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I think this is great, but it strikes me as the DIY embedded hardware equivalent of what coders often do. “I could manually enter 100 lines of text or…I could

I think this is great, but it strikes me as the DIY embedded hardware equivalent of what coders often do. “I could manually enter 100 lines of text or…I could spend all afternoon writing Perl to clean and correct my noisy OCR data…and end up with the same 100 lines of text. But also I’ll have built a tool! A tool nobody asked for. I really hope I can get someone else to use it so I can feel better about my lost afternoon.”

Tijdreiziger 3y ago
The programmers’ creed: We do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they would be easy. ;)
- gibolt 3y ago
  The one I follow is slightly different: We do these things not because they are easy, but because we want to And later we can find 100 good excuses explaining why it was worth it
  - geodel 3y ago
    Well thats when it actually got done. But in most cases it remains incomplete.
- fxtentacle 3y ago
  We do these things for the learning experience. At least that's me. I've built sooo much stuff just because I wanted to learn how to build it.
- jtoledo 3y ago
  What matters is the journey, what you learn on the way...
zer00eyz 3y ago
Perl was a spot on choice for your example. >> DIY embedded hardware 20 years ago an Arduino was brand new and 50 bucks. Now any one can get a PCB made. You can do hardware like software (iterative, casual). This is both silly and amazing!
- weinzierl 3y ago
  I wish, and PCBs, yes, but we are still far from "hardware like software (iterative, casual)". We will be there if we can send off a design and get back a small quantity of reasonably priced fully assembled devices. And this is not only about ability alone. Learning the skills to assemble a board is pretty realistically possible for almost anyone. It's just so annoyingly boring and tedious once the initial fascination and excitement has worn off. Contrary to when I learned it, it is already a pretty useless skill and will be comletely futile in the future.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
    Depending on your definition of "reasonably priced," we're already there with JLCPCB's assembly service.
    - weinzierl 3y ago
      I don't know. There are many PCB services that offer assembly, but as long as have to solder the headers to my Raspberry Pi Pico or Adafruit or what have you myself, it tells me we: We are not there! The original posting had the word "casual" in it. When I have to worry so much about parts availability and things like this through-hole to prevent prices from exploding it's the opposite of casual.
lelanthran 3y ago
> I think this is great, but it strikes me as the DIY embedded hardware equivalent of what coders often do. I think the author already knows this :-) The primary goal in this project appears to be "fun", not "provide a cheap option for reading keypads". I mean, the author ate the pain of learning-to-Rust-on-the-STM32, uses it for no discernible gain for a project of this scope, and for good measure adds in a home-written embedded OS. For something of this scope no multi-task-driven design is necessary, and an 8051-or-cheaper uC with an i2c peripheral and ISRs reading with a while(1) loop writing is more than sufficient. I attempted making and selling a thing like this (integrating 2x16/2x32 character LCD and keypad) waaaay back in 2003/2004, but the number of hobbyist uC developers just didn't make it worthwhile. Today, with the arduino already a grandaddy in relative terms, everyone and their dog is doing embedded, so might be a good time for me to relook at all-in-one i2c peripherals for hobbyists.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  It's hard to make money building hobbyist-level hardware and selling it to hobbyists. Selling it to commercial users is another story altogether! I can buy a 5" 800x400 TFT color touch screen with an onboard 32-bit processor that has I2C and SPI ports that can be programmed with the Arduino IDE. And for good measure, implementing an onscreen keypad is already built into the libraries available for it. Cost is around $30 on Aliexpress. I have a couple of them and they are amazing for the price. A github project has sprung up around these devices: https://github.com/witnessmenow/ESP32-Cheap-Yellow-Display https://github.com/witnessmenow/ESP32-Cheap-Yellow-Display
epr 3y ago
Guilty as charged! Although it's also an opportunity for practicing useful skills instead of useless ones.
barryrandall 3y ago
I think of them as the programming equivalent of keeping wood scraps around for later use.
Dowwie 3y ago
Cliff introduced a useful device for makers, open sourced his embedded rust firmware, and got to improve his embedded async OS in the process. By sharing his work with the world, it could inspire others to give this hard work a try. I really don't think he spent just an afternoon on this, but whatever effort was spent can only in the most cynical lens be viewed as a loss. It was a triumphant hobby project.

Tijdreiziger 3y ago

The programmers’ creed: We do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they would be easy. ;)

gibolt 3y ago
The one I follow is slightly different: We do these things not because they are easy, but because we want to And later we can find 100 good excuses explaining why it was worth it
- geodel 3y ago
  Well thats when it actually got done. But in most cases it remains incomplete.
fxtentacle 3y ago
We do these things for the learning experience. At least that's me. I've built sooo much stuff just because I wanted to learn how to build it.
jtoledo 3y ago
What matters is the journey, what you learn on the way...

zer00eyz 3y ago

Perl was a spot on choice for your example. >> DIY embedded hardware 20 years ago an Arduino was brand new and 50 bucks. Now any one can get a PCB made. You can do hardware like software (iterative, casual). This is both silly and amazing!

weinzierl 3y ago
I wish, and PCBs, yes, but we are still far from "hardware like software (iterative, casual)". We will be there if we can send off a design and get back a small quantity of reasonably priced fully assembled devices. And this is not only about ability alone. Learning the skills to assemble a board is pretty realistically possible for almost anyone. It's just so annoyingly boring and tedious once the initial fascination and excitement has worn off. Contrary to when I learned it, it is already a pretty useless skill and will be comletely futile in the future.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  Depending on your definition of "reasonably priced," we're already there with JLCPCB's assembly service.
  - weinzierl 3y ago
    I don't know. There are many PCB services that offer assembly, but as long as have to solder the headers to my Raspberry Pi Pico or Adafruit or what have you myself, it tells me we: We are not there! The original posting had the word "casual" in it. When I have to worry so much about parts availability and things like this through-hole to prevent prices from exploding it's the opposite of casual.

lelanthran 3y ago

> I think this is great, but it strikes me as the DIY embedded hardware equivalent of what coders often do. I think the author already knows this :-) The primary goal in this project appears to be "fun", not "provide a cheap option for reading keypads". I mean, the author ate the pain of learning-to-Rust-on-the-STM32, uses it for no discernible gain for a project of this scope, and for good measure adds in a home-written embedded OS. For something of this scope no multi-task-driven design is necessary, and an 8051-or-cheaper uC with an i2c peripheral and ISRs reading with a while(1) loop writing is more than sufficient. I attempted making and selling a thing like this (integrating 2x16/2x32 character LCD and keypad) waaaay back in 2003/2004, but the number of hobbyist uC developers just didn't make it worthwhile. Today, with the arduino already a grandaddy in relative terms, everyone and their dog is doing embedded, so might be a good time for me to relook at all-in-one i2c peripherals for hobbyists.

HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
It's hard to make money building hobbyist-level hardware and selling it to hobbyists. Selling it to commercial users is another story altogether! I can buy a 5" 800x400 TFT color touch screen with an onboard 32-bit processor that has I2C and SPI ports that can be programmed with the Arduino IDE. And for good measure, implementing an onscreen keypad is already built into the libraries available for it. Cost is around $30 on Aliexpress. I have a couple of them and they are amazing for the price. A github project has sprung up around these devices: https://github.com/witnessmenow/ESP32-Cheap-Yellow-Display https://github.com/witnessmenow/ESP32-Cheap-Yellow-Display

epr 3y ago

Guilty as charged! Although it's also an opportunity for practicing useful skills instead of useless ones.

barryrandall 3y ago

I think of them as the programming equivalent of keeping wood scraps around for later use.

Dowwie 3y ago

Cliff introduced a useful device for makers, open sourced his embedded rust firmware, and got to improve his embedded async OS in the process. By sharing his work with the world, it could inspire others to give this hard work a try. I really don't think he spent just an afternoon on this, but whatever effort was spent can only in the most cynical lens be viewed as a loss. It was a triumphant hobby project.