Notes

Raspberry Pi 400 - First Impressions

I was a child programming on my TV, with a Sinclair ZX81 followed by ZX Spectum. Computers integrated into keyboards that plug into a TV are a part of my DNA. So, with this in mind what could I possibly resist buying the new Raspberry Pi 400! ?



Here are my initial thoughts on the hardware and using it for development that is light in weight.



I like it .)



Tech Specs



The Raspberry Pi 400 is, in essence an Raspberry Pi 4 housed within the keyboard. You can read much better descriptions elseewhere, but the main aspects of the technical specifications are:



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 It supportsBluetooth 5.0 and BLEGigabit Ethernet – 2 x 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 are available here).



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



First Impressions on Hardware



It was easy to plug in the 400 and get it to work. It's a great device, with a wide range of ports and connectors on the back. The keyboard is...ok. The device is PS67 in the UK. The kit, which includes the mouse, power supply, HDMI cable, official guide, and power supply, was purchased for PS94. The keyboard is excellent for the price, but it does feel a little "plasticy" considering the price.



The 400 is not equipped with an audio-out. The HDMI output is able to play audio. This is an issue for me as my monitor does not come with speakers. While it's not a huge issue, it's something I hadn't thought of.



The other thing the 400 doesn't have is the connector to connect the Raspberry Pi camera module. This isn't a problem for me however it could be a problem if you are planning to build any camera-related projects using the 400.



The 400 has the GPIO header at its back. This allows you to easily build electronics projects using the help of a ribbon cable. I have an Adafruit T Cobbler Plus that allows you to connect the 400 to the breadboard and build...stuff!



The 400 boots up very quickly and is very efficient as a general purpose desktop computer. It's been a great device to browse the internet and installing apps, as well as running docker containers and building code.



Overall, I like the hardware and the design aspect. These devices could be purchased by schools and code clubs to be used in their computing labs.



Developer Experience



I set up my Raspberry Pi 400, and I am awestruck. My setup has included:



- Setup Chromium and installed the 1Password extension. Installed Visual Studio Code following these instructions. - Installed the VS Code Remote Containers extension to allow me to utilize Docker containers to develop code development within.



Overall the setup was very simple. It was so simple it was boring! Although there were a few problems, it was easy to install my Raspberry Pi 400 so that I could write code, use Docker and push changes to Github. For instance, I'm writing this blog post within VS Code, building it using Jekyll inside the Docker container.



The only problem I encountered was the ARM support for different Docker images. The default Ruby development container image couldn't build because it had some dependencies that did not come with ARM versions. In the end I took the Ruby 2.7 docker image as a starting point and copied/pasted into my own Dockerfile the necessary parts of the defintion I needed (removing Node, Zsh, Oh my Zsh and several other things). I'm not sure exactly what was failng to build, so I need to revisit the process and figure out the details and remember that the Rasberry Pi is ARM that it is based on, not all development tools come with ARM builds.



After installing the tools and played aroundwith them, I've created some basic Rust code (with time to build that is comparable to my MacBook! ) I've also written some GPIOZero that is based on Python 3 code (controlling butons and LEDs) I've set up the Jekyll/Ruby development environment and updated my blog.



I have several Raspberry Pi computers (1 to 3). Most of them are in the Model B format, but I also have a few Zeros too. They're all in a sealed box, never opened. They've been used, and then put away. While the performance isn't great however, the form factor is important. I feel like the Raspberry Pi 400 has enough power to handle a variety of projects, and is compact enough that I can connect it to my desk.
minecraft


It gives me a massive nostalgia rush!



In the image below, I have two instances of VS Code (both running dev containers) and I'm also browsing. It handles it all easily.


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