Hello Everyone

@jpgeorgia wrote:

"This year, I played with components that I had never seen, like thermistors (what?)."

They have been around for a long time. I still have a little book 1970 $4.50 on using the component although I have never used one myself. And another little book from the same author and year on voltage dependent resistors.

My first computer was a TRS-80 although I had built a little computer kit you programmed via toggle switches that had red LEDs for output. Now a museum piece where I probably should be as well 🙂
https://oldcomputermuseum.com/mini_scamp.html

@jpgeorgia Sounds like we share a lot of background. I too was educated on tubes, worked at IBM and remember BOS, and TOS that came before DOS (not PC, mainframe). My grandkids range from having a Masters and working several years to not in HS yet.

Welcome to the forum!

@jpgeorgia, Welcome to the forum..As you can see by the responses so far, that there are quite a few of us "ol'timers"on this forum that have some what similar experiences as you.

Yes, I remember when tube theory was taught and transistors were the new thing...lol

My first computer was a TRS80 16K level II with no hard drive as they weren't available yet when I bought it in 1979 the year they first came out..Taught myself GWbasic and assembler, but I was not a programmer, just a hobbyist. I was an electronics tech in the Navy, EWS, (electronic weapons system) and Work in heavy industrial electrical/instrumentation for over 40 years. Lots of programming of PLC's DCS, SLMC's and other "smart instrumentation" for process control and systems automation.

Again, Welcome, and have fun learning the new stuff!

Regards,

LouisR

@robotbuilder Thank you for the greeting. I'm overjoyed that I can have something worthwhile to do with my time. BTW, thermistors were not mentioned anywhere, including books, classes. The FCC exam didn't mention them.

@zander Thanks for saying hello. I was concerned about the website's functionality. I waited 4 days for Bill's response. Plus, many posts were dated 2019, the year COVID began, and I wondered about it.  Oh, I had to look up BOS. Turns out it was one of four operating systems, BOS, BPS, DOS, and TOS. DOS and TOS worked together at the same time. Also, I hated those card readers. I messed up a few cards. I sat at a keypunch machine to make new ones. I got into the habit of getting ahead by transferring a card job to tape while another job was processing. I had to wear a jacket in the computer room, 60-65 degrees F. The system sat in the basement. 8 tape drives, the main computer, a buffer unit, card readers, etc. A lot of steel. The office building's upper floors would have strained or worse.

@jpgeorgia 

Welcome to the forum.  I'm young enough to never have used a tube, but old enough to have the misfortune to use punch cards my Freshman year.  Although, I think they only made freshman use them to weed out the weak of heart.  Some kind of hazing ritual seemed as likely.  🤣  Submit... come back later for your green-bar output.  

My parents bought us kids an Apple II while I was in high-school and my first that I purchased was in graduate school was an 8088 clone rocking a turbo mode of 8MHz.  It came with two 5" / 360K floppies.  😉 I've used every version of Microsoft C  since version 1.0 through all iterations of C++ and C#.  I remember on that computer, booting with a disk of DOS and being able to remove it.  I was using Fortran back then.  I'd have my compiler on one floppy and my editor and program files in the second drive.  After compiling, I'd have to swap the compiler floppy out for the linker floppy.  Ten minutes later, I'd have an executable.  Good times! 😜 I upgraded a year later by adding a 10MB hard disk for $800.  I thought I'd died and gone to heaven being able to build the exe in a minute.  I also thought I'd never fill that thing up!  🤪 

What's piquing your project interests here on the forum?

VBR,

Inq

@inq Thanks for your note. For over a year, I've experimented in isolation with Arduino and other boards under aggravation. My link to the forum will hopefully help to alleviate stress. What causes my problems are Arduino sketches that don't work. The code syntax is okay, but they don't work with the boards. I searched for code on the Internet, and I downloaded more than one book. The books looked okay, but they were edited by non-coders, and authors didn't check the edited versions. Capitalized C++, etc. The result, of course, is more code that doesn't work. I took an online C++ course to catch up on the latest versions of the language. The instruction was given by a well-intentioned but unintelligible instructor. At one time, I had used Microsoft Visual Studio, but that created a mess on my HDD. The software was beyond huge, expensive, and inappropriate for a hobbyist. I had also tried Google's Android IDE. I had wanted to use remote connections. I forgot why I uninstalled it, but I do remember frustration.

Posted by: @jpgeorgia

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At one time, I had used Microsoft Visual Studio, but that created a mess on my HDD. The software was beyond huge, expensive, and inappropriate for a hobbyist. I had also tried Google's Android IDE. I had wanted to use remote connections. I forgot why I uninstalled it, but I do remember frustration.

I had the top versions (Enterprise, Ultimate... etc - They changed the name routinely) of the MSDN license which allowed me to download any Microsoft product.  I had it for about twenty years.  I always used the maxed out version of Visual Studio with all the bells and whistles. 

Yes, it was a pig!  It was like a puking virus.  You install one program and it puts about thirty line items in the Control Panel list of programs.  And cleaning them always felt like task in futility.  It was actually easier to just reinstall Windows and start from scratch.

But... Every time I veered from the Ma Microsoft, it hurt my career.  Retired... I do very little programming with it anymore.  A few engineering programs in my hobbies of choice is about all.  These days... most all is Arduino IDE coding on the ESP8266 or JavaScript for the front-end GUI.  I'm trying to migrate to the ESP32, but haven't succeeded yet.

@jpgeorgia I am sorry to hear you are having so much difficulty. Let me clarify a few points then get you up and running real quick. Perhaps you previously stumbled on some bad advice.

We hardly ever see actual C++ code here, only when creating libraries. I personally am not trained on C++ and want nothing to do with it but have to occasionally read a bit if I am investigating a library or even create the occasional library. Fortunately, we have a few friends here that can help.

You mentioned that Msft Visual Studio was expensive. I have tried it, don't like it but it's free. Bill has a video if you are still interested, just search on PlatformIO in Bill's channel.

Why not start with a simple download of the latest Arduino IDE. I assume you are using Windows so the link is https://downloads.arduino.cc/arduino-ide/arduino-ide_2.1.1_Windows_64bit.exe

The docs have Windows-specific instructions, but I never read them. Just did the download and dbl click, and it's been working ever since.

I am using a Mac, and my Windows and Raspberry Pi are not hooked up yet.

Somewhere during the installation of the IDE, a device driver should have been installed. If not, I can't help.

Now try the built-in examples, start with the Blink sketch. IF that does NOT work, get back to us, but start a new Topic in the appropriate Forum/Sub-forum, I think we are done with the introduction topic.

@zander 

Maybe I miss-read his post.  I got the impression he's working fine with well established programs.  It sounded like he was just having troubles with Internet snippets of code that were not working. 

You have given @jpgeorgia sound advice and I'd second it... even though I've got 40 years with Microsoft's Visual Studio (and its predecessors) and C/C++/C#, I have never considered using it for Arduino programming.  I know it can, but why would one want to use that when 99% of the Internet knowledge base uses the Arduino IDE.  I wouldn't want to waste my time translating advice given into what VS can provide.  Same thing goes for PlatformIO, Atom.io, Eclipse, etc.  I personally, would skip helping a poster if they're having setup issues with one of these environments.  The mainstream Arduino IDE certainly has many limitations, but it is the mainstream.  Also as you and I have been on one thread where the PlatformIO libraries available were years old and the issue came down to the newest working on your box wasn't on his because it was old.  The Arduino IDE libraries will be up to date.

@inq One of the 'benefits' of PlatformIO/VS is optional libraries at the project level. That would have been handy for InqPortal when you had the patch, but other than that (and an esp32cam issue) it is usually overkill. My suspicion and I apologize for not testing it, is that PlatformIO/VS is not checking for library updates  like the ArduinoIDE does. Unless I am mistaken, the non project libraries are shared between PlatformIO/VS and ArduinoIDE so it is puzzling why the fancy/complicated IDE does NOT check for updates the way the ArdioinoIDE does.

I too used all those fancy tools as a professional many moons ago, but now I am old, out of practice almost 20 years now and have yet to need anything more than Serial.println or the MQTT equivalent for debugging. All/most of the other features have been addressed in the ArduinoIDE 2.x.x version so the need for PlatformIO/VS is almost zero.