Tony is a Geek

Small. [tick]  Not internet connected. [tick] Not slurping your data. [tick] Not owned by global Tech company selling your data. [tick]  Made by people you know and trust. [tick] Welcome to the NICLA VOICE : (and yes, of course I'm signed up to get one when they become available!) Funny thing - when I first ever went to the web-page I read that as [subscribe to the WANTING list] Now, NICLA VISION is what most people would have been aware of in the past, but this new board is amazing (potentially) I won't bother repeating more, however GO VISIT HERE for the latest information and to know more. UPDATE: I have just noticed this device for sale - SU-03T offline opensource voice recognition Official WEBSITE Amazon (yes, there are cheaper one's from £8-£13) Okay, so it might be a bit more RAW than the above device, it does however have a lower price entry, it's open and it can be used in a lot more flexible scenarios (according to things I've read). For (est)£10 it migh

What was the question? Basically, the latest tech. companies use you as the user as the product - yes, everyone knows that - however, they wrap it up, they put you into a nice walled garden where you feel it's okay to keep popping in and out and you know, the app is where all the "other people are"... so you kind of have to go there, don't you... and well, if it costs you a bit of invisible data, what's the harm? I'll just leave this here: Now, there's not a lot we can do about companies like facebook - they provide a distraction service, where they crave you attention span.  The young'ens can replace facebook with TikTok or whatever fad is currently doing the rounds.  As we know the Gen Z-ers have an attention span of a gnat - they probably wouldn't have read this far before going off and checking something else that notified them that something else was far more important and needs their sole focus and attention for the next 60 seconds...before..

Following on from my previous post about PICO, VGA and using the PICO DEMO board .... I had concluded that I was able to use the pico demo board to get a VGA output - awesome! I had concluded that I was able to build the MCUME emulator code and that it was failing to read the SDCard.....with a "Card not ready yet" error message (3). As I'm a stubborn old-git, I refused to let something like a simple error message prevent me from proceeding. I tried a few more things, even use a bit of MicroPython in an attempt to read the card - that failed too. However, I then noticed on the website for the product that it states: Please note that VGA Demo Base only currently works with the C/C++ Pico SDK! At which point I did a Homer Simpson and face-palmed my forehead. Okay, time to get blowing off the C code cobwebs properly then.... I then tried a few variants of other people C code and found that didn't work either. I kept coming back to the PIN diagram: and the reference from

Okay, not that one.... How am I only finding out about this now? Yes, you can opt. for MicroPython, if that's your thing... and there are lots of "extra" IoT components that you can add too. I added the SDCard and ILI9341 components to the screen above - you can then link them up to the GPIO pins. You can then write the C code, as you would normally.... and then you can execute the code and DEBUG it normally. This is quite an interesting concept - I am not sure exactly how many times you can re-flash the actual PICO, but it will have a shelf life... and I reckon over the past 2 weeks, I've probably flashed mine about 500 times!  Obviously, this won't replace the need for actual device testing - but, it will help reduce the code / test / debug / get it right cycle and then once happy then extract out. Yes, it also won't cater for custom hardware either - but I do believe it does allow you to upload your existing code / libraries and will include them - I need t