Richard Wentk - Getting Started with Raspberry Pi: Program Your Raspberry Pi!

GETTING STARTED WITH RASPBERRY PI

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Copyright 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016933429

ISBN: 978-1-119-26265-7 (pbk); 978-1-119-26266-4 (ebk); 978-1-119-26267-1 (ebk)

1. Contents

SO YOU WANT TO BUY A RASPBERRY PI! Do you want to know more about how computers work? Do you want to look inside them to find out what really happens when you click a mouse, press a key on a keyboard, click a link on a website, or launch an app?

This book is for you! It introduces you to the world of the tiny Raspberry Pi computer, which is perfect for learning how computers work.

Unlike big, expensive computers, the Pi is designed to be hands-on. You can get right inside it and make it do tricks that are much harder to do on a PC or a Mac never mind an Android tablet or an iPad.

The good news is that in some ways, the Pi is very easy to use. But it wouldnt be fair to pretend that its always simple.

In other ways, it can be harder to manage than a Mac or a PC. Because its hands-on, you sometimes have to think harder about what youre doing.

But the Pi is really good for learning how computers work on the inside and for building simple software and hardware projects. Its also good for learning more about learning, which means finding out how to do your own research on the Internet.

This book is your guide to the fascinating world waiting for you inside your Pi. You can use it to learn:

• Why the Raspberry Pi is special
• What parts you need to add to a Pi to make it work and how much they cost
• Where to find the latest free software for your Pi
• How to power up and power down a Pi
• How to start using the Linux operating system
• What you can do with Scratch, a simple programming system
• Why the Sonic Pi music programming system is a ton of fun
• How to write code and draw pictures using the popular Python language
• How you can use Python to control your character in the Pi version of Minecraft

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi makes some guesses about what you know already.

• You dont need to know anything about code or be a computer genius. But you need some basic computer skills, like the ones on this list:
  1. You can use a Mac or a PC or maybe even a Linux computer.
  2. Youre comfortable with a mouse and keyboard, and you can find your way around your computers desktop.
  3. Youre not scared of plugging together computer parts to add extras.
  4. Youre fine with using Google or some other search engine to look up things on the Internet.
• You have a little (but not much) cash to spare. Fifty dollars will cover most of what you need, and $100 will cover everything easily.
• You know some basic math, and youre not too scared of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. (You dont have to be brilliant at doing them in your head. Thats what computers are for!)

Some of the pages of this book have little round pictures at the sides. Heres what they mean:

Tips make your life easier. Youll want to take advantage of them.

When you see this icon, pay special attention, because it points out information you dont want to forget.

This text warns you of things that can go wrong so be careful!

You can read this book in any order that makes sense to you. You can flip through it to find new ideas or go through it in order.

I recommend you work through at least the first couple of projects in order. If youre new to the Raspberry Pi, those early projects have everything you need to get started.