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The Software
Like most hardware, without the
appropriate software I would have an interesting
dust collector to put in the basement.
I developed an operating infrastructure
(all right, a computer program) that receives
and acts on the key codes received from the
bird keyboard.
The program:
- Provides a way to map the 5 characters
generated from the hardware (which for a
specific salvaged PC keyboard circuit board,
might be just any 5 printing characters)
to keys numbered 1 to 5
- Provides several modes of operation -
things like
- Any key produces the same sound
and picture
- Each key produces a different
sound and picture
- Each key produces a musical note
- Each key produces a different
geometric shape and the plays the name
of the shape as a sound
- Each key shows a different fruit
and plays the name of the fruit as a
sound
- And so forth
- The ability to auto-start in the current
mode
- A configuration file that preserved the
program settings, options, modes, location
and names of the image and sound files from
execution to execution
- Logging of all information about the
use of the keyboard, either as comma separated
values (CSV) or as tagged data in an extensible
markup language format (XML)
The software provides logging
of program execution details and errors into
a separate logging file. The level of detail
provided in the logging file is controlled by
a value in the configuration file.
The Visual Basic-based program
is provided in an installation package with
sample image and sound files along with a default
configuration.
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