Raspberry Pi GPIO Header - protection

The mouse is here. Gave up on looking on the web for programming help and ordered a book on the Raspberry Pi. While waiting for this to come thought I'd look at the GPIO bus.

Raspberry Pi bits arrived today

I was very keen to power up the Raspberry Pi so ordered the bits from CPC/Farnell. They seemed to have most of the required bits in stock but after I placed the order was advised that the USB mouse was not in stock and was put on back order. So bought one from Amazon instead for under £3.

Raspberry Pi - what's all the fuss about?

Last week, I spent a pleasant couple of evenings helping the local scout group achieve their Electronics badges. I was delighted to receive a raspberry Pi as a thank you.

For those in the know, Raspberry Pi is the smallest computer available - it costs around £25. Wow you might think. It certainly has been popular with demand so high that potential customers have been waiting months to take delivery. So what is it and what does it do?