The PCinoPi

The PCinoPi available from many junk closets is not faster than a speeding bullet and  not faster than a speeding train but it can easily introduce you to computers and electronics. Will run Pitus Linux, Atomic Linux, Freedos (with Qbasic), among other operating systems right from the floppy drive. (Pictured is an i486 laptop)


You can easily do digital control with it's legacy parallel port. Lighting led's is a cinch. Controlling  rocket launchers is another benefit.  Need to do analog input? With a few discrete parts you can even get analog values too. Say grabbing the temperature. If the vga port is new enough, you can even use I2C

Picture of i2c interface. 

Extra cable and interfacing not included but can be built with off the shelf parts.



Picture of Vga breakout cable. 



Picture of DB9 serial break out cable.

Parallel (http://www.instructables.com/id/No-solder-parallel-port-break-out/)

Picture of Ready to use.


also see (http://www.instructables.com/id/Mini-parallel-port-break-out-cable/)

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