Re: Raspberry Pi SenseHAT / AstroPi

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On 2018-01-23 22:30, slos wrote:

> Of course since the HAT connector provides only signals like GPIO,
> I2C, SPI, UART, you can connect whatever you want to it.
Well, usually we use BeagleBone which has that already and more, e.g. 
CAN. But the problem is that a bit different stuff is needed, in 
automation, at least: a few A/D and D/A converters, minimally 16-bit, 
independently sampled, with an optocoupler, some for PT100, an 
incremental encoder or a frequency meter.

> Why would you need root privileges to run a C library ? > You have to set the proper rights to a user or group and that should 
suffice.

That could work if internals of the library is known, e.g. all things it 
accesses and all ways it uses. Finding all these and experimenting might 
take a lot of time. When there is a proper driver it is just one place 
to fix.

>> What for? If you say that there is a C library, you can call it directly
>> from Ada.
> No, I said there is a C++ library and a Python binding on top.
> Actually the Python library uses the C++ library for some sensors and devices directly for joystick and framebuffer.

Is the library documented? Then there is no problem. Python does not 
have anything what Ada does not have already. Surely Ada's C++ interface 
is a bit daring, but Python has none of that sort. My guess is that all 
interface is plain C.

> It could allow some people interested in Ada language to play on an inexpensive target. Is it useless ?
> The Raspberry Pi was designed exactly for that purpose. Teaching and experiments for anyone interested in.

Yes, but that would not pay salaries, unfortunately.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de