Tag Archives: raspberry pi

Oct 11

Friday Post: What’s free time?

Posted on by

Hey All,

Happy Friday!

This week just flew by.  It feels like it’s still Wednesday.  Maker Faire Orlando has come and gone, and I have to say, it was incredible.  I was manning my booth the entire time which always had a crowd but I was able to catch a 10 minute break to eat something and look around.  There were so many cool displays, and so many interested people who were interested.  By the end of the day my throat was sore and I had lost my voice.  It was totally worth it.

I will say this, the X-Arcade Tank Stick is built like a tank.  It got hit by hundreds of kids during the Maker Faire and it stood up to the challenge.  I’m going to take it apart because I think the right joystick got a little banged up but it was still working.

Python in 24 Hours

Someone who I am very honored to call a friend has just released her new book!  Katie Cunningham has just had her book, “Sam’s Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours“, published.  I got mine in the mail today so I haven’t gotten a chance to go through it yet, but I have a feeling it will be great.  Congratulations Katie!

Pokemon X and Y

Pokemon X and Y come out tomorrow.  I love Pokemon, but I haven’t played one of the core series since Red and Blue (I know!).  Most of my office is picking the new one up, so I figured it’s time to once again catch ’em all!  Between work, grad school, and PiMAME, where I am going to find the time to play…

PiMAME

I upgrade PiMAME to use the newest version of Raspbian, and recompiled the kernel to have the Xin-Mo module fixes in place.  I wanted to hold off on the release until I had more to add, but I think i’m going to do an image only release for this, since you can’t really just do a kernel upgrade with an install script.  It will also include the PiMAME intro video.

Once that is released I am going to be working on totally revamping the main menu system and web interface.  I have some cool things coming down the pipeline!

Have a great weekend!

-Shea

Oct 04

Friday Post: Orlando Mini Maker Faire!

Posted on by

Hey All,

Couple really cool things going on right now.  First of all, I got the physical copy of my book in hand.  I’m so proud!  Also Adafruit linked to my blog.  I was so surprised when I got the email, thanks for the link!

1379824_10102403870096902_486567181_n

 

This past week I’ve been having tons of meeting about software our team has been working on.  It’s really validating to have our projects get the attention of the higher ups and other vendors.  We work on cool things that help our 50,000 students learn in new ways.  I love working for a place that allows us and encourages us to make a difference!

Orlando Mini Maker Faire

Tomorrow is the Orlando Mini Maker Faire at the Orlando Science Center.  There will be 4 floors of makers showing off their creations, and that includes myself and FamiLAB.  I will have a ton of pictures tomorrow, but if anyone is in Orlando, I encourage you to go.

Screen Shot 2013-10-04 at 10.04.56 PM

-Shea

Sep 27

Friday Post: Raspberry Pi Gaming Published!

Posted on by

Hey All,

I have awesome news! My book, “Raspberry Pi Gaming” has been published this week. The eBook version is currently available on Amazon.com, and the hardcopy should be available next week.

3231OS_mockupcover_instant-how to (2)

 

Raspberry Pi Gaming at Packt Publishing

What you will learn from this book

  • Install a Raspberry Pi operating system
  • Set up PiMAME
  • Install RetroPie
  • Emulate PlayStation, SuperNES, MAME, and Atari 2600 games
  • Create your own Minecraft world and extend it with the API
  • Play in Open Arena matches with your friends
  • Go on an adventure with Cave Story
  • Fix common issues and troubleshoot your device
  • Keep your Raspberry Pi up-to-date

I hope you all enjoy.  I’m very excited and proud of this project!

-Shea Silverman

Sep 25

Adding a Startup Movie to your Raspberry Pi

Posted on by

Hey All,

So I’ve been playign with trying to do a boot image or a boot movie with the Raspberry Pi for a while now, and all the comments and tips keep going back to a tutorial on how to boot a static image.  It works, but there are a lot of problems with it like failing gracefully and not returning the console window back if you aren’t booting to X.  So I decided to come up with another way.  This is based off the tutorial found here: http://www.edv-huber.com/index.php/problemloesungen/15-custom-splash-screen-for-raspberry-pi-raspbian and looks like this when finished:

Instead of using the program fbi, we will use omxplayer to playback a video file while the Raspberry Pi is booting in the background.

First off, you will want to copy the 15 to 20 second movie file to your Raspberry Pi device.  Anything shorter and the video will end before it’s finished booting and you will continue to see the kernel messages.  You can use any video file that omxplayer can play back, but I like .mov and .mp4 files.

  • You will need to edit your /boot/cmdline.txt file:
    • sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt
  • Add quiet to the end of the line. It will look something like this:
    • dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=ttyAMA0,115200 kgdboc=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait quiet
    • Make sure that is all on one line.
  • Press ctrl-x, type y to confirm save, then press enter to return to the command line.
  • Copy your video somewhere to the Raspberry Pi.  I keep mine in /home/pi/ and call the video video.mov
  • You will now need to create a startup script that will run omxplayer at bootup.  I have modified the script from the above link.
    • sudo nano /etc/init.d/asplashscreen

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          asplashscreen
# Required-Start:
# Required-Stop:
# Should-Start:      
# Default-Start:     S
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description: Show custom splashscreen
# Description:       Show custom splashscreen
### END INIT INFO

do_start () {

    omxplayer /home/pi/video.mov &  
    exit 0
}

case "$1" in
  start|"")
    do_start
    ;;
  restart|reload|force-reload)
    echo "Error: argument '$1' not supported" >&2
    exit 3
    ;;
  stop)
    # No-op
    ;;
  status)
    exit 0
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: asplashscreen [start|stop]" >&2
    exit 3
    ;;
esac

:

 

  • Press ctrl-x, y to confirm saving, and press enter to return to the command line
  • Now you need to set the file to be executable
    • sudo chmod a+x /etc/init.d/asplashscreen
  • And activate it
    • sudo insserv /etc/init.d/asplashscreen

You should now be ready to go!

Reboot your Pi and enjoy the startup movie.

-Shea

Sep 20

Friday Post: Editing

Posted on by

Hello All,

This has been a fun week.  Trying to fight of the germs going around now that everyone is settled into classes.  This is usually when the colds start going around.  A few coworkers are already coughing.  I may need to put up a fort around my desk. On the plus side I am seeing Yellowcard this weekend!!!

The PyCon call for proposals deadline passed.  I put in 2 talks and a poster session.  I am volunteering this year as part of the program committee, and I am really excited about going.  I hope one of my proposals makes it.

I caught all of the Pokemon NFC figures.  Yeah, I have a problem.  The Gamestop near me allowed me to bring in my Wii U and scan the Pokeballs before buying them so I could pick out the ones I needed to complete my collection.  Some Gamestops really are awesome.

In exciting news,  I saw the final pdf of my book, and it is being sent to the printer now!!!  In a few days I’ll have the Amazon link to post.

The laser cutter at FamiLAB bit the dust.  The controller board’s heatsink fell off causing a short and frying the board.  I had some prototypes I wanted to cut so I ended up uploading my SVGs to Ponoko.com and getting them cut there.  They quoted me $18 to print out a prototype DeskCade, which isn’t bad considering the amount of space I had left free on the material.  I could probably have printed two for the same price if I spent more time rearranging the parts.  On the plus side, they said it would take 10 days for cutting and 5 days for shipping.  I ordered it on Thursday and it was shipping by Wednesday, so I’m really happy about that.

I can’t wait to see the quality of the parts!

PiMAME update should be soon.  This will be include a custom kernel for the Xin-Mo controller.

That’s it for now.  Have a great weekend!

Sep 13

Friday Post: Raspberry Pi Happenings

Posted on by

Hey All,

Happy Friday!  Long week.  This week at work I learned how to deploy a Django app to an old Solaris server (Read: spent way too much time reading the error log because of incompatible SPARC modules).  It was good though, because now I know of some really good debugging methods and have more Apache experience.

Xin-Mo Dual Controller and PiMAME

One of the louder feature requests for PiMAME is getting the Xin-Mo Arcade Encoder modules working.  A link to a guide on how to patch the kernel and making a new module for the Xin-Mo was posted to the PiMAME forums.  My Pi has spent the last night compiling the new kernel, and it seems to have worked.  I will be posting a beta version of PiMAME for users to test with this new kernel and that should get these Xin-Mo encoders working right!

Raspberry Pi Hub

Pimoroni is introducing a new powered hub for the Raspberry Pi.  They are a good company, and do a LOT for the Raspberry Pi foundation, so when these get a US release, I’ll be picking one up.

Raspberry Pi Geek Magazine

A few posts ago I mentioned that Linux New Media had published a Raspberry Pi Handbook and included a little blurb about PiMAME (yay!).  They just announced that they are publishing a bimonthly magazine dedicated solely to the Raspberry Pi.  The name could use some work, but I’m going to give it a chance.  It’s called the Raspberry Pi Geek.  Use code RPGOTHR10 to get 10% off.

rpg_us_01-2013_1

I don’t have a problem, I can stop collecting these any time…

photo (10)

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

 

Sep 06

Friday Post: PiMAME 0.7.9

Posted on by

Hey All,

PiMAME 0.7.9

PiMAME 0.7.9 is now uploaded to SourceForge

A new release of PiMAME is being uploaded.  This time it’s 0.7.9, and the biggest edition is DGEN, a Sega Genesis emulator.  PiSNES now supports 2 players, and the script was updated to not overwrite some of the config files.  You can use the update.sh script right now to upgrade.  I’ll update this post once the new image is on SourceForge.

Pokemon Rumble U

So, I’m a sucker for collectibles.  Make little collectible figurines, add NFC, and let them interact with a video game, and I might as well just hand over my paycheck to the developer.  I have so far kept myself away from Skylanders, and Disney Infinity, because I KNEW I would spend too much, but now Nintendo has come into the market with Pokemon Rumble U.

It’s an inexpensive Wii U game.  Download only.  It’s like a combination of Super Smash Bros., Mario Party, and bullet hell games.

There are 649 in game Pokemon to catch/befriend/see, but the real fun comes with these:

There are 18 different figurines to collect, and each one levels up as you play.  When you bring them to a friends house, you can place the little figure on their wii u gamepad and it brings over all your stats and moves.

It’s using NFC tags inside the figure’s base to read and write this data, and if you hold it up to an Android phone with NFC, it will try and read the data.  So far I have been unsuccessful getting a good data dump, but it would be neat if I could back up my figures stats and try moving them to blank tags.

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

Aug 30

Friday Post: My book, Raspberry Pi Gaming, now available for pre-order!!

Posted on by

Hey All,

Raspberry Pi Gaming

So I have some amazing news!  For a while now I have been working with Packt Publishing and writing my book, “Instant Raspberry Pi Gaming.”  Today the book is available to pre-order on Packt’s website.  The preorder is currently for the e-book version, but the hard copy will be available on Amazon very soon.

3231OS_mockupcover_instant-how to

I am so excited for this book!  I hope many of you enjoy it.

NaCade

In other news, shutz from the PiMAME forums built this awesome Raspberry Pi arcade machine, The NaCade:

FXZXNI8HKPX6H1B.LARGE

http://www.instructables.com/id/NaCade-The-Naked-Raspberry-Pi-Arcade-Machine/?ALLSTEPS

-Shea

Aug 23

Friday Post: PiMAME 0.7.8 with NES Support

Posted on by

Edit: PiMAME 0.7.8 is now uploaded!

Hey All!

Happy Friday!  First week of classes is over.  Woo!

PiMAME 0.7.8 is coming this weekend.  The major enhancements are that NES emulation is supported through AdvMESS.  I have also used the updated version of PiFBA which now has 2 player support.

I hope you all enjoy it!

-Shea