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Today, Raspberry Pi has announced the launch of their new board – and what a surprise it is! It is their first\u00a0micro-controller<\/em> and is called the Raspberry Pi Pico<\/strong>!<\/p>\n Raspberry Pi Pico has been built around Raspberry Pi’s own silicon<\/strong>, developed in-house by them over the last few years. The chip, the RP2040, is a dual-core ARM Cortex M0+ processor, with a flexible clock running up to 133MHz.<\/p>\n Key features:<\/p>\n Here’s the full datasheet with a lot more technical detail<\/a>.<\/p>\n It runs both C\/C++ and MicroPython and you can see a pinout of this very capable little board below:<\/p>\n One of the most impressive things about the Pico is the price – just $4\/\u00a33.60 or thereabouts.<\/p>\n You can read the full Raspberry Pi announcement here<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can buy the Pico from The Pi Hut<\/a>, and of course from the pirates at Pimoroni<\/a> and other official resellers. Pimoroni, in particular, have gone all-out to release a set of extras – check them out here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pimoroni have also been working on the tinyest 2040-based board called the Tiny 2040<\/a> – it’s coming soon and is the size of the end of your finger!<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Hackspace magazine<\/a>, or you’re lucky enough to find a copy in a newsagent\/supermarket, there is a FREE one on the cover this month!<\/p>\n Thinking to yourself “oh, it’s just a microcontroller”? Take a look at Dave Akerman’s post in which he uses the Pico as a high altitude balloon tracker<\/a>! Take a look also at Russell’s experiments with Pimoroni breakout garden displays<\/a>!<\/p>\n For a review of the Pico, take a look at Les Pounder’s piece over at Tom’s Hardware<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
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<\/a>There’s even a book to help get you started – which you can buy here<\/a> or download for free here<\/a>.<\/p>\n