More python coolness

Paul Sutton / April 23, 2014 / Comments Off

I have now managed to get python to play a small mp3 file using pygame in a few lines of code (Google is great if you know how to look). So this opens up some useful possibilities with robots being able to go up to someone and say something.

Right now the only useful mp3 file I have is a Dalek voice saying “exterminate” but I have a few others such as a Dalek gun. Being a trekkie I quite like the Borg, so maybe find something thats says “you will be assimilated. ”

So now can’t wait till Monday to see if we can at some point integrate this with the Lego mind-storms robot we are building.

All I need to do is get in a school and get PAID to do this stuff. Any offers from Torbay schools Welcome

Category: coding, Debian, hacking, Hardware, Linux, programming, python, Raspberry pi /

Scratch update

Paul Sutton / April 22, 2014 / Comments Off

Both nested loop routines have now been ported to scratch.

Would it be useful to add notes to the source file?

Such as :-

Please comment on @zleap14.

Category: coding, education, hacking, Raspberry pi, scratch /

QR Turtle update

Paul Sutton / April 20, 2014 / Comments Off

A few months ago I was working on a program to scan qr codes with specific text (e.g forward10) and pass this on to turtle graphics. I have now updated the repository with 4 new codes to allow for the fact I had to modify the program a little as 5 , 10 pixels are too short a distance to really notice

https://github.com/zleap/qrturtle

Now has 4 new png files for 25,50,75 and 100 pixels.

The QR codes were generated from the website at

https://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/

Forward25.png

The main program can now work more logically as there is now a code that says Forward25 which can be linked to the right turtle command rather than using my work around where scanning Forward10 moves 25 as that distance is easier to see on the canvas.

If you want to have a go please feel free to download the code, If you look at https://github.com/zleap/nestedloops there is code to save the graphics canvas as a file.

Source code

basic nested loop using turtle graphics and python
#added input checking
import turtle
import time
 
#set file name
fname= raw_input("Filename (must include .eps ")
#fname="dial.eps"
 
and
 
ts = turtle.getscreen()
ts.getcanvas().postscript(file=fname)
 
print "Saved image to: ", fname
print "All done. Click image to exit."
 
turtle.exitonclick()

From

turtle-loop4.py

Category: coding, Debian, education, hacking, Hardware, python, qr codes, Raspberry pi, turtle graphics, zbar /

Nethack: Vulture-Eye

Paul Sutton / April 18, 2014 / Comments Off

NetHack is a classic Unix game which is very popular among hackers

Vultures eye is a port that is based on Falcons eye and essentially keeps this project going just with a new name and based on the newest build of nethack 3.4.

The game can be downloaded from

http://www.darkarts.co.za/vulture

If you are using ubuntu you need 2 of the Ubuntu deb(ian) packages

vulture-nethack_2.3.67-1_i386.deb and vulture-data_2.3.67-1_all.deb

Once downloaded save to a useful location e.g ~/vulture

You need to install the data first otherwise you get an error

sudo dpkg -i vulture-nethack_2.3.67-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i vulture-data_2.3.67-1_all.deb

Run with vulture-nethack

You can download the source code from github and compile your self which does open up the possibility this can run on the raspberry pi which would be cool.

man page called up with

man vulture-nethack

Vultures eye

PrBoom – Open source DOOM

Paul Sutton / April 18, 2014 / Comments Off

Prboom is a clone of the ID software doom software, which since being released as open source software has allowed the game to be ported to more platforms and kep

t alive in various forms.

http://prboom.sourceforge.net/

Thus far I have

Got this installed o

n both my main desktop PC and raspberry pi

Copied the main doom wad file to both systems, this did require using sudoi to copy files over.

It was easier to copy to my pi in the following way

copy wad file to home directory on the pi

copy to required location which if you READ the documentation is

/usr/local/share/games/doom/

i have also added an alias in .bash_aliases

alias doom=’prboom’

See my blog post for more info on .bash_aliases

I can now type doom rather than prboom to run the game.

useful other options

prboom -nofullscreen

RELATED HACKING

If you remember the original doom, there was a menu in dos that allowed you to set the various command line options for the game, hit ok and have these passed over when the game is run

prboom also has the same options and a few others

man prboom

I am therefore trying to create a similar mini front end. Having never done this sort of thing before Gordon Henderson has suggested using whiptail for the menu.

Thus far I have

#whiptail –title “Example Dialog” –yesno “This is an example of a yes/no
#box.” 8 78

#exitstatus=$?
#if [ $exitstatus = 0 ]; then
# echo “User selected Yes.”
#else
# echo “User selected No.”
#fi
#
#echo “(Exit status was $exitstatus)”
#
whiptail –title “Check list example” –checklist \
“DOOM OPTIONSs” 20 78 4 \
“respawn” “Respawn Monsters” OFF \
“no monsters” “No Monsters” OFF \
“no sound” “Disable Sound” OFF \
“no music” “Disable Music” OFF \

Which produces the following.

All this does at present is send the choices to standardERR

Category: Uncategorized /

Housekeeping on website

Paul Sutton / April 18, 2014 / Comments Off

I am starting to do some cleaning up on this site. Removing pages that are either replicated elsewhere or are no longer needed. Some pages have been copied / pasted to posts and are scheduled for publication later this evening.

Hopefully get a leaner site as a result.

Category: Site News /

Ubuntu 14.04 out

Paul Sutton / April 17, 2014 / Comments Off

Looks like Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr is out

http://releases.ubuntu.com/14.04/

don’t forget to verify your iso’s with md5sums

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM

Category: ubuntu /

0 AD

Paul Sutton / April 17, 2014 / Comments Off

A free, open-source game of ancient warfare

Quoted from the game website -

“0 A.D. (pronounced “zero-ey-dee”) is a free, open-source, historical Real Time Strategy (RTS) game currently under development by Wildfire Games, a global group of volunteer game developers. As the leader of an ancient civilization, you must gather the resources you need to raise a military force and dominate your enemies.”

internet relay chat (IRC) channel: #0ad on QuakeNet.

Category: Debian, games, Lubuntu, Lubuntu 13.10, xubuntu, xubuntu 13.10 /

Retro Computing

Paul Sutton / April 17, 2014 / Comments Off

OLD SPECTRUM GAMES STILL HAVE SOME APPEAL.

For anyone who wants to go back to the days of tape loading games but doesn’t want the hassle of actually setting up an old computer, World of Spectrum is a very handy resource

You can either install an emulator on your Operating system, Or you can play games in a browser.

Browser spectrum games