No, no - I have a half a dozen RPi's of varying revisions. Since they run Linux and the SDcards are less than robust, anytime you accidentially trip the power

No, no - I have a half a dozen RPi's of varying revisions. Since they run Linux and the SDcards are less than robust, anytime you accidentially trip the power (which to me happens several times during hardware debugging sessions) you risk scrambling the rootfs and thus need to reflash a new SDcard. Some SDcards get damaged. I recommend using Arduino and/or Wokwi (https://wokwi.com/ https://wokwi.com/) to get started.