My previous method of logging the CPU temperatures of machines on the network involved a Bash script sending out a message via MQTT. This was intercepted and logged by a Python script running on a server, which wrote the data to text files in a place where the intranet server could see them. Phew! It’s a miracle it worked. But… Read more »
Pretty much all of the code I’ve written for the Raspberry Pi (and the BeagleBone for that matter) has been in Python. It’s widely regarded as the de facto language for the platform, not least because it is newbie-friendly. But does it have to be this way? Ups and downs of Python It’s not hard to enumerate a long list of… Read more »
On the Raspberry Pi that I’m using to control my DottyMatrix serial-to-parallel Centronics printer interface there are two main software components – a web-based PHP/JavaScript front-end UI and a back-end server programmed in Python. So these need to talk to each other. Here’s the overall architecture of the solution: The matrixSvr.py program is intended to run permanently on the RPi… Read more »
It’s one thing building an interface – it’s quite another working out how to use it. My DottyMatrix serial-to-parallel device is designed to drive my venerable old Epson MX-80 F/T III dot matrix printer (although it should work with any printer using a Centronics parallel interface). So far, I’ve mostly spoken to it using a terminal, sending text directly from… Read more »
The DottyMatrix project began when I thought, ‘It would be nice to make use of my old Epson MX-80 F/T III dot matrix printer’. The problem was talking to it. But then I thought, ‘It’s just parallel printer interface. I’ll make a microcontroller-based device to act as an interface. How hard can that be?’. The answer, it turns out, is… Read more »
So I have MicroPython installed on an Adafruit Huzzah ESP8266 dev board. The next step is to get it to run something. MicroPython establishes a basic filesystem using the board’s flash memory. This is handy for storing configuration and data files. And it supports a directory structure. But there are two files in particular you need to get to grips… Read more »
Some time ago I witnessed people getting all kinds of excited about ESP8266 devices. Worth checking out, I thought, and promptly ordered about five boards – specifically the ESP8266 Huzzah boards from Adafruit. They’re not the cheapest, but with Adafruit you always know you’re getting quality and it has features like level-shifted (ie, 5V safe) RX pin and 3V3 output…. Read more »
So I’m finally getting somewhere with my HMV1960, a gutted valve radio that I’m using as a somewhat oversized case for a Raspberry Pi. It looks great with the keyboard I’ve just bought via Massdrop. I’ve replaced the original fabric-covered speaker section with some aluminium sheeting into which I set a display, an LED matrix and two speakers. Because I’m ham-fisted… Read more »
So I wrote this Python program to allow me to carry out certain kinds of calculations on binary numbers — you know, AND, OR, XOR and that kind of thing. It’s an absolutely essential tool for anyone who, you know, needs to NAND two 12-bit binary numbers. And happens to own a PiDP PDP-8 replica. Okay, so that’s a very… Read more »
If you’re into retro computing, or building stuff based on SBCs such as the Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone, you’ll be familiar with a certain refrain from your significant other and even those you consider your friends. They’ll look at your latest project — perhaps a restoration of a 1980s home micro, or a simulation of a 1960s mini computer, or something… Read more »
I’m not really a C kind of person. And so when I finished building my PiDP kit, I immediately started thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to use all these switches and lights from Python?’ Because Python really is my kind of language. You can be properly expressive in it. And there’s not all that nasty business with make files. Fortunately,… Read more »
The software for the dawn clock is written in Python. And no, I’m not going to upload it to GitHub, or anywhere else for that matter. There are two reasons for this: first, it needs work still; and second, it would take too much explaining, not least because it uses loads of my hand-rolled libraries and classes for the Raspberry… Read more »