One year ago today: August 20, 2014, hot coffee is cool.
Five years ago today: August 20, 2010, washboards, real and tummy.
Six years ago today: August 20, 2009, remember Miss Wilson?
MORNING
It took four cups of coffee, but I do have the wiring diagram sketched out. The sequence is that if I can get the wiring to work, the rest is just programming. I wavered between saying it can’t be done and can be done and finally decided to just wire the thing up. As shown here, partial success. I’ll explain what you are looking at, and what is wrong.
The problem is, if you look closely, I have a faint light at the same position in the ones position. This indicates there is a wire out of place. You may also notice a blue light at the lower right of the display. I used light emitting diodes instead of regular diodes so I get a visual cue when they are working. Fortunately, I color coordinated all of the connecting wires and I’ll trace down the problem after I make some tea. It appears ever more likely I’ll get this circuit working—and it will be a first on the Arduino.
Why? Because while there are tons of beginner’s projects out there now, there are very few intermediate level examples. Beginner’s level would use only one 7-segment display, since that takes up so many Arduino pins, you cannot connect a second 7-segment. The challenge here is to get this working using only one microcontroller (an no integrated circuits. Passive components only. This project will likely dominate my waking hours until I get something working. And, project-wise, this puts our little club on the map.
NOON
Stay tuned for our popular links, the Internet service has been sporadic for a couple of days. Fine, thanks to the flat tire, the tow, the front axle, a new air conditioner, and a trip to Punta Gorda, I’m feeling a little bit broke this month. Hey, that’s still a hell of a lot better than broke sitting around Dunkin Donuts or Tim Hortons, guys. I know too many people who will never get ahead because they actually fear saving money.
Thanks to Trump, I’m finally finding out who a few of these media people are. I’m not saying that is a good thing. Most I’ve never heard of before, but I see now what all the complaints are about. These are no longer “newsmen” in terms of what I grew up with, but half-educated, half-indoctrinated bad actors. Particularly the politically correct types who haven’t heard that Trump has declared political correctness to be a personality flaw, a vice, and no longer part of being American
That’s because I stayed indoors and did the programming for my three-digit LED. So much for retirement being a time to take it easy. Not me, though I will confess the majority of people I’ve known in this life have always associated relaxation with doing nothing. Then, I’ve always known if you start off on the wrong foot in life, as time goes by such people fall too far behind to ever amount to anything. I know people my own age who cannot write a proper letter and lack all manner of decent, everyday skills.
I thought about this because my news feed kept updating me on developments, of which Trump is the most interesting. I still see him as a businessman rather than a politician, which is a compliment. And nobody else is running for anything anymore, they are all running against the Donald. That’s quite a turn of events. And it is absolute nonsense to say nobody will actually vote for him. They have to now.
As for my program, I got it to work with arrays, though I’m somewhat suspecting that may not be fast enough for what I have in mind. I’ve figured out a way to get the logic to display the numbers in a similar fashion to how humans have been trained to look at numbers, but it is slow to execute the commands. The only thing I know that is faster than arrays is bit arithmetic, which approaches machine code in complexity. But I enjoy machine code more than C+, I’ll tell you that.
If I don’t find some way to streamline the code, it is already a bit complicated for students to follow what I’m doing. I have one fixed array and use three loops to read it three different ways. For most folks, one array and one read command is plenty enough. If this project does not appeal to the masses, well, let’s say it has to fit a demographic out there. As I’ve said of what’s out there, the easy stuff is too easy and the hard stuff is too hard.
NIGHT
At least we have progress. I have the three LEDs flashing in the correct sequence, but for some reason they do not yet display the correct numbers. That is simply code that needs cleaning up. For now it is enough that it works well enough. It would seem strange to others, even the crowd who max out at one LED, because the working model, such as it is, remains devoid of any chips or capacitors. Just wires and the Arduino off to one side. I still have not addressed the problem of it working slow enough to see the individual LEDs light up.
The arrangement is, mind you, simple enough that I won’t rule it out. Here’s a diagram of the resistor connected to a MCU pin. A microcontroller unit, that is, such as the Arduino. It isn’t obvious, but it prevents the input pin from confusing a “low” signal with an “off” condition, which are identical, voltage-wise.
The new guy I was going to audition on guitar disappeared. Typical. I heard he was evicted. Remember, events like that still take a lot of Floridians by surprise. They honestly don’t see it coming, which is rather odd behavior for thirty-somethings.
There’s talk of another ker-plop in the housing market. One aspect I follow closely is the street level facts. Yes, there has been a mini-boom for a few years, fueled by foreign cash and a near-zero interest rate. That’s over and things have been sitting for a while. Real estate cannot afford to sit, at all. If the “Fed” actually hikes interest rates, that’s good for anybody who’s got any real cash tucked away.
Last Laugh
It’s a picture of four horses.
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