Make: Magazine, Volume 87

It’s that time of year again: the 2024 issue of Make: Magazine’s Guide to Boards is on-shelves, with the annual insert offering at-a-glance comparisons of a total of 81 microcontroller and single-board computer development boards. Inside the main magazine you’ll also find a four-page feature on Matt Venn’s remarkable Tiny Tapeout project, while my annual piece on the state of the industry sits at the front of the insert.

First, the insert itself. For those unfamiliar, Make: Magazine’s Guide to Boards is a definitive pamphlet designed to provide the specifications – from size and power requirements to processor cores and memory – of the most popular, interesting, or unusual microcontroller and single-board computer development boards around. Updated annually, it offers at-a-glance comparatives to help you pick the hardware for your next project – and, as in previous years, I was given the opportunity to select boards for inclusion and update the data ready for the new year.

At the front of the 12-page insert, which covers a total of 81 boards this year, I also penned a piece on the industry’s exit – by and large, with a few exceptions – from the long-running component shortage crisis. The majority of boards which had been out-of-stock or in short supply for a year or more are now flowing freely, and both Arduino and Raspberry Pi have even been able to launch new designs: the Arduino Uno R4 family and the Raspberry Pi 5. Thanks here go to Adafruit’s Limor Fried and Raspberry Pi’s Eben Upton for taking the time to talk to me for the piece.

Thanks, too, are due to Matt Venn, creator of the Zero to ASIC Course and recently-launched Tiny Tapeout – educational courses which teach anybody how to make their own application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), with hardware delivered at the end for you to try. From its origins in being prepared at just the right time to the success of its initial production runs, this four-page feature in the magazine proper offers an insight into Venn’s impressive work in democratising chip design.

As an added bonus, I was also selected to provide my opinion on the world’s greatest fictional spy to tie in with the issue’s feature on DIY spy gadgetry: see the contributors’ boxout on Page 4 for my answer!

All this and more is available in Make: Magazine Volume 87, available in well-stocked bookshops and newsagents now or online with global delivery from the Maker Shed.

Make: Magazine, Volume 83

Make: Magazine Volume 83It’s been a year since the last time I put together a Boards Guide for Make: Magazine, which can only mean one thing: I’ve put together another Boards Guide for Make: Magazine, along with two feature articles: a look at how Espressif’s ESP32 and Raspberry Pi’s RP2040 are having a barnstorming year in the face of rivals’ stock shortages and how RISC-V is seeing an explosion of interest in the maker sector.

First, the guide. An annual tradition, the Make: Boards Guide is a pull-out which aims to serve as an at-a-glance reference for the most popular, interesting, well-established, or increasingly simply “in-stock” development boards. It covers microcontroller boards, single-board computers, and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) boards – and, this year, sees a major refresh with some long-established entries being dropped either as a result of ongoing availability problems or their manufacturers’ choosing to discontinue the parts.

In addition to the pull-out, I contributed an article which takes a look at the ongoing supply chain issues in the electronics industry from a different perspective: how good it’s been for two companies able to fill in the gaps in their competitors’ product lines, Espressif and Raspberry Pi. I’d also like to offer my thanks to Eben Upton for taking the time to talk to me on the topic.

Espressif, in fact, forms a central pillar in my second feature for the issue: the rise of the free and open-source RISC-V architecture in the maker sector. Espressif was one of the first big-name companies to offer a mainstream RISC-V part, and has since announced it will be using RISC-V cores exclusively – and it’s no surprise to see others in the industry taking note. The feature walks through a brief history of the architecture, its rivals, and brings arguments both for and against its broad adoption in a market all-but dominated by Arm’s proprietary offerings. As always, thanks go to all those who spoke to me for the piece.

Make: Magazine Volume 83 is available now at all good newsagents or digitally as a DRM-free PDF download on the Maker Shed website.

The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022

The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022The latest issue of The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook, an annual aimed at those looking to find out what they can do with their Raspberry Pi, is out now – and in it you’ll find my in-depth coverage of the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller board.

Within the special dedicated Raspberry Pi Pico section of the annual is my two-page introduction to the board, an in-depth spread covering its specifications and the various components which make up the hardware – with plenty of high-quality photography, taken in my in-house studio – and an explanation of exactly what a microcontroller is and how the RP2040 at the heart of the Raspberry Pi Pico works.

You’ll also find my guide to programming the Pico in MicroPython and C/C++, an interview with chief operating officer James Adams and senior engineering manager Nick Francis, comment from Eben Upton, a simple hardware “hello, world” tutorial in MicroPython, and a step-by-step guide to safely soldering headers onto the Raspberry Pi Pico’s general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins.

There’s also a brief overview of my book, Get Started with MicroPython on Raspberry Pi Pico – which, for those who want to explore the topic further, is available as a free PDF download under a Creative Commons licence.

The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022 is available in all good newsagents and bookstores now, online with global delivery, or as a DRM-free download under a permissive Creative Commons licence.

The MagPi Magazine, Issue 102

The MagPi Issue 102This month’s MagPi Magazine celebrates the launch of the new Raspberry Pi Pico with my 14-page feature introducing the first Raspberry Pi microcontroller, the first in-house silicon which powers it, and walking the reader through getting started programming the device with MicroPython – as well as talking to three of the people behind the effort.

Built around the RP2040, the first silicon chip produced by Raspberry Pi’s in-house ASIC team, the Raspberry Pi Pico is a fascinating device. While accessible enough for education, thanks to MicroPython support and a breadboard-friendly layout, it’s also designed to work as a module for industrial and embedded projects – and even launches with a port of TensorFlow Lite for machine learning work.

My feature begins with a look at the Raspberry Pi Pico and the RP2040, covering all the major features from RP2040’s programmable input/output (PIO) to the handy single-wire debug (SWD) header at the bottom of the Raspberry Pi Pico. As always, there’s plenty of photography.

The feature then moves on to an interview with Nick Francis, senior engineering manager, James Adams, chief operating officer, and Eben Upton, chief executive officer, covering the work done on both RP2040 and Pico, their hopes for the device, and how it aims to pack a surprising amount of functionality into a £3.60 gadget – “cheap as chips,” Adams told me.

Finally, the feature closes with a series of hands-on tutorials walking the reader through setting the Raspberry Pi Pico up on their Raspberry Pi or other computer, flashing the MicroPython firmware, and working on their first physical computing program.

MagPi Issue 102 is available now from all good newsagents and supermarkets, online with global delivery, or as a DRM-free PDF download under a free-as-in-speech Creative Commons licence. The Raspberry Pi Pico is also the topic of my latest book, Get Started with MicroPython on Raspberry Pi Pico: The Official Guide.

The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2021

The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2021This year’s holiday release from Raspberry Pi Press is The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2021, a tome which collects 200 pages of content previously published in The MagPi and makes it available ready for wrapping and nestling under the tree.

My primary contribution for this year’s Handbook centres around the Raspberry Pi 400, the latest single-board computer in the Raspberry Pi family. Built into a keyboard housing, the most-in-one layout is a new venture for Raspberry Pi – and you’ll find my imagery in the book’s getting started section for newcomers.

You’ll also find a six-page abridged edition of my Raspberry Pi 400 feature from The MagPi Issue 100, down from the original twelve with the main removal being the detailed benchmarking. The new thinner variant still includes plenty of imagery, including a graphical tour of all the external features and ports found on the Raspberry Pi 400, plus my interview with its designer Simon Martin and Raspberry Pi Foundation founder Eben Upton.

You’ll find more of my work scattered throughout, too, including screenshots and tutorials cribbed from The Official Raspberry PI Beginner’s Guide 4th Edition – along with a wealth of material from my fellow MagPi contributors.

The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2021 is available to buy now with global delivery, or to download as a DRM-free Creative Commons-licensed PDF, on the official website.

The MagPi, Issue 100

The MagPi Issue 100For this bumper issue of The MagPi, celebrating 100 issues since its launch as a fanzine and subsequent adoption as the official Raspberry Pi magazine, I take a deep dive into the company’s latest single-board computer: the very-nearly-all-in-one Raspberry Pi 400.

Built into a keyboard housing, the Raspberry Pi 400 is almost everything you need: just add a USB Type-C power supply, microSD, mouse, and display. For those buying the Personal Computer Kit – previously the Desktop Kit – that’s reduced to only needing an external display. Better still, the design includes the Raspberry Pi family’s first passive cooling system – and a speed boost from 1.5GHz to 1.8GHz.

Across the hefty 12-page feature I take the reader on a visual tour of the new board’s external ports and internal features – stripping it down to the surprisingly large single-board computer ensconced within – before taking a break for an interview with principal hardware engineer Simon Martin and Raspberry Pi Foundation founder Eben Upton on the project’s origins and development.

Benchmarks follow, putting hard numbers to the speed boost that has seen the CPU clocked from the default 1.5GHz on the Raspberry Pi 4 to 1.8GHz on the Raspberry Pi 400. As with previous launches, these include historical measurements going all the way back to the original Raspberry Pi Model A and Model B – detailing the performance of every board, bar the industrial-focus Compute Modules, across synthetic and real-world workloads.

The full review is available now in The MagPi Issue 100 from supermarkets and newsagents, online with global delivery, or as a free Creative Commons licensed PDF download on the official website.

The MagPi, Issue 99

The MagPi Issue 99This month’s The MagPi, the official Raspberry Pi magazine, includes a hefty spread taking a look at the newly-launched Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 – bringing the power of the Broadcom BCM2711 to the Compute Module form factor for the first time.

Well, sort of: the new Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 is actually a wholly new form factor, ditching the old SODIMM edge connector in favour of two high-density connectors on the underside. While that means no backwards compatibility with existing Compute Module carrier boards, third parties have stepped up and launched interposer boards to let you squeeze the new board into old designs.

Having been provided with pre-release access to the Compute Module 4 and its IO Board, my launch feature takes a look at the physical layout and the components that go into the board – with macro photography, including coverage of the high-performance eMMC storage on-board selected models – and runs through a selection of benchmarks testing everything from synthetic and real-world performance to footprint and weight.

One particularly interesting aspect of the benchmarking, and one which will inform designs based around the new module, was thermal throttling analysis: the Raspberry Pi 4 is known to run reasonably hot, though enhancements since launch have brought the temperature down considerably, and moving the same technology into a smaller footprint means the Compute Module 4 gets toasty warm. As Raspberry Pi Foundation founder Eben Upton explained, passive cooling is going to be a must for most designs.

The MagPi Issue 99 is available now from all good newsagents and supermarkets, online with global delivery, or as a free-as-in-speech download under a Creative Commons licence.

The MagPi, Issue 94

The MagPi Issue 94This month’s The MagPi Magazine celebrates the launch of the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 8GB, the latest single-board computer from the Raspberry Pi Foundation – and the most expensive and highest-specification model to boot.

My cover feature for the launch begins with an overview of the board, which is effectively identical to the previous 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB models bar the memory module in use. With 8GB of LPDDR4 on board, it has twice the memory of its nearest predecessor – and eight times the entry-level model, since pseudo-retired when falling memory prices brought the cost of the 2GB model down to the same level as the 1GB.

The next two pages diverge from my usual launch-day coverage, replacing benchmarks with a dive into the sort of use-cases that could justify moving from 4GB to 8GB of RAM: storage caching, disk-free computing, in-memory databases, virtual machines and containerised applications, machine learning and the like.

The reason for the shift away from benchmarking is simple: in repeated testing the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 8GB proved absolutely identical in performance to any other model of Raspberry Pi 4, unless the workload exceeded available free memory. While it would have been easy to develop synthetic benchmarks which would show a dramatic improvement in performance for the new model, it would have been misleading to anyone expecting to see a speed boost for day-to-day computing.

From there, the feature moves on to an interview with Raspberry Pi Foundation founder Eben Upton on the timing of the launch – “[it is] absolutely as soon as we can,” he told me during the interview, “the memory packages we’re using are literally some of the first off the production line, a brand-new, shiny memory technology” – the sort of user the new model targets, the Foundation’s work on a 64-bit version of the Raspberry Pi OS which launches in beta today alongside the new board, and the future of the Raspberry Pi 4 range which, sadly, is not likely to include a 16GB model.

The full feature is available to read now in The MagPi Issue 94, available to purchase with global delivery or to download as a free Creative Commons-licensed PDF on the official website.

Custom PC, Issue 201

Custom PC Issue 201This month’s Hobby Tech column takes a look at the upcoming Mooltipass BLE hardware password dongle, FLIR’s ETS320 thermal camera for electronics testing, and has a word from Eben Upton about the cost-reduced Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2GB single-board computer.

First, the Mooltipass BLE. I reviewed the Mooltipass Mini – itself a successor to the original, bulkier Mooltipass – back in Issue 168: a compact, metal-encased device, the Mooltipass Mini holds your passwords in encrypted storage accessible only using a smartcard and four-digit hexadecimal PIN. I’ve been using the Mooltipass Mini with great success since its launch, but it’s always a bit of a pain to use with a mobile device – requiring a USB cable and OTG adapter.

The Mooltipass BLE aims to fix that, by integrated a Bluetooth Low Energy radio. While it can still operate in tethered USB mode, the Bluetooth radio plus internal battery give it a newfound freedom – though my experience is as a beta tester, with finalised and fully-functional firmware still under active development before the device goes on open sale.

The FLIR ETS320, by contrast, is a fully-finished piece of hardware. Regular readers will know that I’ve long been an advocate of thermal imaging analysis for revealing the secrets of electronic devices, and the ETS320 is a considerable upgrade from my usual FLIR C2: the 80×60 resolution thermal sensor of the C2 is replaced by an impressive 320×240 version in the ETS320, at the cost of a dramatically reduced maximum focus distance. I’d also like to thank FLIR for its partnership: the ETS320 has become a permanent fixture in my toolkit, and will be used alongside the C2 for thermal analysis in future hardware reviews.

Finally, the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2GB. While the board itself isn’t new, its pricing is: Raspberry Pi Trading recently decided, prompted by falling RAM prices, to retire the 1GB model and make the 2GB model the new entry point into the family. “2GB is a much more viable desktop platform than 1GB,” RPT chief executive Eben Upton told me in an interview for the column. “1GB is great for embedded, but for a desktop platform it’s just a little bit too tight. What it means is that we’re now back to having a really viable desktop machine at our signature price point.”

The full column is available now in Custom PC Issue 201 at your local newsagent, supermarket, or for global delivery from the official website.

The MagPi, Issue 91

The MagPi Issue 91Hitting shop shelves just two days before the Raspberry Pi Foundation celebrates its eighth birthday, this month’s MagPi brings a surprise: A permanent reduction in the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2GB’s price down to that of the original 1GB entry-level model.

In a three-page feature on the move I investigate exactly what doubling the RAM means for the user, demonstrate how to use the Terminal to see exactly how much RAM your particular Raspberry Pi has available – along with how much is being used by programs and cache, and how much is free or can be freed – and interview Raspberry Pi Trading chief executive Eben Upton on how the price has been brought down, the explosive growth in the Raspberry Pi’s specifications over the past eight years, and exactly how 2GB makes for a great desktop in a world where even entry-level smartphones frequently come with 4GB.

“If you look at Windows, or even a traditional Linux desktop distro, there’s been a sort of relaxation,” Upton told me during our interview for the piece.  “As there’s been more memory available, people have loosened their belts a little bit and sort of flumped down and started consuming more memory, when we really haven’t. We’re still using an LXDE-derived desktop environment; you know, we care about every 10MB of memory usage. That’s the reason why the 2GB model is a really, really useful desktop.”

The shift effectively sees the 1GB model retired, though it will still be made available at the original $35 price point for those who have designed precisely that amount of RAM into their projects – but with the 2GB model costing the same, it’s not likely to be selling in any real volume from this point forward.

MagPi Issue 91 is available at all good newsagents and supermarkets now, and can be ordered for global delivery or downloaded as a free Creative Commons-licensed PDF from the official website. The price cut, meanwhile, is live globally today.