Announcement from ROUGOL, 15th July, 2014.
Beginners Guide to Interfacing
Presented by Neil Fazakerley
Monday 21st July 2014, 7:45pm
The Blue-Eyed Maid (upstairs in the Spice Lounge restaurant)173 Borough High Street
London
SE1 1HR
Anyone who has attended the London Show will be familiar with the sight of Neil Fazakerley’s robots, controlled by the BBC Micro, RiscPC and, more recently, Raspberry Pi.
At this month’s meeting Neil is aiming to persuade more people to have a go at connecting with real-world objects – ‘physical computing’. This is as opposed to the usual virtual world that most code inhabits, in which its output never really leaves the system. To that end, he will be bringing along some examples to demonstrate simple, baby steps that can be taken for those who would like to get started with their existing hardware.
This will start with a quick explanation of GPIO access on the Pi and a simple demo of how to activate LEDs. Then Neil will introduce a very early version of his current project – a model railway DCC command control system written in BBC BASIC – to show how controlling just a single GPIO line can have very powerful external results.
Finally, he’ll cover the much under-used USB port, to show how it too can control external hardware – using the ubiquitous yellow Maplin robot arm as an example – and how you can write a powerful USB control program with just twenty-five lines of BASIC (yes, really, just half a screenful) – and no extra drivers, modules or libraries to load (unlike Linux).
There may even be a small goody bag for Raspberry Pi and Beagleboard-xM owners to take away to help them try their hand at GPIO programming in BBC BASIC 🙂
September meeting
On Monday, 15th September our speaker will be Andrew Hutchings, author of Chocks Away, Stunt Racer, and StarFighter 3000. He will be talking about how he got into programming and the stories behind the development of these classic RISC OS games.
ROUGOL on Twitter
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The usual arrangements
Admittance is free and everyone is welcome. A range of hot and cold food, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, will be on sale.
The venue is between London Bridge and Borough tube stations, so readily accessible by public transport (both stations are a five minute walk away, through well lit and CCTV’d main streets). It also has ample cycle parking (covered by CCTV) very close by.
If you are arriving by car, the Congestion Charge ends at 6pm and our meeting starts much later. However, please note that parking on double red lines is restricted at all times. On single red or yellow lines it is best to park after 7pm. If you are not familiar with central London parking or driving, please allow extra time, patience, and maps.
If you need any help reaching the venue, or any other information, please contact us by email, via Twitter or by telephone on 07970 211 629.
