Presenting Bitlash, a command shell for Arduino

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Exhibition
1

Hello:

Good day to all, and thanks for the many contributions which built this environment. What a pleasure it is to work with good tools.

Offered for your consideration is Bitlash, a command line shell for the Arduino serial port. I have found it useful here, and perhaps it will be useful for you, too.

Bitlash is an Arduino sketch; it runs on Arduino and interprets commands that you type in a terminal window:

print("hello, world", 2+2, 1<<3, a++==0)
hello, world 4 8 1

The standard Blink13 example is a one-liner in bitlash: the "while" command repeats the command while the test expression is true:

while 1: d13=!d13; delay(100)
^C

Bitlash is intended for those occasions when you need to bang some bits but writing a full Arduino sketch is overkill. But you can write simple apps in it. The command set includes most of the Arduino C functions. You can store compound commands in EEPROM as macros. Macros can call other macros. Infernal machines can be built.

Download, Doc, FAQ and Code Zoo can be found at: http://bitlash.net

I would welcome your feedback.

Cheers,

-br

2

Hello

Let me say thanks for the work that you have done. I like the concept as I think it would be useful for teaching beginners.

If I can propose a change is to have a version where the commands match the arduino statements. This would make this pefect for beginners to learn.

Good job

massimo

3

Hello, Massimo:

Thank you so much for your kind words, and your excellent suggestion.

I would appreciate your feedback on the improvements in compatibility in version 0.6
of Bitlash, which I have just made available.

I hope you will not mind if I paste the release notes here so that the thread stays intact.

My best regards,

-br

Bitlash 0.6 release highlights:

  • BACKGROUND MACROS and the run, stop, and ps commands, and snooze() for multi-tasking
    Bitlash can run up to 8 macros in the background
    while you work in the foreground at the command prompt.

  • COMPATIBILITY IMPROVEMENTS: Function names adjusted for better Arduino compatibility:
    Several names were changed to protect the innocent
    (beginners, at Massimo's suggestion - Thanks, Massimo!)

  • CUSTOM PROMPT MACRO: If there is a macro named 'prompt' it is run in place of
    printing the '>'. You can show the temperature, countdown, whatever you can measure.

Download link: http://bitlash.net/downloads/bitlash-0.6f.tgz
Bitlash home: http://bitlash.net