Raspberry Pi — Expanding My Mind with the GPIO
I love technology and tinkering with it. After fifteen years of being a devout Apple fanboy, I switched to Linux. While there were many reasons for this significant change, at the core, it was about learning. Since the switch, I’ve learned more about how computers work, both the hardware and software. I’ve built a desktop computer and breathed new life into older computers with Linux. My recent acquisition of the Raspberry Pi 400 started me on a new journey learning physical computing.
Since the Raspberry Pi 3 release in 2016, I’ve been using Pis for single-purpose servers. I’ve set up a network print server, Home Assistant server (home automation), Plex server (media server, mostly for streaming home videos), and a Pi-Hole (network ad blocker and DNS server). I once set up a cluster of Raspberry Pis to emulate a high availability web hosting environment.
As a career software developer, with most of that experience building websites, I’m comfortable writing programs that humans use to interface with information. I’ve also interfaced with software systems to share data, but I have never written software to interface with the physical world; lights, sensors, and devices.
