When you’re on the lookout for a enjoyable approach to tweet with a Raspberry Pi and have an affinity for old-school {hardware}, look no additional than this intelligent Psion 5MX-driven Pi mission created by maker and developer Kian Ryan. Utilizing a serial connection and a little bit little bit of tinkering, he’s managed to function a Raspberry Pi Zero and ship tweets to Twitter utilizing the basic Psion 5MX PDA from the late Nineties.
Whats up, this can be a tweet from a Psion 5MX (lastly) at #emfcamp with a little bit assist from a Pi and Rainbowstream.June 5, 2022
It doesn’t take a lot energy to function each the Psion 5MX or the Pi Zero, with the previous working for fairly some time utilizing nothing greater than a few AA batteries. Placing the 2 collectively simply is sensible as a low-power system with a contemporary twist and nice potential for portability.
Ryan has a historical past of working with microelectronics and 3D printing as evident by his catalog of previous initiatives on his web site. These initiatives are backed up along with his expertise as a contract software program engineer and advisor. Examples of his endeavors embody issues like this glowing cranium printed with recycled filament and this touch-operated evening gentle.
As talked about above, the Pi communicates with the Psion 5MX utilizing a serial connection. That is made doable utilizing an RS232 adapter. The precise GPIO configuration is clarified in larger element on Ryan’s weblog, however it appears that evidently it requires a bit of labor to get totally arrange.
Digging into the software program is the place the mission will get actually fascinating. In response to Ryan, he’s utilizing the Hermes terminal program and referenced an archived hyperlink from the Wayback machine as his important useful resource. With every thing put collectively, the Psion 5MX boots into the Raspberry Pi terminal, with the interface clearly displayed on the previous display. We’re actually scratching the floor right here and extremely suggest any events delve into the mission particulars for a deeper understanding of how this mission operates because it took numerous work and analysis on Ryan’s half to tug off.
If you wish to recreate this Raspberry Pi mission your self or simply see the way it works, take a look at the Raspberry Pi Psion 5MX mission web page on his weblog and be sure you observe Kian Ryan for extra inventive developments sooner or later.
