From Arcade to Synth
Welcome
Show Highlights
In the latest episode Tod and Paul take a look back at the CircuitPython Day live stream, Tod shares the MICRORACK Kickstarter, Paul is embarrassed how long it's taking him to build a stand-up arcade, Tod discusses a bug in the RP2350, and Paul chats about the recent Bambu Lab patent infringement lawsuit.
Leftover Links
- Pyjokes: A Python library that tells you a joke. Have it tell you a joke every time you open a new terminal window. Add it to your
bash.rcorzshrcfile. Pip install it, and then for zsh just add the lineeval pyjokesto yourzshrc. - CircuitPython Networking guide: This brand new in-depth guide covers almost everything you need to know to work with wireless networks with your CircuitPython micro-controllers.
- Portable full size arcade cabinet via Hackaday: What if you could build a standup arcade like a laptop that could be folded down and stored away easily? For Kian Ryan, challenge accepted.
- Bartlebeats' Frequency turned ten years old last week. This Creative Commons licensed album contains the theme music for The Bootloader and The CircuitPython Show and is available for free on Bandcamp.
-
The arduino-pico Arduino core now has Pico2/RP2350 support! Arduino is my preferred way of writing C/C++ for micro-controller
boards, as so much code is transferable.
- Liam Ogilvie on GitHub made "macrosynth", full synthesizer with sequencer,2 using an Adafruit MacroPad RP2040 and my little MacroPadSynthPlug.
- The sounds of the Nostromo boot sequence are just straight drugs for todbot.
- Mark Komus used a Raspberry Pi 2350 and a custom build of CircuitPython to double the amount of synthesizer voices insynthio.
From the hosts
Paul
What I'm working on: Tod and I hosted a livestream on CircuitPython Day this past August 16th. We took a look back at CircuitPython over the last year and shared a couple of projects. I ordered an Adafruit S3 Qualia and 3.4" display on CircuitPython Day as I couldn't pass up that discount. I've ported my circuitpython-albumart project to a now third device.
What I'm reading: Neal Stephenson's Fall; or Dodge in Hell. This is my second attempt at reading this almost 900 page book. The first time his vision of the near future gave me a little anxiety, but like Anathem, it's taken me a second time to read it and I'm enjoying it. I especially like the callbacks to his earlier books, which is tempting me to go back and re-read them.
Tod
What I'm working on: Along with many others who are much more clever, I've been investigating the RP2350 GPIO input issue, as I mention in Episode 12. It's a real bummer as it means I cannot use Pico2 as a drop-in-upgrade for my Pico-based synth toys.
And I'm trying to figure out if I should fix the issues with the "picotouch_drumcard" and make it available in my Tindie store. I'm a little demoralized at how it turned out, but there's a good idea in there somewhere.
Also I'm working on some Hackaday conference badge add-ons (aka "SAO"), since Hackaday has a little contest going on. Hopefully I'll make some fun things for people to play with!
What I'm watching: Sweet Tooth on Netflix. I mostly tuned into this because it was produced by Susan Downey and Robert Downey Jr.'s production company and I thought "huh.. and they're financing a show about a deer kid after the apocalypse?" I watched the first season back in 2021 and we're gobbling up the second & third seasons this week. It's a sort of post-apocalyptic story also with half-human/half-animal kids. Despite the setup it's ultimately very hopeful.
Also, we went to this amazing art exhibition a few days ago
called "AVOID MISSING BALL" by Supercade, aka Van Burnham, whom I finally got to meet. The exhibition is about the genesis of video games from the earliest transistor-only ones like Pong. It had several lovingly-restored games from the 1970s, many playable!
And as a bonus, since we were there on opening day,
Al Acorn, the inventor of Pong and employee #3 at Atari, gave an hour long talk on the history of that time. It was incredible.
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You made it to the end! Here’s a picture of my black lab in front of our small garden with her favorite treat - cherry tomatoes.
