Re: Code Bounty
- Posted by ghaberek (admin) Feb 01, 2023
- 4233 views
It's boggling that with so many internal and external busses in modern computers, i can not peek/poke or read/write to any of them, while on the old computers everything can be accessed. I am believing now that after MSDOS was killed off, only $billion companies have ever succeeded in connecting anything substancial to a modern computer. Heck, i had a IEEE-488 buss on a C64 once, and a built a programmable video sampler for NTSC for the C64!
Yes, but things are a lot more complicated than they were forty years ago. The C64 and its contemporaries were almost literally an 8-bit CPU with some of its pins sticking out the side. But computers kept advancing and a lot of things had to advance with it, like buses and drivers and everything has to be abstracted from the low-level "bit-banging" of the past because there are so many more layers in the way. Now, whether those layers are entirely necessary depends on who you ask. But they exist nonetheless.
Even the IO port on the raspi is hobbled. Sure, for $300 i have a raspi that can read I2C thermometer (DS18B20), and import that to a new puter via the ethernet, but once a decision is made about the temperatures, i can do nothing back to the real world. And cannot read anything but those DS18B20. I cannot open an air duct and then verify it opened. I cannot verify a window (a real window in the real world) status and then open or close it. I cannot tell if it's raining, and if a water tank is full. I cannot turn on a pump and then read the flow meters.
This is the world where these things live now. If you want to interface with the real world using hardware and sensors and widgets and do-dads as a hobbyist then Raspberry Pi and Arduino are what you're looking for, and it sounds like you're off to a great start. I'm not sure why you think the Raspberry Pi is "hobbled" because it's basically a CPU with some of its pins sicking out the side, just like C64. I'm pretty sure you can accomplish everything you mentioned with a single Raspberry Pi and a handful of sensors and relays.
Plus i have offered money for such a program. I have 2 dead trucks and 3 dead cars, and this computer ask is such a big deal to me that i am willing to spend money on it than get to the grocery or hardware stores.
If you are offering money for such a program on this forum I'm afraid your requests will likely never be met. The Maker community is strong and there is a wealth of knowledge out there. Here are a few places worth checking out:
- Adafruit Forums
- Arduino Forums
- Arduino Subreddit
- Element14 Community
- Raspberry Pi Forums
- Raspberry Pi Subreddit
- YouTube: Element14 Presents
- YouTube: Paul McWhorter
- YouTube: Tinkernut
-Greg
