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Speeding Up Python Apps With CFFI
Calling C/C++ Code from Python Introduction Python is a powerful and versatile programming language, but one of its weaknesses is that it can be slow compared to other languages like C or C++. However, Python can use C/C++ code to speed up the application or simply make use of functionality not available in Python. By
How to Allow Users Access to Virtual Devices
A I’ve been working on a little side project that uses a PC’s audio port to read the control signals from a radio control transmitter via the PC’s audio input and use it to control a virtual joystick. I had to do a refresher on how Linux handles input devices and search for what C
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Securing Credentials in Python Apps
Python has become a very popular language for software development. Over the decades since it was first introduced, the language has slowly grown and matured while keeping its ease of use and shallow learning curve. This has made it the go-to language for much of the AI and ML communities and many web applications have
Hardware Abstraction Layers (HAL)
I was shocked that she wasn’t familiar with HALs.
Building Machines In Code – Part 9
Tooling for the Tiny-T When we completed the console, last installment, I had said I was unsure what I would cover next. I’m really wanting to begin implementing our audio device, but I felt that adding a GUI for the Tiny-T system was a target much more achievable in the limited time I had. However,
Building Machines In Code – Part 8
Adding a Crude Console Last time, we left off with a working computer system using the Tiny-T processor. I told you that we would add a very crude terminal to the system this time. The terminal I’ll present today is barely a terminal. It won’t have any special functions, text scrolling, or any other features
Building Machines In Code – Part 7
Today’s Project NOTICE: Today’s Code will only work under Python 3.10 and later. In this episode, we will build a new system using a processor with Von Neumann Architecture. We will also be splitting our system into various files and classes to organize our system better. The Memory will no longer be part of the
Building Machines In Code – Part 6
Last issue we built a simple assembler for our TIny-P processor emulator. In this installment, we will build a loader. But what is a loader? Loaders are small programs that load other programs into system memory and prepare them for execution. Most loaders are part of an Operating System however, in the embedded world, there
Building Machines In Code – Part 5
Tooling Hardware and software developers are tool makers by trade. Just like a machinist, software developers often need to develop their own tools for the job at hand. Sometimes these tools are simple scripts to automate a boring, or complicated task, or perhaps, a tool to fill a yet unfilled niche. Whatever the reason, tool
Building Machines In Code – Part 4
Programming the Tiny-P Programmers are often confused by the terms machine language and assembly language. Many developers consider these two terms interchangeable. But in fact, they mean very different things. If you go back to the Tiny-P Opcode table presented in part-3 of this series, you can see how the various machine code values are
Building Machines In Code – Part 3
Creating the Tiny-P CPU In this post, we will finally write some code. I promise! We’ll be using Python here as one of the most popular languages these days according to the Tiobe index, narrowly beating out C. So, in the interest of reaching as many people as possible I settled on Python for this
Building Machines in Code – Part 2
So which is better? The answer to this question, like so many things in computer science is “it depends”.
Building Machines In Code
Regarding the difference between simulation and emulation:
Not limited to computers I use this distinction:
– A simulation mimics the outward appearance
– An emulation mimics the cause/process.
If you want to convince people that watching television gives you
stomach-aches, you can simulate this by holding your chest/abdomen and
moan.
Programming And Debugging Microcontrollers Using OpenOCD and Raspberry Pi
Using Raspberry Pi and OpenOCD to Program and Debug A STM32 Micro-controller
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Stepping Back in Time
Many of us have retired and are looking for something to do. Others have found themselves stuck at home and socializing much less due to the Covid outbreak. This has caused many of us to dig out our old dusty computer systems and begin re-living the magical adventures we had when the web was still the future, BBSs were the rage, real programmers used assembly, BASIC was for everyone, and nerds knew every detail of the hardware they used!
Extensible Dart Classes with Extension Methods
I was recently tasked with creating a general-purpose unit conversion class. The class needed to be easily extensible so new conversions could be easily added at any time. It also needed to throw an exception when an unsupported conversion was attempted. Furthermore, I was told that the conversion method needed to take in two string
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Introduction to Algorithms with Dart
Once a novice developer learns the basic syntax of their programming language, and begins writing anything more than simple hello-world type apps, they start to encounter problems. At first, these problems seem daunting. To find answers, they usually start hitting the various software development forums and social sites where their kindred spirits tend to congregate
Simple Solution for Unconstrained Height and Width Errors in Flutter
The phrase “Error: Viewport was given an Unbounded Height” brings horror to the novice Flutter developer.
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Dart: “static”, “const”, and “final”
With the droves of developers flocking to Dart/Flutter as a cross-platform development solution, I tend to see the same questions come up again and again on Slack, Stack Overflow, and Discord as well as many other forums. One such question is What is the difference between “static”, “const”, and “final”? For the uninitiated, they can
Multi-Group Checkboxes in Flutter
I spend a lot of time on the Flutter Slack channel (thanks Scott!), and I try and help as many people as possible during my breaks from my own work. Today I was asked how to implement multiple selectable groups of checkboxes in Flutter. I offered a solution which as is often the case, was
Flutter Navigation with Confirmation
I spend a lot of time in the Flutter slack channel answering questions to help others. Sometimes I am asked a question that seems trivial at first, and then I realize I’ve been working with Flutter since 2017 and even I sometimes struggled with the simplest of tasks when I started. So, when I can,
Dart / Flutter Conditional Imports
Over the past few years, Dart and Flutter have really gained popularity. Along with the growth in popularity has come a plethora of new features added to both the Dart language and the Flutter GUI tool kit. Some of the most popular new features are support for new platforms such as web and desktops (Windows,
Design Patterns In Dart
GoF Design Patterns in Dart Back in the ’90s, a group of four authors released a book that became standard reading for any self-respecting software developer, the Gang of Four’s Design Patterns book. Along with Fred Brooks’s Mythical Man-Month, Don Knuth’s The Art of Computer Programming series, these books are still fundamental to our profession
Design Patterns In Dart – Part 2
The Singleton Pattern From time to time you’ll find you need to ensure that your code creates only a single instance of a class. This often occurs in hardware drivers or certain OS sub-systems. It’s not a feature you need often but, when you need it, you really need it! The singleton pattern is one
Dart / Flutter State Management with Okito
Recently in the slack flutter forum, the Okito package was announced. I took a quick look at the package but at the time didn’t have time to investigate it fully. This past week I got the chance to look the documentation over and produced my first ever Youtube video using Okito as the subject. In
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Flutter Reaches 2.0
Compiling Legacy Dart/Flutter Code with Sound Null Safe Code Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about flutter, Googles (fairly) new cross-platform toolkit. I started working with flutter back in 2017 and it has been a lot of fun! This past week Google held a virtual event for flutter called Flutter Engage. During the
Implementing Stack Oriented Languages – Part 4
Strings and Variable So far we’ve added lots of stack operations and a couple I/O routines with the KEY and EMIT keywords. At the moment if we wanted to write a simple “Hello World” application we would need to place each character on the stack and pop them off using the EMIT keyword. This is
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An Introduction to Graph Algorithms
This post marks the first in a series of posts I will complete on graph algorithms. The code will be python however, I will write the code very verbosely so it will be easily ported to your favorite programming language. I will assume you have some programming skills but are still a novice or that
Implementing Stack Oriented Languages – Part 3
Before we move on to adding more features to our language, I think it is high time we combine our disparate parts into a single entity.
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