Raspberry Pi_Eng_01.2 Features of the Raspberry Pi


Published Book on Amazon


All of IOT Starting with the Latest Raspberry Pi from Beginner to Advanced – Volume 1
All of IOT Starting with the Latest Raspberry Pi from Beginner to Advanced – Volume 2


출판된 한글판 도서


최신 라즈베리파이(Raspberry Pi)로 시작하는 사물인터넷(IOT)의 모든 것 – 초보에서 고급까지 (상)
최신 라즈베리파이(Raspberry Pi)로 시작하는 사물인터넷(IOT)의 모든 것 – 초보에서 고급까지 (하)


Original Book Contents


1.2   Features of the Raspberry Pi

 

   Small size

 

Raspberry Pi is a System on a Chip (SoC) type computer. System on a Chip (SoC) refers to the way in which all electronic components required for computer operation are concentrated on one chip. All the functions are installed on one board and additional work for installation or assembly is not necessary. And it is a completely working computer by itself.

 

Raspberry Pi is a very small computer with the size of a credit card. It can be easily attached to other machines or equipment if necessary, and it is also very easy to carry because of its small size.

 


Figure 1‑2 Raspberry Pi size comparison

 

 

   Low price

 

The biggest advantage of Raspberry Pi is that it is cheap. The Raspberry Pi 1 model A+, which features the least features, is available for $ 15, and the latest model Raspberry Pi 3 can be purchased for more or less than $ 30. These prices are very cheap at least 1/10th level of a regular PC.

 

 

   Low power consumption

 

The power consumption of the Raspberry Pi is so low that it can be operated with very little power. The Raspberry Pi model A+ which has the features of low functionality and low power consumption uses a power of about 1 W and the Raspberry Pi 3 model B+ which have the feature of high functionality and high power consumption consumes about 4.0 W of power. Even if you connect various parts to the USB port here, the power of 10.0 W is enough.

 

 

   Sufficient processing performance

 

Raspberry Pi has a considerably higher processing performance compared to its size and price. The Raspberry Pi 1 is equipped with a 700 MHz Single Core and 512 MB of RAM, the Raspberry Pi 2 is equipped with a 900 MHz quad-core and 1 GB of RAM, the Raspberry Pi 3 is equipped with 1.2 GHz 64-bit quad-core 1 GB RAM.

 

The processor installed in Raspberry Pi is not better than the processing capacity of a normal PC. However, Raspberry Pi has enough processing power to accomplish each purpose in view of its limited use for a specific purpose, rather than as a general purpose PC. As well as it can be operated in an environment that is used for a very limited use in conjunction with a machine or a facility, It can operate a small DB server or Web server, and can provide sufficient processing capacity even when used as a Media Player server.

 

 

   Adoption of open source based operating system

 

Raspberry Pi adopts a Linux based operating system which is provided as open source. Raspberry Pi uses Raspbian based on Debian, one of the Linux distributions as the official operating system, but other distributions may be used if necessary.

 

Raspberry Pi uses a Linux-based operating system so that all users can freely use the operating system without any restrictions. There is no need to pay any price.

 

 

   Various free applications available

 

As the Raspberry Pi adopts Linux-based operating system, you can use any open source-based applications running on Linux without any problems. Since Linux is an operating system based on open source, many applications running on Linux are also developed and released as open source.

 

These open source applications include not only business office programs, but also professional programs such as image editing and network management, development languages and tools used to develop programs, and also a lot of open source server programs is available for use to run DB server and Web server. Therefore, many users can freely use many of these application programs without going through a separate development process.

 

 

   Provides various external interfaces

 

One of the reasons that Raspberry Pi has become so popular is that it provides a way to interface with a variety of external devices and facilities not provided by ordinary computers. It can be connected to an external sensor to implement a function that receive various measurement values and determine the situation and perform appropriate processing accordingly, and build a system for directly controlling an external facility by creating an embedded program.