Back in 2012 I decided to order a Raspberry Pi Model B because they were a credit card PCB that ot performed the first PC I'd purchased (an SX33MHz machine with maybe 4Mb of RAM. Back then I recall running the stock OS and using playing with Scratch and testing some work websites from a tiny mahcine, and then it got tucket in a drawer. In the years that followed it got shoved in a box and various containers and travelled with me from the USA to Germany and back, finally landing in a parts box in my office in Florida.
In a spate of down-sizing the box of bits floated to ther surface and I looked at a battered PCB that no longer fit in its case and wondered if it would start up. I flashed a copy of the latest version of Raspbian (as it was then) and watched as this battered board sprang to life.
More years passed and I decided that I wanted to try self-hosting. After some failed attempts with a NUC and various other bits of old kit in the office I turned to this PI and found that not only would it still run headless quite happily but it would also run NGINX.
After proving one website could be hosted I span up a second, not the right way but it works. Now the old Pi was hosting too websites but was that all it could do. My smolWeb adventures had lead me to the Gemini Protocol and the Pi could do that too!
So here we are, two years later! Three sites, two protocols, and one piece of old technology proving that you can do, learn, and enjoy a lot with very little. So far it has survived two hurricanes, and has run on 100% solar power as well as comepletely off grid. Long term goals includ ecombining these feats in a sustainable way to make this a standalone server, requiring nothing more than a WiFi connection to keep it happy.
Please follow along to find out what happens next!
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