This month’s Hobby Tech column for Custom PC magazine is something of a Pi-extravaganza, featuring a tutorial on how I built a Python-powered doorbell so I wouldn’t miss deliveries when I’m in the upstairs office and a review of the Wolfson Audio Board add-on. If you’re not a Pi-fan, fear not: there’s also my write-up of the first RetroCollect Video Games Market event in Leeds.
That’s a good place to start, in fact. The brainchild of RetroCollect founder Adam Buchanan, the RCVGM brought sellers and buyers from across the UK under the roof of Leeds Town Hall to see what happened. The turn-out was far higher than expected, with a queue snaking through the building and half-way around the outside, but those who stuck with it and got inside were in for a treat.
Exhibitors at the event included people selling 8-bit inspired Hama-bead art, hand-made game-themed jewellery and clothing, and hardware and software from the early 8-bit era right the way through to modern day. Personal highlights included a tour of BetaGamma’s Bas Gialopsos’ latest creations, including hot-rodded Spectrums and a composite video adapter for the Atari 2600, and a chance to chat with Philip Murphy about his North-East Retro Gaming events where over a hundred arcade cabinets, classic consoles and pinball tables are set to free play for the weekend.
For the Pi fan, the tutorial this month demonstrates how a relatively simple hardware hack – a switch connected to the GPIO port – can be used to bring some intelligence to every-day objects. Although I work from home, I often miss deliveries because I’m listening to music and can’t hear the doorbell. While I could have purchased a wireless door-chime with two receivers, I had Pis and switches a-plenty and decided to go for a homebrew solution with Twitter integration – with great success.
Finally for this month, the review of the Wolfson Audio Board. Kindly provided by CPC, the board connects to the GPIO header on the Model A and Model B Revision 2 – but not Revision 1 – Raspberry Pi boards and provides a considerable upgrade to its audio capabilities. To get a full idea of what it can do, you’ll have to buy the magazine – but its highlights include SPDIF digital audio inputs and outputs, high-definition playback, on-board amplification and even a pair of MEMS microphones for stereo recording.
All this, plus a bunch of fascinating stuff that I didn’t write, can be yours at your local newsagent, supermarket, or digitally via services like Zinio.