Das Blinkenlights

Nitpicking

Blinkenlights isn’t a german word it’s pseudo german for Blinklicht originating from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights#:~:text=on%20the...

But the Chaos Computer Club built light installations called

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blinkenlights

> Now you need to remember this is not a metal panel it is a 1.6mm thick fibre-glass one, it does the job, but it wont take much abuse like a metal one will and flexes a little when handling it.

That's when you design in a PC board stiffener. These are just pieces of metal, U-channel, L-channel, or solid bar, to add some structural strength. Cheap and easy, but rarely seen in hobbyist work. Any board with buttons or knobs or connectors unsupported for more than a few inches should have some stiffening. You have to allow space for stiffening bars when designing the board, and you need to place screw holes.

Hearing 'blinkenlights' reminds me of the still very much up 'towel.blinkenlights.nl' telnet server which plays an ASCII art rendition of Star Wars if you dial into it.

There's a joke if you have IPV6 connectivity where if you use IPV4 it says it has full colour support but if you do... well, it doesn't!

      >> unsigned char ascii2dec( unsigned char data) // expecting a hexedecimal num 0..F anything else returns 0
  {
  if(data=='0') return 0;
  if(data=='1') return 1;
  if(data=='2') return 2;
  if(data=='3') return 3;
  if(data=='4') return 4;
  if(data=='5') return 5;
  if(data=='6') return 6;
  if(data=='7') return 7;
  if(data=='8') return 8;
  if(data=='9') return 9;
  if(data=='A') return 10;
  if(data=='B') return 11;
  if(data=='C') return 12;
  if(data=='D') return 13;
  if(data=='E') return 14;
  if(data=='F') return 15;
  if(data=='a') return 10;
  if(data=='b') return 11;
  if(data=='c') return 12;
  if(data=='d') return 13;
  if(data=='e') return 14;
  if(data=='f') return 15;
  return 0; // default/error

I could probably think about a little bit shorter function for that ;)

This story reminded me of the "BeBox" [0] PowerPC computer from the 1990's, which had Blinkenlights on its front bezel.

(It ran the very cool "BeOS" operating system[1], which was eventually ported to Mac, then x86.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeBox

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS

I liked how this project used "reverse mount LEDs" [1] which are perhaps not known to everyone.

It means that instead of being mounted to a PCB and having the light shine "up" from the board, it instead shines down between the solder points, and you arrange for the PCB to have a hole there. It means all the components are on one side, but the light is emitted on the back which can be clean and/or have cool silkscreens etc. Nice!

[1]: http://www.kingbrightusa.com/category.asp?catalog_name=LED&c...

Many, many years ago, I saw a copy of Das Blinkenlights delivered on a sheet of paper with the documentation of a brand new S/32 IBM system. Certainly a highlight of my IT career!

I'm planning to do something similar, but using addressable RGB LEDs (like WS2811, also known as neopixel).

They are simple to work with. Each LED has 4 connections: GND, +5V, DATA IN and DATA OUT. Each LED grabs the first 24 bits of the data stream (8 bits for Red, Green and Blue) and sends the rest on DATA OUT for the next LED.

Actual German would be something like "die Blinkenlichten". "Blinkenlichten" was the form used in the original faux-German sign from which "blinkenlights" is said to derive. "Blinkenlights" is used in a faux-English sign that hung in some German computer installations: "Please keep still and only watchen astaunished the blinkenlights."

See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/blinkenlights.html

You could perhaps make it play a subtle background sound like the noise WOPR makes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4vWTzs_bp4

Anyone using todbot blink(1)? Also a fun USB RGB.

https://blink1.thingm.com/

I read this phrase: "I had almost 200 really crappy PIC16F1782 chips" and remembered my university days when we were programming the PIC16C84 and thought that this was a very good chip (at the time) :-)

This looks very much like a Connection Machine. A red LED would light up when its corresponding processor was active.

> Yes, I remembered now, I had almost 200 really crappy PIC16F1782 chips, left over from an update for one of my clients

> First problem there are not enough GPIO pins on the 28-pin PIC to drive 128 LED’s, plus an address line, plus a serial receive pin, minimum GPIO’s for that is 24 (16×8 LED scan matrix)+4(address)+1(RXD) = 29. A simple solution is to add two 74HC595 shift registers to increase the outputs by 16 at the expense of 4 pins to control them.

Wouldn't the simple solution be just to split the matrix in half and throw second PIC in there? Or just make 1U panels instad of 2U?

Also the PIC is rated to sink/source 25 mA so you could have skipped the led driver transistors, making the boards even simpler.

I can't wait until gaming builds start adopting this trend. I want to see a high end gaming rig but it looks like a server from a 1990s sci-fi movie.

The effect is really cool. I like the idea of visualizing data flowing through work systems like this. I think I'll go for 3D-printed or laser-cut panels instead though - would work out cheaper. Thanks :)

Very cool. This scratches several itches. What data is this displaying? Are you tailing syslog and writing it to a serial output? Do you have some status monitor that assigns meaning to the lights?

Not to be confused with the Justine Tunney's debugger named Blinkenlights: https://justine.lol/blinkenlights/

> Working C Code below for those in the know.

It would be nice to explicitly attach a (FOSS) license to this. (Apologizes if there is one and I just missed it)

Like they used to say in Art school during critiques "go big! I'd like to see what this looks like bigger"

I'd love to see a design that uses a dirt-cheap uC, because the PIC16F1782 chips he had laying around are $2.50 each on Mouser!

Edit: Tried to buy these (either PCBs, the BOM, or ideally fully assembled boards) and holy shit I've never seen a worse website than oshwlab/easyeda. So far: clicked 'purchase parts,' had to sign up, captcha was at max strength and had to agonizingly select slowly fading in cards over four times; clicked to send code; code took a while to get here and captcha expired; entered code but it had ambiguous "i" vs. "l" vs. "1" and I entered the wrong one; repeat captcha, this time only two pages of slowly fading cards; click to send code again; enter code; captcha expired; enter captcha again, enter code again; told I already have an account (I do??); go to forgot password; solve another long captcha; click to send code; captcha expired; enter code and captcha; password reset; get taken to generic landing page; go back to main site and click 'purchase parts' again; says I'm not logged in. log in again; taken to generic landing page; go back to main site and click 'purchase parts'; page loads...takes me to "lcsc" and tells me to make an account. JFC.

I like the KISS implementation of the ascii2dec function ;)

I would feel so productive! Well done.

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This doesn't look like a valid Show HN. It is an interesting blog post (without the Show HN prefix), though!

> Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread.

> Off topic: blog posts

https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html