Raspberry Pi - A credit card sized, linux based mini-computer for $30

Ok, including absolute value was a silly goof (it can just be > .005) but it still manages to do the job of waiting to start the next cycle until the remainder is between 0 and 0.005, which is the “buffer” I’m blabbing about. Part of my problem in life is I just loosely use terminology that actually has specific meaning in the discipline I’m flailing in atm

You might be able to reduce the number of Pis in favor of cheap radios using something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdjQw6P0HLA

Also, does the behavior change if you do something like this?:

print ("unit initialization time: ", time.time())
print("waiting for next 18-second cycle to begin...")
while True:
  time.sleep(18 - (time.time() % 18))
  print("new cycle: ", time.time())
  subprocess.call('afplaytestest.wav', shell=True)

should be .wav',shell=True not wavhell=True unless it's some kind of black metal track

Also, does the behavior change if you do something like this?

it does work! and it does simplify the code a bit, too. t's funny though, because it slightly decreases the precision of the cycle starts. here's the log for time.sleep(5 - (time.time() % 5)):

launch time:  1520541567.056979
waiting for next 5 -second cycle to begin...
new cycle:  1520541575.004256
new cycle:  1520541580.005019
new cycle:  1520541584.999948
new cycle:  1520541590.005019
new cycle:  1520541595.004566
new cycle:  1520541600.0001438
new cycle:  1520541605.000339
new cycle:  1520541610.0040052

which is great! accurate to the ms unit, for the most part. but then here's the log for the while time.time() % 5 > 0.005 approach:

launch time:  1520541896.142796
waiting for next 5-second cycle to begin...
new cycle:  1520541900.000105
new cycle:  1520541905.000193
new cycle:  1520541910.001322
new cycle:  1520541915.000451
new cycle:  1520541920.000237
new cycle:  1520541925.000406
new cycle:  1520541930.0009248
new cycle:  1520541935.000673

accurate to another degree, for some reason. anyway, it doesn't really matter since all of that is way more precise than i actually need it to be.

the fm transmitter idea is really cool! i'm not sure i can really use it for this because i want each unit to have both a speaker and a microphone. each one needs to be capable of recording audio using a microphone, translating to text, converting that back to speech (TTS), then playing it over the speaker. i've already got a working version with all of that, it just needs to be tweaked quite a bit (mostly with the speech recognition side - optimizing dictionary and language models in particular) . i've been so busy the last week or two but i need to just go ahead and order the other units + cheap but good USB microphones + cheap speakers so that i can do the tweaking with the real units.
i've been so busy the last week with various things so i haven't been

i meant to say though, i can think of all sorts of things you could do with the FM transmitter setup, though, as a separate project. i feel like there's all sorts of untapped potential in these things.

of course, the day after i buy 4 new raspberry pis, they announce a newer, better, faster version, at the same price:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-3-model-bplus-sale-now-35/

i am thinking of getting one of these for me and my son as a project, initially for video game emulation. anyone use one for that purpose?

i haven't personally, but i think several people in this thread have before! and plus, out of all raspberry pi project ideas, the emulation one is probably the most popular and has many online guides you can use to walk you through the process. i think it's a fantastic project idea for you and your son, because it's complicated enough to be interesting and show you some of the possibilities of the device, but also you have like a 99.5% chance of succeeding within a reasonable time frame.

I have one hooked up to my TV that I use as a video game emulator (classic arcade + consoles). Works really well, running RetroPie. Connected to the TV via HDMI and the built-in bluetooth pairs with a wireless Nintendo Pro controller.

xp to KM yeah! ive been looking at some of the youtube tutorials for it. i guess im sold on getting one, but not sure if want to spend a little extra to get the 4GB ram on the pi 4 or be low budget and get a 3B+. i guess i dont want to mess with several hundred gigs of games and will probably stick to older consoles (maybe up to N64/PS1?)

Pro Switch controller ?

Xp

fhazel which pi model do you have?

I have a pi3 and it plays ps1 games fine. Haven't tested n64

be sure to toss super bonk on there!

I'm using a Pi 3 Model B (not B+) for my emulator, and the controller is actually a Wii U Pro controller, but I bet a Switch controller would work too. With the HDMI cable, case, and power supply it cost about $50 (I already had the controller).

I've heard that the 4 has overheating issues and often needs a fan attached, which for me is a hard pass.

ive read that as well

i def want to minimize the amount of parts to have to install and keep a relatively low electrical

what size sd card do yall use?

*relatively low electrical footprint

Those old 8 bit arcade games are like 40kb each, you can get literally thousands into the smallest SD card and they play on even on a pi2b+. I've a couple of SNES games on the too but haven't stress tested them. Retropie.

I've also got a pi zero music server using volumio and that was also a doddle to set up but the mini usb connectors are a bit strange.

yeah, I only have ROMs for classic arcade and home consoles up to the 16-bit era... once games are disc-based, they take up a lot of storage space. The SD card in my Pi is a 32GB one. Has thousands of arcade ROMs, plus the (mostly) complete libraries of about a dozen home console systems.

just ordered the pi 4 starter kit which includes a case with a built-in fan to address the heating issue. in the end, the 2gb upgrade seemed worth it considering it wasn't much more expensive and retropie has released a pi4-compatible image.

excellent! I've heard that the newer video chip on the Pi 4 can do N64 emulation (which is problematic on even high-end PCs, honestly) much better than the Pi 3. Dreamcast too.

yeah, im at least gonna check it out. i got the 2gb ram version bc i was trying to keep it under 100 for budget (incl controllers).

i picked up 2 ps2-style controllers since i figured those could handle both ps1/n64 configs, although the C buttons could be weird (maybe use the right analog stick?)

I have a version 3 running retropie with two cheapo USB SNES controllers and it's great. It was like $70 all in with an SD card and case and easy if you're comfortable with formatting drives and linux at all.

I've only used it for nes and snes games and it's great, my kid and i have been playing Super Mario 2 and 3, Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario World pretty regularly during lockdown. I've never played anything past the PS1 so it all feels awesome still. I do kind of want to get wireless controllers though

honestly, i've never been able to reliably emulate anything from N64 on. definitely not playstation and up, but even the N64 roms i have are always messing up. maybe i'm just a really bad emulator (openEMU)?

but anyway, just throwing out there because if you notice later generation games don't work well on the Raspberry Pi, keep in mind they might not work well in general.

this is what ive gathered from various youtube tutorials and my limited experience emulating n64 stuff on my old pc laptop. some games would run, but would be laggy. one was just bizarre looking (mario tennis) but still mostly functional. i wasnt clocking fps or anything like that, though.

assuming the executive branch changes hands, anyone—be they R or D or a serious media person just delivering Hard Truths—who suggests that we really have to tighten our belts what with all this deficit should be immediately and in no uncertain terms be told to [ redacted] themselves immediately. and anyone who gives this advice one iota of thought other than to point and laugh and shame should also be written off forever. period.

god damn it. rong thread

otm though

I guess i phrased it wrong - in actual real life, I've only ever played up to the N64 and PS1 and have never used any xbox, ps2+, switch, wii, etc. so my video game literacy ends in the late 90s. I've only ever tried emulating through the SNES on my pi

the wii was the last system i owned when it was current-gen

we have this now and the kid is having a blast, so mission accomplished.

re: n64 emulation, its really hit or miss. mario 64 seems to run okay, mario kart 64 runs but has choppy sound, others are completely unplayable. psone games are much larger files but i dl'ed marvel v capcom 2 and it ran like a dream. he's probably enjoying the snes and GBA games the most at this point.

i also got the simpsons arcade game which i dont know that i ever beat as a kid, but it kind of loses the drama without the limitation of chuck e cheese tokens.

also i learned what a chaotic person my son is by playing nba jam with him bc his favorite shot is a full court heave. he takes like 15 of these and makes at least 3 a game which only emboldens him further despite the fact that we routinely lose games by 10 or more points. he's like a coked out trae young.

this is how we learn

not how to win

but who we are

playing video games with him reminds me there are ppl who do not glean the teleology of Things and live in a state of constant Being, Not Becoming

I mentioned this on the Sonos thread, but it's probably more relevant here. I finally finished my project of making a web-based mp3 player for the Raspberry Pi that I can control from my phone. It's pretty simple, but it seems surprisingly hard to find a product on the market that does this, and the price, even including the DAC card with RCA outputs that I can connect to my stereo, was very reasonable.

lol m bison

o. nate, what software did you go with?

It's all in python, using flask for the web interface and vlc for the mp3 playback.

there are ppl who do not glean the teleology of Things

video games have some of the most unambiguously teleological worlds our universe has to offer though, so keep him at it

in other news, given my squeezebox-based system can't be replaced if the hardware fails, I've been looking into the rasbpi + DAC solutions out there that can still use the logitech media server + have a phone interface available.

"piCorePlayer" is a great distro for making a Pi dedicated to LMS, client and/or server. I'm not running it at the moment since I have a Windows box up full-time.

I recently switched the Pi 2 I was using mainly for Kodi from OSMC to LibreELEC and surprisingly it makes a great LMS client (using Squeezelite in its "Multimedia-tools" addon). Whatever I was doing in OSMC, I had to "turn off" that Pi's music player in order to watch any videos without messed up sound. Now it all just works.

SD cards are finally available in big enough capacities (and at not insane prices) for me to have my entire FLAC library on them too, which means no need for a hard drive... it really is a magical time for home listening.

it's all low power stuff too. Time for someone to hollow out a walkman for a Pi case!

I already have a dedicated media server running Windows that works well for video stuff, but it's kind of irritating to use with LMS... no matter what I do, about 10% of the time it fails to wake up when I try and turn on a network music player and I have to remote into it and fiddle around. A Rasbpi/Linux/SD card server I would assume could be set up to not go to sleep (as you say, it's low-power enough to leave on all the time) and reliably serve music when asked by a network player.

When I used PiCorePlayer to serve with an external disk on my Pi 2 it was all good. I was surprised the Pi could handle the server. Using one of them sounds preferable to messing with wake-on-LAN or something? I haven't messed with that kind of thing.

the motherboard I use for my server supposedly has wake-on-LAN but damned if I have been able to get it to work consistently