your Pi as well as things you can't do without either a Pi or another computer.  I recommend watching the 10 minute video Raspberry Pi Ham Radio | Where to Start to get an idea of what he and the channel are about.  

So there.  Pi day without reference to the famous number.  Hope yours was fun.