I was thinking more on the direction of [Arduino][1] , [Raspberry Pi][2] and similar.

These subject often require very specific hardware with specific non - common interfaces ( Rs323 , TTL , Rs485, serial etc ... ) for peripherals and accessories that are not always trivial to find ...


  [1]: https://arduino.stackexchange.com/
  [2]: http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/