It came in the mail today. It, in this case, is a Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi is a very simple computer for experimenters. It has modest powers by 2015 standards… modest, but acceptable.
I don’t remember what the Pi itself cost. Most people buy a package with plugs and cables and cards. Mine had all that and a tiny camera.
At the moment my office TV is its monitor. When finished it will run ‘headless,’ meaning without a monitor, keyboard or mouse. At power up it will know what to do.
My goal is an automatic time lapse machine for TV.
Each day at a set time the RPi will start snapping pics. When finished the stills get transcoded into a movie then sent to my file server for airing. It all happens on this tiny card without supervision.
All I have to do is write the code that will make it happen. That sounded easier before I read it back.
In the real world I’d be on my own. In the Pi world everyone’s tinkering, so sharing techniques and code is common.
It’s a complex process, but I’ve broken it down into manageable chunks… or so I think.