Mockband + big builder

content/blog/2023/10-27-big-builder/index.md

@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ title: Big Builder
 date: 2023-10-27
 tags:
   - computers
+  - ci/cd
 ---
 
 I finally set up CI/CD with Forgejo/Gitea.

content/blog/2024/01-05-big-builder-arduino/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
+---
+title: "Arduino, Big Builder, and Make"
+date: 2024-01-05
+tags:
+  - computers
+  - ci/cd
+---
+
+Last night,
+I got Big Builder building Arduino sketches.
+
+Big Builder is my Continuous Integration / Continuious Development (ci/cd)
+solution for forgejo/gitea.
+It's nothing revolutionary,
+it's just a container with a bunch of pre-installed software,
+and the gitea `act_runner` with a configuration to *not* try and use docker.
+This means my builds are pretty quick,
+and my network use is very low,
+since I already have the tools I need to build stuff,
+and don't have to download mulitple OS images every time I do a build.
+
+## Automating embedded systems builds
+
+Arduino, it turns out,
+has been including command-line build tools for a long time now.
+Since I'm using Debian's Arduino package,
+I get the older, poorly-documented `arduino-builder`.
+But the newer `arduino-cli` has better documentation,
+that helped me understand how to use the older command.
+
+Using `arduino-builder` lets me keep the source code structured
+in a way that makes sense to amateur developers:
+they can just load it up in the IDE and not worry about my automation.
+But it also lets me automate builds on my forgejo server,
+and use the command-line to build everything,
+the way I've been doing since the 80s.
+
+Here's what I wound up with,
+to build a Leonardo image:
+
+```sh
+mkdir -p build/cache
+arduino-builder \
+  -build-path $(pwd)/build/ \
+  -build-cache $(pwd)/build/cache/ \
+  -fqbn arduino:avr:leonardo \
+  -hardware /usr/share/arduino/hardware/ \
+  -tools /usr/share/arduino/tools/ \
+  -compile MockBand.ino
+```
+
+This results in `build/MockBand.ino.hex`,
+which can then be given to `avrdude` to flash my board.
+Easy!
+
+----
+
+For the mockband project,
+I also needed to specify a custom USB VID/PID and a CPP definition.
+After reading a lot of forums posts and code,
+I discovered I could easily do this with `arduino-builder`,
+with the `-prefs=` flag.
+This allows you to override settings in `boards.txt`,
+which is apparently what Arduino uses to build a gcc flags list.
+
+Here's a trimmed-down version of what I implemented:
+
+```sh
+mkdir -p build/cache
+arduino-builder \
+  -build-path $(pwd)/build/ \
+  -build-cache $(pwd)/build/cache/ \
+  -fqbn arduino:avr:leonardo \
+  -hardware /usr/share/arduino/hardware/ \
+  -tools /usr/share/arduino/tools/ \
+  -prefs="build.extra_flags=-DUSB_VID=0x1bad -DUSB_PID=0x0004 -DCDC_DISABLED" \
+  -compile MockBand.ino
+```
+
+---
+
+My final step was to write a `Makefile` to do all this.
+Since the build step is just one (long) command,
+and the `-prefs` could easily use per-target variables,
+`make` was an obvious tool.
+Adding a target to run `avrdude` was simple enough, too.
+
+I no longer need the Arduino IDE at all,
+but the project still works with it!
+
+The result was a
+[Makefile](https://git.woozle.org/neale/mockband/src/commit/63bd0672500631b8c47f24f041693e642ab32533/Makefile)
+which can compile, flash, and package
+all three variants of the build.
+It's 43 lines long,
+including blank lines.
+

content/blog/2024/01-15-state-of-homebuilt-rock-band-drums/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+---
+title: The State of Homebuilt Rock Band Drums
+date: 2024-01-15
+tags:
+  - rockband
+---
+
+There are currently at least four efforts to get a working Rock Band drum kit:
+
+## Mad Catz (mature)
+
+Based on the vendor ID sent by the USB devices,
+I think Mad Catz is the company that made most of the
+officially licensed Rock Band instruments.
+They're still selling something that takes MIDI input,
+and outputs signals to look like a Rock Band 2 drum kit.
+
+The converter plus a decent entry-level kit will cost about $500,
+and probably provides a very nice feel.
+You can also use the drums by themselves or as a MIDI controller.
+
+
+## Mockband Drums (stable)
+
+![mockband drums and guitars](mockband.jpg)
+
+Using a $33 drum toy from Amazon ($25 on sale),
+you can build a tabletop drum kit.
+I've been playing on it for the last month
+and the experience is comparable to the Rock Band 1 kit I had 10 years ago.
+It's okay, but not fantastic.
+
+This requires some soldering,
+but all the development is done.
+If you're crafty,
+you can probably have this working in an afternoon.
+
+https://git.woozle.org/neale/mockband
+
+
+## Polybar Drum Kit (in development)
+
+Some of the polybar people are working on a from-scratch 3d printed drum kit.
+So far it seems they're trying to use piezos to read drum hits,
+which could mean it will send some kind of velocity information.
+Although probably not super accurate,
+and I haven't yet seen a game that uses it,
+this would be closer to the official Rock Band drum kit.
+When it's closer to finished,
+it will probably use the santroller firmware
+(see below).
+
+As far as I know,
+all development on this is happening on Discord,
+so there's no URL to add here.
+
+
+## Santroller (stable?)
+
+Sanjay9000,
+the person who was made a very nice packaged version of a Rock Band guitar controller firmware,
+has released a new firmware that claims to support drums as well.
+This is made to replace the firmware in an official Rock Band drum kit,
+but will probably be what the Polybar effort uses,
+because so much effort has been put into making the firmware easy to set up.
+
+https://santroller.tangentmc.net/