Notes

Raspberry Pi 400 - First Impressions

I was a child programming on my TV, with a Sinclair ZX81 followed by a ZX Spectum. Computers that are built into keyboards which you can easily plug into a TV, are a part of my DNA. Given this I couldn't resist getting the brand new Raspberry Pi 400! ?



Here are my initial thoughts on the hardware and how it can be used to aid in light development of weight.



TL;DR: I like it:)





Tech Specs

The Raspberry Pi 400 is, in essence, a Raspberry Pi 4 housed within a keyboard. You can find better descriptions elsewhere however, these are the most important aspects of the technical specs:



Broadcom BCM2711 quad core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64 bit SoC @ 1.8GHz 4GB LPDDR4-3200 Dual-band (2.4GHz and 5.0GHz) IEEE 802.1b/g/n/ac wireless LAN The Broadcom BCM2711 quad core SoC supportsBluetooth 5.0, BLEGigabit Ethernet 2 USB 3.0 – 1 x USB 2.0 ports Horizontal 40-pin GPIO Head - 2 x micro HDMI port (supports up to 4Kp60) 79-key compact keyboard



(full specifications can be found here.



The 400 comes with a 16GB SD card loaded with Raspbian, and a host of applications (LibreOffice), dev tools (Geany, Mathematica, Scratch) and utilities (Chromium, VLC Media Player) as well as games (Minecraft).





First Impressions of the Hardware

It was easy to connect the 400 and get it running. It's a great device with lots of ports and connectors in the back. The keyboard is okay. The device is PS67 in the UK. The kit, which comes with a mouse and power supply, HDMI cable, official guide, and power supply, was purchased for PS94. At this price, the keyboard is incredibly good however it feels slightly "plasticy".



The 400 is not equipped with an audio-out. Audio is delivered via the HDMI output. This is a problem for me because my monitor does not include speakers. Although it's not a major issue, it's a problem I didn't think of.



The connector to connect the Raspberry Pi camera module is another thing that the 400 lacks. This isn't a problem for me, but it could be an issue in the event that you intend to build any camera-related projects with the 400.



The 400 comes with the GPIO header at its back. Minecraft-servers.info This lets you easily build electronic projects with the help of a ribbon cable. I have an Adafruit T-Cobbler Plus that allows you to connect the 400 to a breadboard and build...stuff!



The 400 is quick to boot up and is extremely efficient as a general-purpose computer. It's been a great tool for surfing the web and installing apps, running docker containers and building code.



Overall, I am impressed with the hardware and the design aspect. I can see code clubs and schools purchasing these devices and utilizing the devices in their computing labs.





Developer Experience

I spent the day setting up my Raspberry Pi 400, and I am awestruck. My setup includes:



- Set up Chromium and installed the 1Password extension. - Installed Visual Studio Code using these instructions - Installed the VS Code Remote Containers extension to allow me to use Docker containers to write code within



On the whole the setup was simple. It was so simple , it was almost boring! While there were some issues, it was easy to install my Raspberry Pi 400 so that I could write code, use Docker and push changes to Github. For example, I'm currently writing this blog post using VS Code, building it using Jekyll within a Docker container.



The only issue that I have encountered is ARM support for different Docker images. Because it had dependencies that didn’t have ARM variants and the default Ruby development container image didn't build. I used the Ruby 2.7 docker images as a base and copied/pasted the components I needed into my Dockerfile (removing Node, Zsh, Oh My Zsh and several other). I'm not sure what exactly was causing the build to fail, so I need to revisit the process and figure it out, but it's worth remembering that if you're using the Rasberry Pi is ARM based, and not all development tools have ARM versions.



After installing tools and playing around with them, I was able to build some basic Rust code that had build times similar to my MacBook's. I have written some Python 3 code that is GPIOZero based (controlling the butons and LEDs) and set up a Jekyll/Ruby Development container. I also built/updated my blog.





Conclusion

I have several Raspberry Pi computers (1 to 3). They're mostly Model B, but I also have a few Zeros. They all sit in a box, unused. They've been played with and then they were put away. Part of that is because the performance hasn't been impressive, but the design aspect is an important factor. It's as if the Raspberry Pi 400 has all the power I need (for small projects), and it comes in a design that I can plug it in my desk.



In addition to that...it brings me a massive nostalgia rush using it!






Below, you'll see two instances of VS Code running (both dev containers) I'm browsing. It does everything in its stride.


Read More: https://minecraft-servers.info/