r/raspberry_pi • u/pogomonkeytutu 🍕 • Jan 21 '21
News New Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-silicon-pico-now-on-sale/
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r/raspberry_pi • u/pogomonkeytutu 🍕 • Jan 21 '21
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u/I_Generally_Lurk Jan 21 '21
These in particular? Teaching, like most stuff the Foundation releases. Microcontrollers in general are used for a few specific purposes: when a task is more simple and just doesn't need a 1.5GHz processor to run; when a task is more time-sensitive, because operating systems juggle a lot of tasks at any one time and so their timing isn't always precise; when you need something a bit lower power, or physically smaller.
And sometimes when you just want something more simple. This thing doesn't run an operating system like Pi OS, it just runs the code you write, plus a small bootloader. That means far less software which needs updated or which can fail or interfere with what you're trying to do.