Book Image

Raspberry Pi Computer Architecture Essentials

By : Andrew K. Dennis, Teemu O Pohjanlehto
Book Image

Raspberry Pi Computer Architecture Essentials

By: Andrew K. Dennis, Teemu O Pohjanlehto

Overview of this book

With the release of the Raspberry Pi 2, a new series of the popular compact computer is available for you to build cheap, exciting projects and learn about programming. In this book, we explore Raspberry Pi 2’s hardware through a number of projects in a variety of programming languages. We will start by exploring the various hardware components in detail, which will provide a base for the programming projects and guide you through setting up the tools for Assembler, C/C++, and Python. We will then learn how to write multi-threaded applications and Raspberry Pi 2’s multi-core processor. Moving on, you’ll get hands on by expanding the storage options of the Raspberry Pi beyond the SD card and interacting with the graphics hardware. Furthermore, you will be introduced to the basics of sound programming while expanding upon your knowledge of Python to build a web server. Finally, you will learn to interact with the third-party microcontrollers. From writing your first Assembly Language application to programming graphics, this title guides you through the essentials.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Raspberry Pi Computer Architecture Essentials
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 6. Low-Level Graphics Programming

So far in this title we have looked at programming in both Assembly language and C/C++. Next we will look at how we can take our C programming skills and explore writing graphics on the Raspberry Pi 2.

This will take advantage of the VideoCore IV GPU. In this chapter you will learn about the following topics:

  • The GPU on your Raspberry Pi

  • Writing C programs that interact with the frame buffer

  • How to draw to the screen via a C program

Let's start with a recap on this GPU unit and some of the technologies it comes equipped with.