Microsoft engineer speedruns Raspberry Pi magic smoke in five minutes

Microsoft is no stranger to things breaking unexpectedly – and now one of its engineers has added a Raspberry Pi to the list.

Steve Syfuhs, a Principal Engineering Manager at the Windows behemoth, managed to release the magic smoke from a Raspberry Pi 5 in five minutes, he says.

Outside his day job dealing with authentication, Syfuhs is not averse to a bit of tinkering. He's not alone. Microsoft has more than its fair share of curious people, keen to poke hardware to see what it does.

The Raspberry Pi 5 is a small and inexpensive (less so recently) computer. One feature is its General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) interface, a 40-pin header to which HATs (Hardware Attached on Top) and other devices can be connected.

In addition to official add-ons such as the recent AI HAT+ 2, enthusiasts can put the pins to work for all manner of purposes ...