Hey All,
So next week I will be in Montreal for the annual Python Software Foundation conference: PyCon. My coworker and I will be presenting a project we developed at UCF that uses Django, AWS, and a bunch of other tools that allow us to help 60,000 students learn in a better environment.
Next Friday’s post will probably be late, depending on what the internet connection is like up there.
Also, Make featured PiPlay in their latest video!
Have a good weekend everyone!
-Shea
Happy Friday Everyone!
I am proud to present the very latest version of PiPlay! PiPlay 0.8 Beta 9! I feel like this is the best release yet!
While this was mostly a bug fix and compatibility update, we do have one awesome new features implemented. When you upload, drag and drop, ftp, or somehow copy a game file to the roms folder, our file watcher will pick that up, and automatically update the PiPlay Menu. No more running the Rom Scraper, or getting popups about unscraped files.
Update now via the PiPlay Menu, or download the latest image!
Have a good weekend everyone!
Hey All,
Sorry for the very late post this week. Trying to figure out why I’m having such connectivity issues to my web host. Replaced the router. Still happens. Modem is fine. It’s not my host. But my ISP can’t see it as being down since it comes up 5 minutes later. I can VPN into work and access my host from there. So weird.
Anyways,
Tomorrow marks my 2nd Wedding Anniversary. It feels like it’s been a day and a half 🙂 K, I love you. Thank you for putting up with me.
PiPlay
0.8 Beta 9 is coming along. It should be released in a day or so. This is the best version yet, and I’m so sorry for the Beta 8 release. Trying to get everything working on both the Pi and Pi2 has been a challenge. But I think this version will be great. We have upgraded to the latest Raspbian image, moved more emulators into GitHub / Git and now can update most of PiPlay with a Git Update. Mark has created an awesome file watching script which automatically updates the frontend when a new file has been uploaded. No more running the scraper, it all happens in the background.
Mario Party 10
Mario Party 10 came out this week. I had a chance to play it with a group, and, well, it feels like Mario Party Lite. The game is gorgeous, the levels are beautiful, but there are only three game modes. Amiibo Party, Bowser Party, and “Mario Party” which isn’t like previous games. Everyone works together to get to the end in a vehicle, basically pooling dice rolls. The classic game has been shortened and moved to Amiibo Party. It feels like a lot of content is missing. The load times are also really long. I really wanted to love this game, but I feel like its a demo. I’m hoping patches and some free DLC fix that.
SmartiPi
I backed the SmartiPi kickstarter a short while ago, and received my case the other day. I think this is one of the best designed cases out there. It easily wraps around the whole Pi, and has LEGO compatible pegs on the case.
Have a great week(end)!
-Shea
Hey All!
Happy Pi Day!!! Sorry about the late posting. My internet has been acting up for the past two days. Yay.
The past few days have been the Orlando FIRST Regional Robotics Competition hosted at UCF. I am a FIRST Alumni from 2002, a member of Team 108 SigmaC@Ts. It was so awesome to see the competition again after all these years.
PiPlay is coming along. Fixed the bugs with the joysticks. Working on improving more things.
Thanks!
-Shea
.
Hey All,
First of all, yes, I’m aware of a really dumb bug in PiPlay 8 Beta 8. I’m going to release an update this weekend that should fix it. I don’t know how I let a release slide with a joystick bug, but I did, and I’m sorry.
I changed my Raspberry Pi battle station setup so that hopefully testing will be a bit easier.
![IMG_4853[1]](http://blog.sheasilverman.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/IMG_48531.jpg)
On another note, this week at work has been amazing. One my applications was selected as a winner in an educational app challenge. My team won 3rd place. I am very proud! My team was also selected to present at the New Media Consortium on our work with Learning Tools. 😀
Have a good weekend all. I look forward to releasing the bug fix update.
-Shea
Hey All!
Happy Friday! This week I took video of myself building a small Arcade Joystick for the Raspberry Pi. I hope you all enjoy. Let me know if you have any questions!
MagPi
The latest issue of the MagPi is out, and in this issue, not only have they announced that they are officially part of the Foundation, but they have also reviewed PiPlay, RetroPie, and Raspicade!
PiPlay received the “Best Features” comment, while RetroPie and Raspicade received “Best of the Bunch” and “Best for Newbies” respectively.
It’s a real honor to be mentioned in the MagPi 🙂
Have a good weekend all!
-Shea
It’s now available on SourceForge!
Hey All,
PiPlay 8 Beta 8 is here! Mark has put a huge amount of time into the new frontend code. We have moved form YAML files to a SQLite database. Many items have been sped up. The web frontend now has a database administration section.
This is a huge update. Probably the best I think we put out… but because of the Pi2, we have had to do a lot of extra testing, and may have missed some stuff. Please please please let us know if something isn’t working, or if something slipped through the cracks. I want this to be the best release ever!
This new image will work on the Pi2 and B, B+, A, and A+. I have spent the past week pulling out hair trying to get everything to work. I have had to remove Stella, the Atari 2600 emulator for the moment. When I can get it working properly on the new kernel, I will add it back in.
The image is currently being uploaded to SourceForge, so in a few hours it should be available.
Thanks for your patience, and thanks to all the testers. If you find any bugs (I’m sure there are some) let us know in the PiPlay forums.
Hey All,
Happy Friday!
So I have had my Pi2 for a week, and I gotta say, it’s a great piece of kit. PiPlay is coming along nicely. Having some hiccups on the Pi2 that I need to fix before I do a full release.
TermBoy
With that being said, I saw on Hacker News today a port of a gameboy emulator to the Go language, that also only utilizes the console. It’s called Termboy, and while it doesn’t run that fast on the Raspberry Pi, it’s still a neat little tech demo.
We first download the proper console font and install it:
wget http://kbd-project.org/download/kbd-2.0.2.tar.xz
tar xf kbd-2.0.2.tar.xz
sudo cp kbd-2.0.2/data/consolefonts/default8x16.psfu /usr/share/consolefonts/
Now we download the latest GoLang version (The apt-get version of Go is 2 years old)
[code]
wget https://storage.googleapis.com/golang/go1.4.1.src.tar.gz
tar xf go1.4.1.src.tar.gz
Set the path for where we want our Go packages to be downloaded
mkdir godownload
export GOPATH=/home/pi/go/godownload/
Build Go
cd go/src/
./make.bash
One that has completed, it’s time to download Termboy and build it.
cd ../bin/
./go get github.com/dobyrch/termboy-go
Now goto the bin folder where our newly built termboy executable resides, and run it like so:
cd ../godownload/bin/
./termboy-go /path/to/game.rom
More PiPlay news soon. Promise!
-Shea
Hey All!
So my Pi2 is scheduled to arrive tomorrow! I am currently prepping a new PiPlay image, as well as a new update so that it should just be plug and play.
I’m excited!!!
Humble Bundle Books Edition
So I love Humble Bundle. I have bought a ton of things from them in the past…but this week, they have an awesome bundle!
They are offering a boatload of No Starch Press books at a name your own price!
https://www.humblebundle.com/books
Go buy some and support a charity at the same time!
More updates to come as I eagerly await my new board.
-Shea
Hey All,
I wanted to give you all a sneak peek on the next version of PiPlay. The biggest feature is that we are moving from YAML files to a sqlite DB to store a lot of the data. There are also lots of optimizations and speed improvements.
My two favorite features have to be the ones that Mark implemented: Favorites, and Game Info. You can now favorite a game and it will appear in the favorites category. Alongside the game list, you will also find info available about your game (as long as you have run the scraper.)
The web interface has also been extended to include database editing. You can now add menu items to frontend via the web interface.
This release should be out in the next week or so.
Have a good weekend everyone!