Projects

What I'd like to add: You can't just control LEDs or relay coils / transistors with the parallel port, it's also pretty easy to talk to microcontrollers (an ATTiny 2313 in my case).

interfacing

Basically, you need one or two parallel port pins as inputs to the AVR, and then come up with some sort of protocol.

one-wire

No clock signal, so we rely on proper timing. The most primitive solution is to toggle the pin n times and have the AVR increment a counter on every toggle, then read the counter value after a fixed time without counter increment has passed. Excruciatingly slow, but dead simple to implement both on the computer and the AVR.

two-wire

One pin for data, one for the clock (e.g. set data, then toggle clock, set an AVR interrupt on rising edge on clock to read data pin). I didn't try it yet.

more?

So far, the computer talks to the AVR but not vice versa. Two-way communication shouldn't be hard, but I didn't try it yet. If I do, I may write a new entry.

hardware

To be on the safe side, I decided to completely isolate the parallel port from the rest of the circuit.

components used:

KB817 opto-coupler. forward voltage ~1.2V, collector-emitter voltage 35V/6V
3.3K resistor between opto-coupler and parallel port, since the parallel port provides 2.4 to 5V
BC338-40 transistor to make sure the opto-coupler output is registered by the microcontroller

The rest is usual stuff. The parallel port circuit is located in the bottom left of the schematic.

software

microcontroller

Assuming the transistor (optocoupler) is connected to INT0

set an interrupt on INT0 rising edge: increment counter and reset timeout
set a timer interrupt: check timeout, if zero handle counter as command

code snippet:

ISR(INT0_vect)
{
    cli();
    command++;
    cmd_wait = 6;
}

ISR(TIMER1_COMPA_vect)
{
    if (cmd_wait)
        cmd_wait--;
    else if (command) {
        run_command();
        command = 0;
    }
}

the whole file is available on github: main.c

computer

I'm using the parapin library, see pgctl.c on github. Note that timing is important here, so I'm running the code at the lowest possible niceness.

That's it. An example project is available as derf/pgctl on github.

The whole point of this post is: interfacing with the parallel port is easy. It doesn't have a future, but if you still have one, you can use it for quite a lot of things.

Travel-Routing-DE-VRR-2.01.tar.gz (signature)

Fix bug in departure_stop_and_platform where the arrival_stop was used in case of unknown platforms
Document -E / --extended-info in efa(1)

(because it's way more awesome than using just a Wiimote)

For this to work, you will need an up-to-date cwiid installation, the most important part is commit b54bd05.

Next, check out neverball svn and apply tilt wii.patch.

Build it (make ENABLE_TILT=wii), then run ./neverball and press the Balance Board's red sync button.

If everything works out, the Power LED should turn on. Now you can use the mouse / keyboard to select the level to play, and then control the level itself using the Balance Board.

There's a (really low-quality) Video (also on Youtube) available. I hope to have a higher resolution and less laggy one by saturday.

For the record, the complete patched tilt wii.c is also available.

Update:
I've got a new Video! (also on Youtube). As you can see, controlling neverball this way is pretty hard :)

With the most recent Patch, you can control the level with the balance board and the camera and menus with the wiimote. Usage: Start neverball, connect wiimote, wait 'til the leds stop blinking, then connect balance board. There are some timing issues right now, so if it crashes while connecting the devices, just try again.

Travel-Routing-DE-VRR-2.00.tar.gz (signature)

Now uses the efa.vrr.de XML interface
properly decode UTF-8 strings

Travel::Routing::DE::VRR::Route

new accessors: duration, ticket_type, fare_adult, fare_child and vehicle_time

Travel::Routing::DE::VRR::Route::Part

arrival_stop and departure_stop no longer include the platform, use arrival_stop_and_platform / departure_stop_and_platform instead
New accessors: arrival_date, arrival_platform, arrival_sdate, arrival_stime, arrival_stop_and_platform, delay, departure_date, departure_platform, departure_sdate, departure_stime, departure_stop_and_platform, via
->extra no longer contains information about delays, use ->delay instead

efa

New -E / --extended-info option to display travel fares

Travel-Status-DE-DeutscheBahn-1.01.tar.gz (signature)

Detect ambiguous input errors (available via errstr)
Add language switch for additional information (german/english)

Travel::Status::DE::DeutscheBahn::Result

Result: Add line (== train) and date accessors

db-ris

Add -l / --lang option

Travel-Status-DE-VRR-1.00.tar.gz (signature)

switch to efa.vrr.de XML interface
properly decode UTF-8 strings
Switch from WWW::Mechanize to LWP::UserAgent
Add ->lines and Travel::Status::DE::VRR::Line describing all lines serving the given stop

Travel::Status::DE::VRR::Result

Add countdown, date, delay, lineref, platform_db, sched_date, sched_time and type accessors

efa-m

Add -L / --linelist option

App-Hashl-1.00.tar.gz (signature)

Add "hashl list regex" to filter listed files by name
Do not fail when encountering zero-length files

Travel-Status-DE-VRR-0.02.tar.gz (signature)

efa-m

Add --platform / --line options to filter output
Align times properly if departure list contains a daychange
Make --date and --time actually work

Travel-Routing-DE-VRR-1.06.tar.gz (signature)

Fix dependencies. We claimed to use WWW::Mechanize but in fact only need LWP::UserAgent

Travel-Status-DE-VRR-0.01.tar.gz (signature)

Initial release

Travel-Status-DE-DeutscheBahn-1.00.tar.gz (signature)

db-ris

Add --full-route option

Travel::Status::DE::DeutscheBahn

Fix bug when receiving no platform numbers from the DB RIS

Travel::Status::DE::DeutscheBahn::Result

Add route_timetable accessor containing station names and their corresponding arrival times

Travel-Status-DE-DeutscheBahn-0.05.tar.gz (signature)

Fix ->results returning duplicate connections when accessed more than one time
new: Only die when encountering wrong options, set ->errstr otherwise
Adds new ->errstr accessor to check for request errors

App-Raps2-0.53.tar.gz (signature)

Make xclip command configurable (for chrome users, mostly)
New --chrome and --xclip-cmd options

App-Raps2-0.52.tar.gz (signature)

raps2 add: Fix pwgen usage (remove trailing whitespace)

App-Raps2-0.51.tar.gz (signature)

Major usability improvements
New dependency Config::Tiny
New configuration file .config/raps2/defaults
Add --cost option to set cost for raps2 add
raps2 add: Use pwgen to create password if none is specified
Add --no-echo, --paste and --pwgen-cmd options for raps2 add / pwgen

App::Raps2

new: Add pwgen_cmd argument
Add create_defaults, load_defaults, conf and generate_password methods
pw_save: Add optional cost argument
pw_load, pw_load_info: Now also return the key setup cost

App::Raps2::Password

encrypt, decrypt: Now take hash as argument, keys are data/salt/cost

App::Raps2::UI

to_clipboard: Return undef if xclip dosn't run, true otherwise

Travel-Routing-DE-VRR-1.05.tar.gz (signature)

Documentation fixes (in a few places, the module was prefixed Travel::Status instead of the correct Travel::Routing)
Note that we need perl >= 5.10.1 because of the parent pragma

efa

Fix connection error handler

App-Slackeria-0.12.tar.gz (signature)

Note that we actually need perl >= 5.10.1 (for the parent pragma)

slackeria

Argument validation, add -h/--help option

App::Slackeria

Rename App::Slackeria::Plugin to App::Slackeria::PluginLoader
Rename App::Slackeria::Plugin::Base to App::Slackeria::Plugin
Move template to separate file, adds dependency File::ShareDir
Because of that, we now need Module::Build >= 0.36

App::Slackeria::Plugin::Debian

Switch from whohas to custom parser using LWP::Simple and XML::LibXML
Now checks version in Debian Sid by default
Add 'distribution' configuration parameter to select which Debian distribution (wheezy, sid, etc.) to check
Add 'href' configuration parameter

Travel-Status-DE-DeutscheBahn-0.04.tar.gz (signature)

Travel::Status::DE::DeutscheBahn::Result

The info accessor now strips the mostly useless "k.A." / "pünktlich" (train on time) text parts
Add (slightly experimental) route_interesting accessor
Add delay accessor

Travel-Status-DE-DeutscheBahn-0.03.tar.gz (signature)

Clarify derl dependency (we actually need >= 5.10.1)
Strip leading / trailing whitespace in result fields