A Raspberry Pi is a Hardware Hacker’s Swiss Army Knife

By now most of us have used a Raspberry Pi at some level or another. As a headless server it’s a great tool because of its price point, and as an interface to the outside world the GPIO pins are incredibly easy to access with a simple Python script. For anyone looking for guidance on using this device at a higher level, though, [Arun] recently created a how-to for using some of the Pi’s available communications protocols.

Intended to be a do-everything “poor man’s hardware hacking tool” as [Arun] claims, his instruction manual details all the ways that a Raspberry Pi can communicate with other devices using SPI and I2C, two of the most common methods of interacting with other hardware beyond simple relays. If you need to go deeper, the Pi can also be used as a full JTAG interface or SWD programmer for ARM chips. Naturally, UART serial is baked in. What more do you need?

As either a tool to keep in your toolbox for all the times you need to communicate with various pieces of hardware, or as a primer for understanding more intricate ways of using a Raspberry Pi to communicate with things like sensors or other computers, this is a great write-up. We also have more information about SPI if you’re curious as to how the protocol works.

Thanks to [Adrian] for the tip!