Blinky programmer: raw mode and debug mode

This blog post is a short introduction to a pair of useful modes of operation for the Blinky Programmer webpage.

The standard Blinky Programmer webpage is a decent way to interactively create and program new messages into a Blinky Grid or Blinky POV kit. However, there are two main requests that we’ve received for new functionality for the programmer:

1. “How can I restore the original messages that were on the Blinky kit?”
2. “Is there any way I can save and restore the messages that I set up in the programmer webpage?”

Now, we have a way to do both of these!

First, a little background. The programmer webpage converts the messages that are created using the visual interface into a series of numbers, that are then optically transmitted to the Blinky kit. Details of the message formatting and transmission are available here.

The enhancements we’ve added are two-fold: First, we added a way to see “under the hood” of the blinky programmer webpage, so you can see the underlying data stream that is generated from the visual editor. This is a debug mode, enabled by adding “?debug” to the end of the website address, like this: https://www.wayneandlayne.com/blinky_programmer/?debug

When the debug mode is enabled, a few new text boxes appear at the bottom of the page. These boxes are initially blank, but are populated as soon as you press the Go button. The first two boxes show the raw message data as a series of bytes, separated by columns (first box is decimal, second box is hex). These are the bytes that we want to store into the Blinky kit (first byte indicates how many messages are included, followed by the bytes of each message in turn). The second set of boxes show the “packaged” data to transmit (“xmit”), which surrounds the message data with some meta-data about where the message data should go inside the chip, and adds a checksum to protect against transmission mistakes (basically, we are packing the message data into the Intel HEX file format. The final text box shows the raw binary equivalent of the packed xmit data, which is the string of ones and zeros that are actually flashed out by the webpage. The most useful box here is the “message_data:” text box.

The second enhancement is a new version of the Blinky programmer webpage that enables “raw” programming. The new raw programmer is located here: https://www.wayneandlayne.com/blinky_programmer/raw.php. “Raw” simply means that instead of using the visual editor to create text-based or pixel-based messages, you can simply type-in or copy-paste the message data into a text box, which will then be transmitted. This enables restoring the original set of messages, as well as being able to save your creations (by copying the contents of the “message_data” text box) and then pasting it into the raw programmer.

Back to the list of requested features, this time with some answers!

1. “How can I restore the original messages that were on the Blinky kit?”

Easy to do:

1. Go to the raw programmer webpage.
2. Copy-paste one of these long lists of numbers into the upper text field:
   POV:
   6, 145, 16, 24, 60, 62, 31, 62, 60, 24, 0, 96, 240, 248, 124, 248, 240, 96, 00, 33, 10, 11, 21, 18, 23, 20, 34, 41, 25, 24, 31, 145, 14, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 17, 7, 17, 14, 21, 21, 24, 41, 41, 253, 14, 170, 85, 170, 85, 170, 85, 170, 85, 170, 85, 170, 85, 170, 85, 211, 01, 170
   Grid:
   8, 230, 14, 170, 85, 170, 85, 170, 85, 170, 85, 170, 85, 170, 85, 170, 85, 10, 11, 17, 14, 21, 21, 24, 41, 32, 24, 27, 21, 13, 234, 7, 4, 98, 97, 9, 97, 98, 4, 10, 11, 32, 10, 34, 23, 14, 38, 21, 10, 34, 23, 14, 222, 14, 48, 72, 68, 34, 68, 72, 48, 48, 120, 124, 62, 124, 120, 48, 10, 34, 11, 21, 18, 23, 20, 34, 41, 16, 27, 18, 13, 41, 18, 28, 41, 10, 41, 28, 22, 10, 27, 29, 41, 21, 14, 13, 41, 22, 10, 29, 27, 18, 33, 37, 10, 40, 11, 21, 18, 23, 20, 34, 41, 16, 27, 18, 13, 41, 32, 10, 28, 41, 22, 10, 13, 14, 41, 11, 34, 41, 32, 10, 34, 23, 14, 41, 10, 23, 13, 41, 21, 10, 34, 23, 14, 37, 10, 60, 11, 21, 18, 23, 20, 34, 41, 16, 27, 18, 13, 41, 18, 28, 41, 27, 14, 25, 27, 24, 16, 27, 10, 22, 22, 14, 13, 41, 11, 34, 41, 17, 24, 21, 13, 18, 23, 16, 41, 18, 29, 41, 30, 25, 41, 29, 24, 41, 34, 24, 30, 27, 41, 28, 12, 27, 14, 14, 23, 37
3. Scroll down and press the Go button to begin transmission.

2. “Is there any way I can save and restore the messages that I set up in the programmer webpage?”

Definitely possible:

1. Using the normal Blinky Programmer webpage, but add “?debug” to the end of the address, like this: https://www.wayneandlayne.com/blinky_programmer/?debug
2. Create your text-based or pixel-based messages like normal. Transmit them into your Blinky kit to double-check that the message is correct.
3. Select all the text in the “message_data” text box and copy-paste it into a separate document on your computer that you can save and access later.
4. When you’re ready to program one of your old saved messages, go to the raw programmer webpage.
5. Copy-paste one of your saved messages into the upper text box.
6. Scroll down and press the Go button to begin transmission.

Hope that helps! If you have any questions, please ask in the forum or contact us.