OLKB Terminal

I mean, we can get matching tattoos, If it makes me smile it is tattoo worthy in my book.

2 Likes

Lowe back might give the wrong impression… Like you’re easily hacked or something… not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Maybe the back of a calf muscle.

2 Likes

Brilliant. Just instantly reminded me of my first portable PC. 1982/3

Running CPM operating system, Massive 124k of Memory, two 160k 5 1/4 floppy drives. 7" Black and white screen

No battery, had to be plugged in. We used to use it for diagnosing & testing Modems in the field. It was really ground breaking at the time. I thought it was the bees’ knees. Thick padded carry case.

Your machine is like a million times faster and more powerful and lighter and smaller.

Good job, I have been looking at the Raspberry 4’s for something similar. Well done on going totally outside of the box and doing something unique.

2 Likes

Definitely, but it is instead running chromium and a javascript web insterface, so it is using all that phenomenal power to spin a sun icon on sunny days.

3 Likes

Now… be fair. I’m sure it’s showing clouds on rainy days too.

2 Likes

LOL, the joys of technology.

2 Likes

Hmm, maybe we need CPM ported to the Pi, or has that been done already?

CPM? You got me with that one.

It runs in emulation, no bare metal yet.

When in doubt, Wiki it. You pretty much have to be a Real Old Guy[tm] to know what it is.

Do you have any idea how much stuff shows up on Google when you search CPM?

The / probably would have helped filter it down :slight_smile:

1 Like

I tried to google it too. And I came to the same conclusion as David. Thanks for clearing that up.

1 Like

So back on topic…

I don’t know if I mentioned this. But the original concept is for something I can use on my nightstand. I wanted something that I can glance at to make sure the lights are off and the garage is closed. Then I figured it would be nice to also see the weather in the morning and why not replace my clock?

So I went to tackle a problem with that. The screen is too bright. Luckily, there is a way to solder a wire and remove a resistor and then control the brightness via PWM:

This is for the (H) screen. I tried it and it is much dimmer. The only problem is the pwm on the pi kind of sucks. Unless I am using the wrong pin or something. I think I will install an esp32 next running esphome. It may be excessive, but it is easier to work with for the next couple of upgrades I am planning anyway. Off to CAD.

1 Like

My darn Echo Show 8, which I use primarily as an alarm clock at my bedside, decided it needed to change the background in sleep mode from a mid to dark gray to a series of blue waves. It’s now much, much brighter at night and the clock lettering (in white) is directly over the lightest blue. I have a hard time reading it in the daytime, much less at night when I don’t have my glasses on. If they only gave me a potentiometer too…

1 Like

I’m not sure I’d go through the trouble of an entire esp32 for that.

Have you considered just getting a SPI to PWM chip? Something like this? It’d only be slightly less overkill, but your pi would still be directly controlling the brightness instead of bouncing through your wifi.

Is that in do not disturb mode? My spot is red letters over black in that mode.

Overkill is ok with me. I want to also allow me to add components with low barrier of entry. So an esp32 has been part of the plan since early on.

And I won’t be bouncing through my wifi. The home assistant automations are already going to be in control of the brightness.

Finally, I am pretty sure the fan I am using is on the spi. And that board costs more than an esp32.

1 Like

https://esphome.io/ I really like that site I went to look into it and the home page shows all sorts of sensors and options of things to use. There is even a distance sensor, all sorts of air quality sensors. Maybe I can rig something up to tell me the exact day I need to mow the lawn. That looks like a lot of fun with all those options.

So with your current system you can log in when you are away from home and see all the info you are monitoring or is it purposely not online?

Esphome is sort of magic. You write these small yaml config files and it uses those to generate code and flashes your esp32. It knows a lot about connecting to home assistant and you can flash new versions or configurations over wifi. So far it has been rock solid. You can really spin up a HA connected sensor in a few minutes.

Everything I have is local only. I grab some data from the Internet for weather forecast and air quality measurements. But none of my system is on the external IP or sending data to any cloud services. I do have a vpn, so I could check it remotely if I wanted, but I am home all the time anyway.

1 Like

I won’t speak for jeff, but my homeassistant is reachable from the internet.

2 Likes