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Thursday, November 20, 2025
Electronic drum business cards built on RP2040
The festive issue of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine is on sale from today and features one of the finest front covers our beloved illustrator, Sam Alder, has ever created. We wanted to share a Christmassy project from its pages, and have managed to shoehorn this RP2040-based build in on the grounds that it involves a drum and that there happens to be a Christmas song called ‘Little Drummer Boy’. The math checks out… as long as you don’t think about it too much.
Want to drum your name into someone’s memory at a networking event? Then Sergey Antonovich has got you covered. The embedded systems engineer has reinvented the age-old business card by turning it into a playable electronic drum kit — and we’d hazard a guess that this one won’t end up languishing, forgotten, in someone’s pocket.
It’s a fully functional instrument, with touchpads hidden under the colour UV silkscreen;
Sergey designed it to be fun and intuitive: tap the printed cymbal to hear a crash
Sergey got the idea for the project some months ago. He enjoys building digital musical instruments — including ultra-portable, all-in-one digital accordions — and he was inspired by business cards that can fit an entire Linux system on a tiny PCB. Producing a business card that could be played felt like a natural fit. “It does three jobs at once,” he says. “It instantly grabs attention when you hand it over, it communicates exactly what I do, and it invites people to learn by reproducing the design.”
The cards are being prepared for hand-soldering — they are normally created in batches of ten
This led him to create a card that incorporated an F1C100s system-on-chip running Linux, as well as a TTP229 capacitive touch sensor. Recipients simply needed to power it up and listen via headphones connected to a 3.5mm TRS audio jack, while tapping on an image of a drum kit printed on the card. “Touchpads were hidden under the silkscreen art, so you could tap drums right on the print,” Sergey says. “It worked, looked great, and felt like a real instrument.”
Digital drumming
Yet Sergey wasn’t entirely happy, as the project proved costly and complex. “A Linux image/toolchain is doable, but heavy for beginners or classrooms,” he notes. “And even with trimming, a boot time of a few seconds was noticeable. I wanted instant-on.”
RP2040 was soldered manually onto the PCB using a hot plate and hot air
To resolve these issues, he turned to the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller. “It’s inexpensive and it uses external QSPI flash, which is large enough for multiple stereo drum samples,” he says. “It can also be programmed using CircuitPython, and this takes you from idea to music in an evening. There’s no heavy toolchain.”
Indeed, as Sergey points out, he really did have a build ready within hours. “I started from a CircuitPython build for a 16MB RP2040 board, prepared a tiny drum sample set, and wrote a short script that scans pads and plays stereo WAVs via audiomixer and audiopwmio.”
Feel the beat
The result has been a fresh RP2040 + CircuitPython version optimised for instant power-on via USB-C, which is ideal for beginners while also being cost-effective and quick to create. The touchpads are read directly by RP2040, so there is no need for an external touch-integrated circuit, and 16MB of external flash memory is more than sufficient for the code and sound samples.
Thanks to CircuitPython’s touchio module, RP2040 senses the pad capacitance directly. “A finger increases the capacitance, which leads to changes in the charge/discharge time that result in a reliable ‘touched’ flag,” Sergey explains. An LED provides instant visual feedback, and the sound is output via two of RP2040’s PWM channels.
Sergey is an embedded systems engineer specialising in real-time system software and sensor integration for self-driving cars and delivery robots
Sergey now wants other people to make the project their own, which is why he has made it open source. But even though he has printed his own details on the reverse, including a QR code pointing to his LinkedIn profile, he says its use goes beyond sharing contacts.
“It’s a memorable handout that grabs attention the moment you tap it,” he says. “But the goal isn’t just to hand someone a cool card — it’s to give you a tiny, hackable instrument you can learn from and extend.”
Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #160 out NOW!
You can grab this issue from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, WHSmith, and other newsagents, including the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge. It’s also available from our online store, which ships around the world. And you can get a digital version via our app on Android or iOS.
You can also subscribe to the print version of our magazine. Not only do we deliver worldwide, but people who sign up to the six- or twelve-month print subscription get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W!
How thousands of students are growing plants in space with Raspberry Pi
We had a blast seeing everyone’s kooky creations at Open Sauce this summer, and one of the interesting people we met was Ted Tagami, who told us about a dare he couldn’t turn down over a decade ago…
“In 2013, a dear friend dared me to build an advertising network using satellites in space. Being a child of the 1960s, the idea that running a space programme was possible for me was something I could not pass by. I was not interested in the advertising.”
“That daring friend became my co-founder when we launched Magnitude.io, with zero science or engineering knowledge of how to do this.Fast-forward four years, and ExoLab-1 became our first mission to the International Space Station. With one lab running in microgravity 400km above the planet, we launched with a dozen Californian schools networked with Raspberry Pi–powered, ground-based labs.”
Turning classrooms into space-faring research labs
ExoLab is an educational programme that connects students around the world with real scientific research taking place aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Students in ordinary classrooms on Earth grow plants while an identical experiment unfolds simultaneously in microgravity.
Each participating school receives an ExoLab growth chamber that tracks temperature, humidity, light, and CO₂ levels while capturing timelapse images of plant development. Students plant seeds, collect data, and compare their findings with the parallel experiment happening in space — all in real time.
Over the course of a four-week mission, students join live broadcasts with classrooms all over the world. They hear directly from astronauts and NASA scientists, discuss everyone’s observations, and share their own discoveries.
So far, more than 24,000 students and 1400 teachers across 15 countries have taken part in 12 missions. Keep your eyes peeled for the results of ExoLab-13: Mission MushVroom!
Team Magnitude.io
Not the only Raspberry Pis in space
We liked how much ExoLab reminded us of the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s groundbreaking Astro Pi programme, which sees students run their own code on the International Space Station. While ExoLab works with NASA, Astro Pi sees students collaborate with astronauts from the European Space Agency.
The first pair of Astro Pi computers went up for Tim Peake’s Principia mission
Last year’s challenge was bigger than ever, with 25,405 young people participating across 17,285 teams. They’re now analysing the data they’ve received from the experiments that ran on the ISS. It’s free to take part, so if you know of a young person (under 19 years of age) who would like to launch their code into space, they can choose their mission and get started within an hour!
This wall art was inspired by the James Webb telescope — and there’s a Raspberry Pi inside
If you’ve already done Astro Pi and would like to try a more challenging build, you could look into the ISS Mimic project, which sees student teams build a 1%-scale version of the International Space Station and code it so that it mimics the exact actions of the real thing up in orbit. (It’s very cool. We follow Team ISS Mimic around to events like Open Sauce — they also introduced us to the ExoLab folks.)
ISS Mimic doing its… mimicking
If we’ve piqued your interest, why not peruse the space archives on our website? There are more Raspberry Pis up there than you think!
The latest issue of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine explores the differences between some of our most iconic boards and microcontrollers. Here, we share part of a multi-page feature that explains what Raspberry Pi Zero is capable of and the types of projects you can use it for.
Launched with the aim of making computing even more affordable, the Raspberry Pi Zero range of computers also benefits from a smaller form factor — about the size of a stick of gum. This makes a Raspberry Pi Zero ideal for any projects where space is at a premium, such as in drones and smaller robots, or in handheld games devices.
While smaller, it still features the same 40-pin GPIO header as the flagship Model B devices (Raspberry Pi 5 and Raspberry Pi 4 Model B), so you can use it with the same range of HATs and other expansion boards, as well as connect your own electronic circuits to its pins.
Compared to the later models in the Model B range, Raspberry Pi Zero has less processing power and RAM. The standard Zero / Zero W features a single-core processor, but the quad-core Zero 2 W is roughly equivalent to a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. So, anything you can do with that, you can do with a Zero 2 W.
All Zero models are fully functional computers that run an operating system, so you can install your favourite applications and tools as per usual. You can even connect it to a monitor from its mini HDMI port, although the single USB port means you’ll need a USB hub to connect a wired keyboard and mouse (or you can use Bluetooth instead).
However, Raspberry Pi Zero is typically used in a headless setup, with users connecting to it from a remote computer via SSH over Wi-Fi to issue terminal commands. Its lower power drain (as little as 100 milliwatts) makes it suitable for battery-powered projects in remote locations away from mains power outlets, such as weather stations or wildlife cameras (you can connect a Camera Module to its CSI camera port).
If you need a more compact Raspberry Pi with several orders more processing power than a Raspberry Pi Pico, as well as the ability to run an operating system, Raspberry Pi Zero fits the bill.
Lawny
This remote-control robot mower was originally built using a Raspberry Pi 5, but the maker has since switched it out for a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, demonstrating how the smaller and cheaper single-board computer is powerful enough to handle a sophisticated robotics project. A front-mounted Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 gives the remote operator an as-it-mows, Lawny-eye view as they control the robot from a web interface on a smartphone or computer — thanks to Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W running a Node.js web server.
PiMiniMint
If you want to build a handheld games console, your best choice is a Raspberry Pi Zero model, whose smaller footprint enables it to fit into a compact case with a mini LCD for a display. The lower power drain means your battery pack will last longer, too. One of the first projects to demonstrate such possibilities, PiMiniMint crams a Raspberry Pi Zero into a 60 × 95mm Altoids tin. At the time, the maker used an IoT board to provide Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, but this isn’t needed with a wireless-equipped Raspberry Pi Zero W or Zero 2 W.
Time machine radio
Replacing the innards of an old radio to turn it into an internet radio is another very popular Raspberry Pi project. If you can’t find a genuine retro model, you can always get a vintage-effect replica, as used in this project. A Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W equipped with a Pimoroni Audio Amp SHIM provides analogue audio out to the speakers. Two potentiometer knobs are used for volume and tuning — or in this case, to play custom sound clips from different decades, as per the time-travelling theme.
The Oracle
This miniature version of a Zoltar-style fortune-telling arcade machine is made using a stripped-back Nintendo Game Boy hooked up to a Raspberry Pi Zero W. The latter provides all the I/O necessary for interfacing the keypad, the coin mechanism, the LCD, and the relay modules. It also connects wirelessly to the ChatGPT API to generate horoscopes in the style of American writer HP Lovecraft or children’s author Dr Seuss, then outputs these on paper using a thermal printer.
Ports: 2 × micro USB*, mini HDMI video, CSI camera
Wireless†: 2.4GHz single-band 802.11n Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 or 4.2, BLE
*One for input power †W and WH models only
Models available
Raspberry Pi Zero, Zero W, Zero WH
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, Zero 2 WH
Ideal for:
Small robots
Drones
Remote cameras / sensors
Handheld gaming consoles
Internet radios / music streaming
Ad blockers / VPNs
Network monitors
To ensure ongoing support for our older models, we released a legacy version of Raspberry Pi OS. It provides a continuity option for users who require it, such as industrial users who’ve developed software to use particular library versions, or who value a stable, unchanging operating system. It’s available to download from our software page, and can also be found in Raspberry Pi Imager, our free OS installer for Windows, macOS, Ubuntu for x86, and Raspberry Pi OS.
As ever, the Raspberry Pi Forums are a great place to look for support, and there are already many threads about olderversions of Raspberry Pi OS.
Read the full article in Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #159
You can grab this issue from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, WHSmith, and other newsagents, including the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge. It’s also available from our online store, which ships around the world. And you can get a digital version via our app on Android or iOS.
You can also subscribe to the print version of our magazine. Not only do we deliver worldwide, but people who sign up to the six- or twelve-month print subscription get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W!
Creating the most advanced event badge yet for the Biohacking Village at DEF CON
We’re big fans of the creative event badges we see at DEF CON (and not just because we feature in them sometimes). This year saw a CM5-based badge for the Biohacking Village, part of the event that exists to encourage collaboration for cybersecurity safety and innovation in healthcare. Two of the village’s MVPs, Nina Alli and Jennifer Agüero, told us about their collaboration with SolaSec and PamirAI, as well as the parental inspiration behind the most advanced badge they’ve ever worked on.
This year’s badge gave wearers their own pocket-sized medical chatbot, capable of listening and providing viable feedback.
SolaSec meets PamirAI
SolaSec partnered with the Biohacking Village at DEF CON to deliver a next-generation badge that could showcase AI in the medical space. The goal was to create something local, private, and interactive — an AI experience powered entirely on the edge without any internet connection. Achieving this required more on-board processing power than a typical badge design.
To keep the badge approachable, SolaSec continued their philosophy of using widely available hardware that can be easily repaired or replicated. Having successfully used Raspberry Pi Zero in previous designs, they decided to stick with Raspberry Pi, choosing Compute Module 5 as the core of this year’s badge.
This is where the collaboration with PamirAI began. Their work in local AI aligned closely with SolaSec’s vision, and together they adapted Pamir’s Distiller design to support Compute Module 5. PamirAI provided the baseboard and the software stack, while SolaSec handled the physical design, the 3D-printed enclosures, and the final assembly.
Wearers ask their badge medical questions and it responds with treatment ideas
The result was the most powerful — not to mention the most power-hungry — badge they had ever produced. It combined accessible hardware, practical design, and cutting-edge AI to push the boundaries of what a Biohacking Village badge can be.
From cyborg skulls to homemade mead
The vision for the Biohacking Village badges is to create a piece of portable and stylised iconography. Each year’s badge is designed to be bio-based and technically challenging, incorporating a ‘capture the flag’ game. New and upcoming technologies rooted in reusable art and science keep the badges “fresh, tactile, and overall dope”.
Raspberry Pi made some PamirAI friends at this year’s event
A few examples of the Biohacking Village’s most recent badges include:
RFID readers for body implantables
Agar plates for growing yeast (some fabulous hacker mead was had as a result)
Open source watches (before the Apple Watch was made)
Cyborg operation game (with haptic feedback) by Badge Pirates
3D-printed heart (with a heart monitor that biomimics your heartbeat) by SolaSec
Cyborg skull with piercings and implants by Lee Wilkins
Ambulance badge (with breathalyser) by SolaSec
AI chatbot (with three AI models) by PamirAI and SolaSec
These badges take about a year to make from ideation to finishing touches, with ideation beginning at one DEF CON event and the final touches happening at the next. The real goal is to expose people to different biomedical influences, hopefully providing a transformative moment that inspires folks to make cool new devices that may change lives.
Touching inspiration
A couple of the most recent badges were inspired by Nina’s parents. They were quite ill, and she wanted to honour them in a tangible way, sharing a piece of them with the world. Nina’s dad was a paramedic captain for the Fire Department of New York, hence the ambulance badge, and her mum was a parent coordinator at the NYC Department of Education, which is where the research and reason focus comes from. Nina explained: “I am very proud of [my parents’] influence in my life, and the last two badges helped me ensure that they were immortalised in the Biohacking Village and DEF CON legacy.”
Journey to Raspberry Pi — from CoderDojo volunteer to software engineer
Software engineer Matias Wang Silva has had an interesting journey to working at Raspberry Pi. His story reminds us why supporting the work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation— encouraging young people to learn to code in the hopes of inspiring the next cohort of computing professionals — is so important.
There’s an old adage that the longest way round is the shortest way home. Going from a weekend CoderDojo “Ninja” to a chip designer at Raspberry Pi might sound like the kind of neat origin story that writes itself but, in reality, there were a few twists and turns along the way.
Matias getting hands-on at a Code Club session
Like many of those interested in electronics, I had my humble beginnings with the Atmel Atmega328P on the Arduino Uno — and a few (burnt) LEDs — before graduating to Raspberry Pi as the complexity of my projects evolved. It was around this time that I started attending Lisbon’s CoderDojo (part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s global Code Club community), tinkering around with Scratch, general-purpose programming, and some robotics. My background was in electronics, so I kept hardware at the centre of everything I did.
I was eleven years old back in 2012, and at the time it felt like a world of opportunities had just opened up. What made it more special, though, was the continuity. Growing up, I moved countries quite often — once every two to three years — and countries I lived in like Angola and Bangladesh didn’t have these sorts of places. What began as an activity to fill the long summer break at home in Portugal ended up becoming something I came back to every year.
From coding Ninja to Mentor to Champion
Over time, I progressed from Ninja to Mentor, and finally to Champion, as I took on a more active role in managing the club. I taught Python to younger students, explained electronics basics with a few HATs on Raspberry Pi 3, and led group projects like Astro Pi, where we sent code to run experiments on the International Space Station. I got the chance to work with a great team of university professors and geeky parents and built great things, including many software and hardware teaching projects.
A reassuringly chaotic table at a Code Club, featuring the Astro Pi kits the Raspberry Pi Foundation created with the European Space Agency
Around mid-2020, some people suddenly found themselves with a lot of spare time. It was a chance to learn new things and lean into curiosities that the chaos of everyday life prevents us from nurturing. I took the opportunity to deploy an open source video conferencing platform that I and a few others were building for our university, which allowed us to move teaching online. This kept the CoderDojo in Lisbon running all throughout and beyond the pandemic, amusingly with servers based in Cambridge, UK. It was a resounding success, and I look back on the positive impact we had fondly.
Making it to Pi Towers
Two summer internships and a university degree later, I began working at Raspberry Pi — the very organisation that introduced me to computing — as an engineer in the chip design team. Though spare time is hard to find as an adult, I make it a priority to continue my earlier engineering access work. I now organise university visits with institutions like CentraleSupélec and Cambridge’s Department of Engineering; I also represent Raspberry Pi at engineering outreach events and mentor our yearly interns. It’s important to me to keep existing pathways open for budding engineers and to play an active role in training the next generation.
Matias’ official mugshot for his Raspberry Pi staff ID card
Swiss software engineer and cloud architecture specialist Marco Gerber enjoys getting hands-on with tech in his free time as well as at work. His expertise in machine learning led him to recognise the potential for a handheld AI device that could describe the surrounding environment and that could be particularly useful as an accessibility tool for people with hearing or visual impairments. His idea was to develop a “point and shoot” device that would provide an audio description of the user’s surroundings. The result was the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W-based Hear The World device, which offers both text and spoken descriptions alongside haptic feedback.
Instant inspiration
Zurich-based Marco is a Microsoft MVP with a focus on AI and Azure, so cloud-based projects are second nature. He enjoys trying out new technologies, “Raspberry Pi and various sensors being some of my favourite ways to combine hands-on tinkering with learning”. His other passions are travel and photography. With a keen visual eye, Marco found himself experimenting with early multimodal AI models capable of analysing images. This led on to interpreting individual images from a webcam, sequences of frames and, eventually, a form of video analysis in which the AI processes information about its surroundings. “Later, I also explored audio models, creating small pipelines where an image could be transformed into text, and that text into audio – essentially image-to-text-to-audio.”
Having got this far, it struck Marco that Raspberry Pi could serve as the perfect platform for an image to text to audio project. “With its camera port and compact form factor, it opened the possibility of building a handheld device that could describe the surrounding environment – something particularly useful as an accessibility tool for people with hearing or visual impairments,” he says. Having a tangible use case in mind motivated him to push the idea further.
New territory
Marco was already an enthusiast of both Python and Raspberry Pi thanks to his AI work and “the countless great libraries” that he could use in his project. The compact dimensions of Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W seemed ideal for his portable project. However, most aspects of the project were new territory for him, “so it was very much a process of learning by doing”.
Getting the speaker working with Raspberry Pi required a DAC (digital-to-analogue converter), but also an amplifier to boost the resulting file enough to be audible. “Each component had its own quirks – different libraries, different formats, and unique requirements – which added complexity but also made the project exciting.”
Overall, Marco is pleased with his foray into assistive technology, completed as and when over a couple of months in his free time. “It could be adapted to transcribe spoken words and display them for hearing-impaired people, or even serve as an interpreter to translate sign language into spoken language,” he suggests.
Read more articles like this in Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #159
You can grab this issue from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, WHSmith, and other newsagents, including the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge. It’s also available from our online store, which ships around the world. And you can get a digital version via our app on Android or iOS.
You can also subscribe to the print version of our magazine. Not only do we deliver worldwide, but people who sign up to the six- or twelve-month print subscription get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W!
Raspberry Pi power meets industrial smarts: SECO Pi Vision 10.1 CM5
If you’ve ever wished your Raspberry Pi could level up into a full-blown industrial human–machine interface (HMI), SECO just made it happen. Meet the Pi Vision 10.1 CM5 — a rugged, ready-to-roll platform built around Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5). It’s tailor-made for IoT developers and system integrators who want to move fast.
Out-of-the-box brilliance
The Pi Vision takes the established and well-supported Raspberry Pi ecosystem and wraps it in serious industrial muscle:
10.1-inch multi-touch display with a tough aluminium housing and IP66 protection
Broadcom BCM2712 quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 CPU clocked at 2.4GHz
Up to 8GB ECC RAM, Wi-Fi®, Gigabit Ethernet, and USB 3.0
Fanless, maintenance-free design that’s built to last
Right from boot, you’re greeted by Raspberry Pi OS (or SECO’s industrial Clea OS), preloaded with all the good stuff — Docker, Node-RED, TensorFlow Lite, and Edge Impulse. In other words, it’s a Raspberry Pi that’s ready for serious business.
A playground for web devs and IoT builders
Because it’s a Raspberry Pi at heart, you can plug in sensors, build dashboards, and deploy AI models without diving deep into embedded engineering. Using Node-RED and MQTT, developers can build smart systems that stream data from sensors, visualise it in real time, and even trigger alerts or AI-driven actions when things go sideways (like a sudden CO₂ spike or a production line failure).
With Docker, every app runs neatly in its own container, meaning there are no dependency nightmares and no “but it works on my Raspberry Pi” headaches. And if you need to deploy your solution across multiple buildings or client sites, you can just clone your setup and go.
Smart building, meet smart platform
SECO’s Clea OS and Edgehog tools make remote management and over-the-air updates simple. Whether it’s rolling out new Node-RED flows or updating ML models, everything can be done securely from anywhere, giving you industrial-level innovation on the go.
From prototype to production — all on Raspberry Pi
The Pi Vision 10.1 CM5 turns the flexible, maker-friendly Raspberry Pi platform into a professional-grade edge computing powerhouse. It bridges the gap between enthusiast innovation and industrial reliability, empowering teams to design, deploy, and scale smart IoT systems fast.
This isn’t just any old HMI. It’s a Raspberry Pi gone pro.
Register now to access exclusive launch pricing for SECO’s Pi Vision 10.1 CM5!
Maker Andrew Menadue works with embedded firmware by day and resurrects and recreates vintage calculators and computers for fun. In the latest issue of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine, David Crookes learns how a broken vintage computer has been brought back to life thanks to RP2040.
When most people think of Casio, calculators and watches usually spring to mind. But over nearly 80 years, this Japanese electronics company has developed many other devices, including computers such as the Casio FX9000P. Powered by a Z80 processor and coming with built-in BASIC, the FX90009P is highly sought after, despite fetching high prices at auction. Many surviving units, however, require careful restoration.
The Casio FX9000P computer has the characteristics of Casio’s calculators and BASIC programmables
This didn’t deter Andrew Menadue. “Being a big Casio fan, I decided to buy one, partly to see what it was like and partly to add to my collection,” he says. “I knew from the auction photos that vertical lines were appearing on the screen, but I was fairly sure that video RAM would be the problem and I was confident about a repair.”
Chips are down
When the machine arrived, two video RAM chips were indeed broken. “The simplest way to fix them would be to replace the faulty ICs, but new ICs aren’t available, so replacements — costing about £20 each — would be old and probably close to failure themselves.” Andrew decided to look at the RP2040 microcontroller chip as a possible alternative.
“I’d used the RP2040 before, in Pico form, in other projects and had bought a supply of RP2040 ICs for embedding on PCBs,” he recalls. “I contemplated building a replacement using a RAM chip, but the problem with that is the size of the original ICs. There just wasn’t room. RP2040 is small and would just about fit on a PCB that sat in the footprint of the original RAM chip.”
This PCB is used to replace the FX9000P’s video RAM in its entirety — it plugs into all of the RAM sockets
Andrew made a couple of prototype RAM replacements using Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller boards connected with wires. “I used these to write the code and verify everything would work,” he says. “One problem was that the RP2040 is a 3V3 IC and the FX9000P uses standard TTL logic running at 5V. Luckily, the FX9000P seems to run its 5V supply a bit low, which I have seen on other vintage machines, and I decided not to fit level shifters.”
Technology for life
The code, written with the C/C++ SDK, proved straightforward enough. “The program is quite small and is basically a loop,” Andrew reveals. “The address lines are sampled on chip select and data is presented on the data lines. Data is stored in the RP2040 RAM and plenty is available for this task.”
Once everything was working, Andrew designed a small PCB to fit the footprint of a FX9000P RAM chip. “I then removed all the video RAM and put sockets in, then ran the system with two RP2040 replacements and six original RAM chips,” he says.
The video RAM replacement PCBs were designed by Andrew;
each one is placed on the FX9000P board and contains an RP2040 microcontroller chip
Later, as more video RAM ICs failed, Andrew decided to ditch the small PCBs in favour of a larger one that fits over all of the ICs and replaces the whole video RAM. “This was made with two RP2040 ICs and runs similar code to the small PCB, but each RP2040 provides four bits of data instead of just one.”
This also provided an additional benefit. “The ‘all-in-one’ video RAM PCB should be able to provide the FX9000P with an alternative way to screenshot the video RAM and also, perhaps, send the video data to a second display,” he says. This could be used to replace the CRT with an LCD if and when the tube fails, which means this project is not only helping to preserve old tech but future-proof it too.
Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #159
You can grab the latest issue from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, WHSmith, and other newsagents, including the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge. It’s also available from our online store, which ships around the world. And you can get a digital version via our app on Android or iOS.
You can also subscribe to the print version of our magazine. Not only do we deliver worldwide, but people who sign up to the six- or twelve-month print subscription get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W!
Roughly three months ago, we launched our second RP2350 hacking challenge, this time focusing on the side-channel analysis of our new SCA-hardened (side-channel analysis–hardened) AES library.
We’ve had some good chats with a number of teams and individuals working on this challenge, and it looks like our new AES library is thus far unvanquished, but we hear that progress is being made and a bit of extra time might provide ample opportunity to ruin our day (yay…). You’ll no doubt be glad to hear that we’re therefore extending the submission deadline for this challenge to midnight (UK time) on 31 December 2025. The RP2350 Hacking Challenge 2 page is the place to go for full details of the challenge: happy hacking!
AE-yes?
AES is a very popular and important block cipher encryption standard. It has been widely used for over twenty years now.
As part of our recent 2.2.0 Pico SDK release, we added a useful new tool that allows folks developing designs with RP235x to AES-encrypt their software and data stored in flash, and securely decrypt into on-chip SRAM at boot (RP2350 has lots of on-chip SRAM, and we mainly boot from external QSPI flash chips). This new self-decrypting binary support is very important to customers who wish to protect their software and application data from reverse engineering, decompiling, flash readout, or modification.
Many AES implementations (both software and hardware) are susceptible to side-channel attacks. Most of these attacks involve recording and carefully analysing many hundreds of thousands (or millions) of traces that detail various goings-on in the chip while it is decrypting AES-encrypted data. Typically, these are time-series measurements of power consumption and/or electromagnetic emissions. Using these measurements, it is often possible to learn or spot data that is being leaked, and this data in turn can be used to reduce the effective length of the AES key, often to the point where it’s feasible to brute-force the rest of the key. Once you have that, you can cause all sorts of mischief.
Our friends at NewAE make some of the best SCA tools out there
To help protect RP2350 against this, we worked with some talented folks to harden and test our custom AES implementation against these side-channel attacks. You can read more about this hardening work here.
Take a look at the RP2350 Hacking Challenge 2 page to find out more about our current, newly extended challenge, and watch this space for an update on the results once the new deadline has passed.
Develop embedded firmware for Pico using Rust or Zephyr with pico-vscode
A little over a year ago, we launched the Raspberry Pi Pico extension for Visual Studio Code with the goal of simplifying project setup and configuration. Since then, we’ve received lots of feedback from developers saying it really helped them get started with embedded firmware development. From beginners struggling to wrap their heads around CMake configurations, toolchains, and SWD debugging, to experienced developers who just want to spin up a quick prototype — there are countless ways people use our extension.
Since launch, we’ve focused on continuously improving the user experience — guided by extensive community feedback — while adding new features to make development smoother and more enjoyable. But with the world of embedded firmware development evolving faster than ever, and with new technologies and approaches emerging every month, two in particular stood out to us as ideal candidates for integration into the Pico VS Code extension: Zephyr and Rust. These technologies make it easier for more people to dive into MCU development, while also giving seasoned developers powerful tools tailored to their preferred workflows.
Zephyr, introduced in 2016 by the Linux Foundation and Wind River Systems, has gained significant traction in the past year — and rightly so. Built on the Rocket RTOS kernel, Zephyr bridges the gap between Linux and the world of low-power embedded systems. With familiar concepts such as the Device Tree and a robust, modular architecture, it’s a great entry point for developers coming from Linux kernel development backgrounds or professionals looking for a flexible, production-ready RTOS for their next project.
And then there’s Rust — a language many of you already know and love for building safe, high-performance software, from developer tools to web servers. Over the past few years, Rust has made big strides in the embedded ecosystem. Thanks to the efforts of the Rust Embedded community and the rp-rs project, you can now write modern, fast, and memory-safe firmware for your Pico boards in Rust — using a language you might already feel right at home with.
As these technologies mature, they often introduce new expectations for how projects should be structured and configured. That’s why we’ve worked hard to integrate both Zephyr and Rust into our extension — making it easier to get all the right dependencies installed, set up a new project in minutes, and start experimenting without the usual friction.
How do I get started?
First things first — make sure your Visual Studio Code installation is up to date.
On Windows and Linux: open the Help menu from the menu bar and select Check for Updates…
On macOS: open the Visual Studio Code menu (on the far left of the menu bar) and select Check for Updates…
Once that’s done, make sure you’ve got the latest version of the Raspberry Pi Pico extension installed. Open the Extensions Marketplace in the Activity Bar and search for:
@id:raspberry-pi.raspberry-pi-pico
Select the extension, and you’ll see the installed version number on the right-hand side of the README. If there’s an update available, you’ll see a blue Update to… button next to the logo. Click it, then restart the extension when prompted.
Before continuing, make sure you have all the default required dependencies for your operating system installed — you can find the most up-to-date list in the extension’s README. (Currently, this additional setup is only required for macOS and non–Raspberry Pi OS Linux distributions.)
Rust prerequisites
To use Rust, you’ll need the rustup tool installed and available in your system PATH, along with a compiler for your host platform.
Linux: We recommend installing GCC using your system’s package manager
macOS: The compiler is included with the Xcode Command Line Tools, which you should already have installed if you followed the extension’s README
Windows: Follow the installation instructions provided by the rustup installer or the official documentation
Zephyr prerequisites
Zephyr has a few more prerequisites. While the Pico extension handles most of them automatically, there are still a couple of tools that need to be installed manually:
Note: Starting with Zephyr SDK 1.0.0, wget is included for macOS and Linux, so we’ll be able to remove this requirement once that version is officially released.
On Debian-based Linux distributions, install these tools with:
The python3-venv module is already included in the standard Python 3 installer on macOS.
With all that out of the way, it’s time for the fun part — creating your first Rust and/or Zephyr firmware projects!
New Zephyr firmware
To create a new Pico Zephyr project, open Visual Studio Code and click the Pico icon in the Activity Bar on the left. This opens the Quick Access panel, where you can select New Zephyr Project to launch the Zephyr project wizard.
The wizard is divided into three sections, but to create your first project you’ll only need to focus on the top section: Basic Settings.
Enter a project name, choose a location for your project folder, and select the board type you want to target (you can always change this later).
For your first project, we recommend choosing a non-wireless board variant, since Zephyr doesn’t currently support the simple ‘Blinky’ example on wireless boards.
Next, open the project template selector and choose Blinky. This template includes example code to blink the on-board LED.
Once you’re happy with your settings, click the green Create button in the bottom-right corner.
The extension will now install all required dependencies and set up a Zephyr workspace for you. This process can take a while — the full toolchain is over 2.0 GB in size — so make sure you have enough disk space available.
After setup is complete, your new project will open automatically.
When opening a Pico Zephyr project, the extension automatically checks that all requirements are installed and configured correctly. We recommend waiting until the progress indicator in the bottom toolbar disappears before interacting with the project.
By default, the extension will automatically configure your build folder. This usually takes about 30 seconds.
The first step in any new Pico Zephyr project is to click the Compile button in the bottom-right toolbar. This ensures that all Zephyr auto-generated C headers are created so that IntelliSense can correctly resolve Zephyr includes.
Once compilation is finished, you can either:
Click Run to load the firmware onto your Pico, or
Use the Debug side panel to flash and debug your Pico with a Raspberry Pi Debug Probe (if you have one connected)
Next steps
To get the most out of your new Zephyr-based firmware, we recommend visiting the official Zephyr documentation for a comprehensive introduction to its system architecture, APIs, and development workflows.
For questions, tips, or to share your projects with others, join the conversation in the Raspberry Pi Forums — there’s a dedicated section for Raspberry Pi Pico and Zephyr development where you can get help from the community and the Raspberry Pi team.
New Rust firmware
To create a new Rust Pico project, open Visual Studio Code and click the Pico icon in the Activity Bar on the left. This opens the Quick Access panel, where you can select New Rust Project to launch the Rust project wizard.
The Rust project wizard is designed to be as simple as possible. First, enter a project name and choose a location where you’d like the new project folder to be created.
By default, each new Rust project starts from a template that includes example code to blink Pico’s on-board LED. It supports both RP2040– and RP2350-based devices — including the RISC-V target — which you can later select in the toolbar, next to the Run button.
Once you’re happy with your settings, click the green Create button in the bottom-right corner. The extension will automatically install the necessary dependencies and Rust toolchains for you, which may take a few minutes. After that, your new project will be generated and opened automatically in VS Code.
If you haven’t already installed them, VS Code will suggest a handful of useful extensions for embedded Rust development — including Cortex-Debug, rust-analyzer, and Debugger for probe-rs. We highly recommend installing these for the best development experience.
Next steps
To dive deeper into embedded Rust development on Raspberry Pi microcontrollers, check out the official documentation for the relevant hardware abstraction layers (HALs):
These resources provide excellent overviews of the APIs, as well as examples for working with peripherals, timers, GPIOs, and more.
For help, feedback, or just to chat about your Rust-on-Pico projects, head over to the Raspberry Pi Forums. There’s a dedicated area for Raspberry Pi Pico and Rust development where you can exchange ideas, ask for assistance, and connect with fellow developers.
Contributors who made this possible
Bringing Zephyr and Rust support to the Raspberry Pi Pico ecosystem was only possible thanks to the hard work and dedication of many open-source contributors. Here are some of the people and communities that made it happen:
Zephyr support
Magpie Embedded — contributed major components to the Zephyr project to enable full support for the Raspberry Pi Pico (W) and Pico 2 (W) boards
The Zephyr Project team and all the contributors who helped integrate and refine Pico support within Zephyr — your work made this collaboration possible
Rust support
The rp-rs developers and organisation — for building and maintaining excellent hardware abstraction layers (HALs) and tools for Raspberry Pi microcontrollers
The Rust Embedded Working Group — for laying the groundwork that makes Rust a great fit for resource-constrained and embedded environments
The probe-rs team — for providing modern tools that make debugging Rust firmware on Raspberry Pi microcontrollers straightforward and reliable
We hope these improvements to the pico-vscode extension will help make your development experience smoother and more enjoyable.
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Education: Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) - 2024 Graduate
Technical Skills: Web Development (MERN Stack)
Areas of Interest: Mobile Application Development (Android).
Projectes: Attendance app, Music website etc.
