For as long as computers have been in the hands of programmers, they have offered frequent mildly tedious tasks that their operators have sought to automate. Who hasn’t written a shell script or a batch file that unites a string of commands into one just to save a bit of typing?
But even that effort can be reduced with a hardware add-on that ties the script to a physical control, and in this endeavor [Tomas] has created a beauty. His control panel project mimics the robust industrial panels of yesteryear with an array of metal buttons and toggle switches in a sturdy metal case sourced from an old KVM switch.
Behind the scenes are a pair of I/O extenders and a NodeMCU board, whose ESP8266 does the talking to the host computer on which a daemon awaits its call. Individual addressable LEDs next to each switch convey the state of operation, and the switches trigger useful operations such as connecting to a VPN. All the code is available in a handy GitHub repository, and you can see it in action in the video we’ve placed below the break.
We rather like the idea of a desktop control panel here at Hackaday, indeed this isn’t the first one we’ve brought you.
That panel reminds me of the bomb from the casino bombing in the 1980s. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Harveysbomb.jpg/800px-Harveysbomb.jpg
This FYI:
https://hackaday.com/2015/09/21/this-is-what-a-real-bomb-looks-like/
ok it works but it’s not really a beauty…
https://hackaday.io/project/159762-hardware-assembler-emui is getting closer :-)
Very neat build!
While reading the title I kind of expected it to be something like this, but I could not help but think about the idea of single stepping a modern CPU and how ridiculous it would be.
Heads up that there are panel-mountable addressable LEDs in T(n) format…and you can get them pre-wired in a chain.
You can also buy really low density switches and just use that spacing for your switches?
This needs two hand cranks for COPY and PASTE
vintage audiometer
are 2 keywords for good image results of controls
My first computer was an IMSAI 8080.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSAI_8080
That one is still a bucketlist item of mine.
Then again, I\m a Wargames fan… :’)
My first computer was a TI99a, wish I had kept it, no idea where it went.
Same here. TI-99/4A my folks bought for $50 on a blowout sale at JC Penny in 1983. Then I had to buy upgrade stuff secondhand. Had two expansion boxes and seven consoles.
The Previous one you mention is a lot better really