Tandy are now selling their “Multiface” expansion board for the Raspberry Pi.

This board, which is compatible with Gertboard software released by Alex Eames of RasPi.TV, is a self-assembly kit – in other words, it requires soldering. It looks easier to put together than the Gertboard (no surface mounting required) and is laid out slightly better with clearer labelling.

The board includes the following functionality:

• 12x Buffered I/O with LED indicators
• 3x Push button switches
• 7x Open Collector darlington drivers
• Motor Controller
• 2-Channel digital to analogue convertor
• 2-Channel analogue to digital convertor
• ATMEGA 328 Microcontroller

Alex has done an excellent review of a pre-sales board over on RasPi.TV and I urge you to head over there to take a look.

The board sells from the Tandy Online shop for £27.99 delivered. You can find it on their shop here. This compares very favourably with the Gertboard which currently sells for just under the £40 mark on the Farnell website. That Gertboard price does, of course, include assembly, but if (like me) you actually quite enjoy a bit of soldering then the Tandy board is very attractive. I’ll be interested to hear from anyone who has got the Tandy board and played around with it.