Rasberry Pi Zero Plays Every Simpsons Episode Ever At Random

If there’s a better use for Raspberry Pi Zero than a shuffler for episodes of “The Simpsons”, we haven’t heard about it.

Creator [Stephen Coyle] took inspiration from [Will Smith]’s mention of the burning need for such a device on the Tested podcast years back. The gadget is just a Zero with a familiar yellow button – hopefully it’s Pantone 116 C – that randomly selects an episode from the SD card. [Stephen] is clear on his opinion of over half of the program’s oeuvre, having found only seasons 2 through 10 worthy to load on the card. As an aside, we feel pretty old after seeing that all 593 episodes can easily fit on a 128GB SD card – we started out religiously recording every episode on VHS tapes, but had to stop after a few seasons when the collection got too big to handle.

If ripping episodes from DVDs isn’t your style, or you’re still into the first-run stuff, you might want to check out this confusingly named Smart Homer so you never miss an episode.

[via /r/raspberry_pi]

48 thoughts on “Rasberry Pi Zero Plays Every Simpsons Episode Ever At Random

    1. I had to look that up. You got me. I thought that it was some inside joke. Google Images and my lightbulb went on.
      I don’t care for the Simpsons but this is awesome!
      I would load it up with X Files or Columbo.

  1. The Argentinian TV network Telefe remove the Simpson’s Sundays, many people complain. Now with this invention we don’t need them anymore! ahahhaha (evil laugh)

      1. A younger person was totally fascinated with how something as simple as a VCR tape (that has no electronics) was able to remember exactly where in the movie you were up to watching even if it was removed from the player.

        Absolutely fascinating that *old* technology!

  2. 1000 hours of porn clips.
    All the old Three Stooges shorts
    The Laurel And hardy shorts and films.
    etc, etc

    This is a cool use of a 5$ computer.

    Make a wooden cabinet that looks like an antique desktop TV set
    and use an LCD for the screen and let the Pi3 play old TV shows
    eternally.

          1. That never stopped ARM… Cortex-A8, Cortex-A7, Cortex-A5, Cortex-A12… wat?

            Yeah, it’s a disaster. Especially when the A7 and A5 are faster than an A8 clock for clock, at least the Pi0 has less on the board than a Pi1 even if it runs at a higher base clock (though most Pi1s can overclock to it easily) and has more RAM.

  3. I think it is a great idea for a cheap project. And when he grows tired of the Simpsons, he can always pop in a new card and not have to make any changes to the sw load.

  4. Is there a point talking about the Zero? It’s not sold and the Farstperry Pi foundation gives no info at all about any future availability. It’s a non-product and as such it’s not really worth talking about.

    1. Trollololol. Something is wildly popular and extremely cheap, a combination that leads to a state of being sold out constantly, which pisses you off, which means you troll about it being vaporware. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

      1. Well if your entitled to your opinion as an American then he is also entitled to his opinion as a non-American.

        To the rest of this word the PI zero-stock *IS* Vaporware.

        So much so that it is obvious to me that you are American and he is not!

          1. It *is* vaporware to anyone in my country! There has *not* been one single Pi Zero sent to an official supplier in the country I live in.

            The official Raspberry Pi supplier in my country doesn’t even list it on their web site, most likely to avoid complaints about a product – that to us – *does not exist*.

            This is not an availability issue it’s a quantity issues and the quantity here is ZERO, hence it will for ever more be known as the Raspberry Pi zero-stock.

            VAPORWARE – Pi zero-stock.

      2. The reason the Pi Zero’s sold out constantly isn’t that it’s more popular than the other Pis, it’s that so few of them actually exist in comparison. The initial batch of Pi Zeros was only 20,000, half of which were given away on magazine covers – compare that with the 500,000 Pi 2s that were sold in the first two weeks of its launch (there don’t seem to be public sales figures for the Pi 3) or the roughly 200,000 Raspberry Pis that seem to be sold a month on average. I don’t think the total number sold is much higher either; I seem to recall reading it was 40,000 or so? It’s vaporware. Its main purpose seems to be to take the wind out of competitors’ sails.

        1. It’s vaporware here!

          Everyone seems to think the rest of the world is like the US!

          There is a reason it’s vaporware here and it has nothing to do with how popular the pi zero-stock is. The average consumer here will buy a product based on it features rather than marketing or trying to keep ahead of the Jones’s etc so our country is a dumping ground for older tech.

          The problem is that the people that are interested in the Pi zero are NOT average consumers so to us the raspberry pi foundation is shafting us for no good reason. When they have finished with the rest of the world and finally want to dump the pi zero-stock on us after insulting us by treating us like the dumb-ass average consumer then we are going to shaft the raspberry pi foundation back.

          All this Raspberry pi hype had done as far as I am concerned – is to go and evaluate all the alternatives.

          Vaporware Raspberry Pi zero-stock.

          And I type those keywords together every time I get a chance.

        2. Vaporware, by definition, is something that never actually exists (it’s nothing but vapor) beyond a prototype. Based on your own numbers the Pi Zero is not only not vaporware, it’s a raging success.

          You said it yourself: It exists. Therefore it’s not vaporware.

          1. @RÖB Well then by that definition the city of Paris doesn’t really exist, because I’ve never been there and can’t confirm it.

            The world isn’t defined by your limited experience.

          2. @[kaidenshi]

            And nor is the world defined by your experience. And that my friend, is precisely what you are failing to understand.

            Call me wrong all you want because I know I am not wrong and no amount of your *calling* is going to change that.

          3. @RÖB: Great strawman, as I never once spoke of my experience, I only quoted you. Your numbers, not mine, prove it isn’t vaporware, and your misunderstanding of what I said is telling. You’re the one trying to redefine the word, and failing.

          4. If you’re keeping score, I’m with kaidenshi. I just didn’t think it was worth commenting on because what he said is obvious and complete. But if you need to hear it again, “vaporware” means it doesn’t exist beyond a demo. The fact that YOU can’t get one through your preferred channels doesn’t make it vaporware. How long do you need to argue about this?

          5. @[BrightBlueJim]

            So, the fact that others disagree doesn’t mean anything to “you” and only “your interpretation” can be the “only correct” interpretation. Therefore any opinion that is different to yours is wrong.

            Oh I get, it’s all about you and nothing else matters.

            How long you ask?

            As long as a fool like you gives me more opportunities to use HAD’s wonderful SEO to associate the keywords –

            Raspberry Pi zero-stock VAPORWARE.

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