Current getting started guide is here
Pie-dee
Here are some ideas:
- The button
- Launch and restart applications
- Soft restarts (push and hold for 3 seconds?)
- Ping a server when pressed
- The switch
- Run different applications at startup
- Boot into the desktop or command line
- Switch to debug mode
- Identify multiple Raspberry Pi
- Have secret pin code to boot the Pi
- Leave the keyboard and use the switches
- Leds
- Morse code the IP address at boot?
- Blink an LED from terminal so you can see which Raspberry Pi you're connected to
- Show which applications are running
- Show warnings
- Show debug mode
- Disco!
- Indicate activity
We wanted to make a cheap-as-possible, robust and readily available human interface for everyone.
Almost anything can be done with the Raspberry Pi GPIO. But again and again, we find ourselves wishing we had to hand a switch, a button or a light to blink. This could save you plugging in a monitor, bringing a keyboard, opening up a terminal or going hunting for the IP address.
You may be creating an installation with hunderds of Raspberry Pis and need to give them all a unique ID. Or you may need to boot a different program when you use your Raspberry Pi in a greenhouse to when you use it in school. Or you might want to enable a debug mode. Or maybe you just want a button to shutdown a Raspberry Pi cleanly? Oh wait... of course you do that anyway!
With this in mind we wanted to make something cheap. We can have it kicking around or buy in multiples. Something robust. We could use it at home, at work and avoid breadboard botched jobs. Something simple. So kids in schools can jump in and program with the GPIO right away. Something safe. Set an input to an output and not fry the Pi. This is why made the Pidee board and we hope you like it too.
Pidee is a collaborative effort instigated by Stefan Dzisiewski-Smith, The Workers and our friends at The Hackney Swingers Club
More on this soon but did you know that you can access the console without a monitor or a network?