Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
YOUR RASPBERRY PI
board is a miniature marvel, packing considerable computing power
into a footprint no larger than a credit card. It's capable of some amazing things, but there are
a few things you're going to need to know before you plunge head-irst into the bramble patch.
If you're eager to get started, skip ahead a couple of pages to ind out how to connect your
Raspberry Pi to a display, keyboard and mouse.
TIP
ARM vs x86
he processor at the heart of the Raspberry Pi system is a Broadcom BCM2835 system-on-
chip (SoC) multimedia processor. his means that the vast majority of the system's compo-
nents, including its central and graphics processing units along with the audio and
communications hardware, are built onto that single component hidden beneath the 256
MB memory chip at the centre of the board (see Figure 1-1).
It's not just this SoC design that makes the BCM2835 diferent to the processor found in
your desktop or laptop, however. It also uses a diferent instruction set architecture (ISA),
known as ARM.
Figure 1-1:
he BCM2835
SoC, located
beneath a Hynix
memory chip
