Use C++ to Blink an LED on a Raspberry Pi in Under 5 Minutes!

[@wolflarson100]

Man I wish I was ten years old and found you. I gave up my “IT” / “programming “ career at age 19 having a hard time with the calculus. While I have been fine, just realize how much I enjoyed that time. Bless you - this seems sort of a “giving back” so keep it up!

[@bobDotJS]

I don't know how old you are now but I changed careers and became a software engineer at 29 after dropping out of CS twice at 18 and 19

[@DMS20231]

@@wolflarson100 I’ve been coding since the early 90s and never once have I needed calculus. I’ve used a little trig and geometry before but nothing anyone couldn’t figure out.

[@toby9999]

​​@@bobDotJSI switched from an engineering background into software development at age 39. Before that, coding was just a hobby. To achieve that, I went to university and completed a Bachelor's degree in computer science in my mid 30's.

[@larrysmall3521]

I also had trouble with calculus but I managed to spend over 40 years in electronics and programming. After I retired, I found out that the best calculus lessons were right here on KZbin. I wish that it had existed when I needed it. I worked in the controls industry and I actually used calculus once or twice with PID control loops. Fortunately, I had some great people on my team to help me through the rough spots.

[@RamonInNZ]

There's no reason why not to restart as a hobby on the Raspberry Pi (that was what it was designed for in 2011 - to tech UK children coding) and have fun at it while being older - i work and play (home) with RPis at almost 60 years old!

[@wasdaletimelapse7658]

It is definitely comforting to see that even a seasoned professional like you still makes mistakes at such a basic level. It gives me confidence in my own very basic abilities. Thanks for sharing, and yes these short videos are great. Lets try and get back to some more addressable LED stuff.

[@kajyakuzonik9130]

It's not so much about not making errors, but the ability to spot them more or less immediately because you've done them a million times by this point xD

[@meneerjansen00]

Hey, that's what I thought too! :)

[@johnpearcey]

Typos are a way of life, no matter what your history.

[@andymilstead5745]

Man, I love this! Even love how you left the mistakes in there and included tracking them down and fixing them as part of the video. Even a 5 minute video! I certainly cast my vote for more of these. So, so many tutorial type videos are horribly inefficient with either lots of dead air or constant jokes/silliness that distract from the main learning objective.

[@ut4321]

Exactly! I saw the void/int problem coming. Dave addressed it out loud and onscreen, rather than it magically being fixed in the next cut. This helps youngsters (and oldsters like me!) learn and remember that mistakes are PART of the creative process.

[@xero110]

Definitely do more of these. I have list of small projects on YT that I go to when I get board just to play around with. Simple cheap little things to just spend a lazy Sunday playing and tweaking around with.

[@martyb3783]

I like this format. I also like your longer format. Very interesting video!

[@josefmazzeo6628]

Dave - AWESOME! Yes, definitely do more of these between your usual vlogs! I like how you kept it real with on the fly debugging and typos. My C++ routine returns a "high five" ! 👏

[@KeithCooper-Albuquerque]

I loved this video! As an old C++/UNIX/LINUX programmer, this brought back fond memories. I think I'll fire up my Linux box and run VI!

[@oliverw.douglas285]

32-years ago, while attending our local community college, I had the joy of revisiting traditional Basic, before migrating to Assembly (via Masm), C++, & even a little Fortran. My original experience with Basic started back in the early 1980's with Commodore PETS. Our Grade School eventually upgrade to VIC-20's, then 64's, & finally 128's. Fun experiences to be sure.

[@delugeia]

Short or long format, I love it when you code live! Your ESP32 addressable LED series is what hooked me on your channel and started me on my favorite hobby.

[@mikemcculley]

I love the colors, fonts, and effects on the terminal.

[@tanakaobi]

Gives me Avalon vibes.

[@BerndFelsche]

Amber TTY is definitely a respectable quality. Worth the extra bucks if available on a CRT.

[@mikemcculley]

Does anyone even know where to begin to try to emulate _pun intended_ Dave's set up here. Looks like some terminal application on a Mac. But then what? The font? The ghosting effect? Where are these coming from? Which applications' settings are responsible?

[@CurrentlyObsessively]

​@@mikemcculleyLooks like a CRT theme for nano. This is a terminal emulator on the rpi. My guess is he just grabbed the individual screen with video editing software.

[@meneerjansen00]

The program is called _Cool retro term_ in Linux. ;)

[@ut4321]

1. No BS on this channel - right into the code! Makes me want to set this up and write the same program in C with printf, etc., like I did 40 years ago! 2. I need to see if Dave has a “how to install a Linux-ish OS on a Raspberry Pi in 5 minutes” video… 3. Do you guys see the simulated amber CRT scan lines on his terminal? SO COOL! 4. Would love the follow-up to show us the EASY way to use Visual Studio Code and SSH - that sounds like an AWESOME combo. Amazing - having a little itty bitty Arduino acting as the SERVER to a 4GHz modern client workstation. Loving this! Thank, you Dave for producing this content, sir.

[@meneerjansen00]

For me as an amateur/hobbyist in my fifties starting w/ C programming it was very encouraging to see that even a very seasoned programmer like you made mistakes and typo's in his code. You appeared not be be impressed or discouraged by error messages. Instead you seemed to be familiar with encountering them and handled them as if it was nothing special. Everybody makes mistakes. Keep these short programming sessions coming!

[@ibewatchinu]

Never got into C++ on the Pi, now I know what I'm doing this weekend.

[@BryanTorok]

I like the short form content. But, in your case even your longer videos are just fine because you move right along and rarely repeat yourself. I really dislike the people who start out disorganized, not knowing what they're gonna talk about, fumble around, and then end up retreading the same ground several times. I usually click away from those before they finish.

[@brandonboschx]

I hope this gets a lot of views. I would love to see more of this!

[@swedishpsychopath8795]

This short format wasn't half bad. You even left in the typos, which is good so both you and the viewers can feel human. Is the c++ compiler installed by default on the raspberry?

[@DavesGarage]

Yes. First thing I did was "sudo apt install build-essential" but it was already installed.

[@jakobsaternus3526]

He's using the default Raspberry Pi installation.

[@RamonInNZ]

Definitely passing onto my Raspberry Pi newbie students at the university I work at as a teaser and intro to 'C' on the RPi - thanks Dave!

[@josefmazzeo6628]

Love the retro atmosphere down to the clickety clack of the "IBM keyboard". It reminds me of my first job out of college in the late 1980s. Our first PCs we got in the office had monochrome amber screens (some had green)....so retro! I used my first graphics program on Windows 2.0 on an amber screen - when we went to full color a year later it felt so luxurious.

[@diynevala]

Massive respect for using nano!

[@matt_b...]

Direct, to the point, informative.... what's this doing on KZbin?? :-)

[@josemachado7830]

Love that terminal. Reminds me of my first display, an amber Samsung 12" monitor that was connected to a Hercules/CGA videoboard at the time.

[@meneerjansen00]

It's called 'Cool retro term' in Linux. ;)

[@dbadev]

This brought me back to my C++ coding experiments. Really enjoyed watching how quickly you type and the orange text reminded me of using VT100 terminals! Nice job! I like both formats Dave and the depth of knowledge you share!

[@daemon_zero]

I like the format. It's short, practical, and beginner friendly. If you'd like a suggestion, do more of these! P.s.: I was already a subscriber and would continue to be anyway. Most the time I hope to understand your content, but this one I was able to from top to bottom.

[@yce1234]

Love the terminal session effects! I need to find that now. Brings back old memories. Thanks!

[@robcfg]

Nice format and nice tutorial! Also love your use of cool-retro-term, it looks awesome! :D

[@nathan_codes]

Awesome vid Dave! Most raspi beginners would prob see such an example in Python, so it'd be an interesting foray for someone to use C++ with the hardware if they've never done so. My only issue is with the use of the additional breakout board, you may want to link to where someone could buy one or show how yours is connected, or include links to additional wiring diagrams to prevent any confusion with the physical components. Otherwise, keep up the great work!

[@AerialWaviator]

Nice format. Like the mix of software and hardware in short byte-size videos. So many experiments and lessons possible, that could lead to a resourceful playlist over time.

[@dgpsf]

Really cool! I appreciate the encouragement to not be afraid to try C++ - although I tried it as a teen, and found it kind of overwhelming coming from BASIC, this is the perfect demo to make the case that it’s possible for even a beginner to do something useful in C++!

[@rexjuggler19]

Liked very much. My daughter is building a raven animatronic kit with servos and i wanted to use c++ with a raspi. This provides a great start. She wanted me to assist with the coding part. Thanks!

[@prunoki1]

I like this format better. It is kinda inspiring and it encourages me to go back to this kind of programming if needed. I am an electrical engineer with a commodore 64 background (assembly) who lives in databases and business software now.

[@jasonwilliammerrill]

great channel! I got into computers during the 386sx era in the late 80’s and love hearing all about the 3.1 and 95 era

[@davideyres955]

Dave!!! Legend for using the colours on the screen. Just like the old plasma CRTs screens we used to have back in the 80. Takes me back.

[@brandyballoon]

Plasma?

[@properjob2311]

it must be a display effect of the mac terminal app he is using

[@AerialWaviator]

@@brandyballoon CRT. It was common for 1980's CRTs to come with either green, or amber phosphor .. essentially a black/white TV with a color filter, instead of white.

[@brandyballoon]

@@AerialWaviator I'm familiar with CRTs and how they work, but "plasma CRT" is not something I've heard of. Maybe they meant to say phosphor instead of plasma.

[@AerialWaviator]

Not sure if there were plasma monitors, but large-screen plasma TVs existed, pre-LCD, pre-LED. There were expensive and seen as offering brighter display vs. projection TV systems. (a tech with a short lifecycle)

[@TrollingAround]

Hi Dave, Love the addition of the shorter format. Keep it coming. Thanks.

[@g-whiz286]

I like the shorter format. After more than about 10 minutes of you, my eyes glaze over and I just can't absorb your knowledge at that pace. This was much better.

[@SilasTheSilent]

I love your terminal glow, it's so warm

[@carmelweston1041]

Awesome Dave, we are still learning coding. The over the shoulder format is easy to be at peace with. Thank you.

[@igortumbas2769]

Oh man! The last line of C++ I wrote would have been in 1999! Thanks for re-introducing me to this wonderful programming language!

[@saadyamin]

This is good I also like the longer format and your style of presentation. Your new uploads are a welcome sight in my feed.

[@Dr.GeoDave]

Enjoyed the short, purpose-focused video. I like to be reminded that I could still write code to some degree if the need were to arise.

[@CosmicBrain21]

I knew how to do this already but I just actually enjoy how you present your videos.

[@gica1990]

the format is nice, it could fit in a playlist of shorts in IOT or something like this

[@OldePhart]

This is my favorite kind of content. Its about time for the Christmas lights so the ESP will be making another appearance.

[@kungfuteabag]

Love the short format and simple text editor!

[@Ranchhand323]

Runnin' " Fast & Loose " ; livin' dangerously ; my hero !

[@stevethecavalry]

Love it - think you should do a mini series on programming the raspberry pi in this format

[@sleeepey]

I love this, especially including the typos mistakes

[@hhlavacs]

Nice, great to see this for my raspi projects.

[@Gutebring]

I think this is were it clicked for me. You have no idea how much that means to me. Thanks!

[@guidichris]

Love your channel. Good to see even wizards make typos.

[@smileychess]

I felt like a genius for noticing it right away. I didn't understand most of the rest of it, but we won't worry about that little fact.

[@horoholo1525]

feels like the “level” after Hello World, challenging but not overwhelming.. just complex enough to fuel daydreams, thank you, I needed this.

[@ahmad-murery]

I really would like to see more programing (retro/retro-style) videos Thanks Dave!

[@rezdm]

Heh, Dave, can you share your terminal settings -- looks retro-cool . Thanks

[@skf957]

Wow, that looked an easy setup. A few years ago | gave up on C++ on the Pi due almost entirely to the complexities and vague nature of the tool-chain. Great video that should hook others in where I gave up - albeit after giving it a GOOD CRACK.

[@jyvben1520]

github page has links to other programming languages that can use wiringpi, one of those might interest you more ! see link under video

[@r7boatguy]

5 minutes is great! So good to see braces used correctly, instead of opening at the end of a line. And the clicky keyboard, reminds me of my 3270 days 🙂

[@fensoxx]

No way man.. end of line or die! 😅 Edit: The following indent keeps it readable and the lack of the extra carriage return is compact…imho

[@rsdandy]

Thanks for the video. Great to see real world work.

[@jokelot5221]

Last night i coded a telegraphy beeper with a single LED blinking in sequences and beeping sounds. I used a gpio library and i imported 2 .wav files for a dot been and a line beep. Cool stuff. I made it for my dad in Python on a Pi, he is an old telegraphist so i did it for fun to see his reaction and i was curious to see can he recognize morse code when its really fast. He still got it 😁

[@meatpockets]

I need one of these tied into MS Teams. I hate that I get bombarded with notifications every time a single word or sentence is muttered by someone. 1 notification a minute would be a life saver.

[@TheNinjaMarmot]

Thanks! I like these. Reminds me of those projects in those computer mags.

[@newmonengineering]

We all make typos! Even the best of us. Thanks for keeping it real.

[@cougar-town]

This is fun and interesting. I want to see more of these Raspberry Pi small projects, they are very cool. Maybe next time, you could find a use case for these blinking LED lights or something along those lines. For example like a motion detection software, or trigger it based on events that happens in the computer on Windows, for example when receiving mail or when there's a alert on the screen. That could be fun and interesting.

[@jyvben1520]

but only interesting for windows users ... and it does not use external hardware which is the point of wiringpi, would be very complex.

[@clifffiftytwo]

Lotsa fun, easy to follow, practical- thanks!

[@gregebert5544]

Hooray...another wiringPi user !! I use it in all of my RasPi projects.

[@davepompea]

So this is great. However, for us people new to a Pi we need to know: 1. What (O/S) image did you flash to the SD card to even be able to boot / get a prompt. 2. What library's / updates did you download / install (and how to do that). 3. Explain the G++ compile line parameters. 4. Actual hardware pin # vs code pin #, if different. Thanks!

[@nickbeiser7176]

Very cool! Keep these coming please!

[@gedgicat2063]

Great little LED video, haven't seen one of those for a while 👍. Love the custom MAC terminal interface too.

[@DMS20231]

Nice video. I wouldn’t worry about the resistor with a blue LED. Most of them have a forward voltage of 3.2 to 3.4 V. Sometimes you can’t even get them to light at 3.3 V.

[@perwestermark8920]

But switch to red, and it can get a bit toasty since they normally need 1.6 - 1.8 V. So a bit of excess voltage needs to be dropped somewhere. And a bit sad to have the processor output pin have to sag down.

[@MonteVanNortwick]

good way to learn programming with positive feedback

[@pokéman9924]

great to see another nano guy vi and vim are hectic

[@beezie64]

Thanks for my first C++ lesson!

[@MrAlFuture]

This was cool! Thanks, Dave. I'd love to see more little quick fire things like this one. Glad to see constexpr being used instead of ugly, old-skool preprocessor stuff too.

[@ShawnWrona]

Hello, Dave! After watching this the other day, I was inspired to finally start learning how to program c++ for the 2 arduino boards I have purchased, past the blinking light. What would you suggest as far as books or tutorials to learn to code as a complete “n00b” to coding? I prefer books, but I also prefer to listen to people who know what they are doing (you… OBVIOUSLY!😂) If you so happen to read this, thank you!

[@larrypriest5789]

Noted the groovy colour scheme on you nano... Thanks a lot for the rabbit hole See you in the next one.

[@thelastgeneration102]

Thanks, Dave. You are straight to the point, and fun. 🙂

[@richardbrobeck2384]

Great video Dave !

[@rweaver6]

Short & sweet, it's a keeper, thanks! PS: I LOVE BARE METAL!!!

[@JakePomperada]

Thank you Dave for this video

[@donald1w12]

Love this more of these, especially with Raspberry Pi’s

[@dougall1687]

Just for historical context, you could do this in Basic on a BBC Microcomputer back in 1981 using only a couple of lines of code. The first line would set the user port to output mode, the second would set which bits output a voltage so that attached LEDs would light up as desired. Now the PI is massively more capable machine, but few modern machines can embarrass the model B in terms of flexibility.

[@greenrocket23]

I really like this sort of project videos

[@gregclare]

Nice quick video. But it always amuses me how these days we use a powerful quad-core processor and a high-level object-orientated capable compiled language, to blink an LED. In the old days we used a 555 timer. I guess our good-ole 555 timer is a bit under-powered these days, when it comes to the complex task of blinking an LED. 🤓

[@guilherme5094]

Yes, glorious C++!

[@dennissdigitaldump8619]

Phew, I thought I was loosing my mind on not making this work in windows. If Dave starts with Linux as step one, that's likely the best route. Thankfully VS is available in Linux.

[@ln2pro629]

Would be really cool to get a breakdown explanation series of different wiring/electric concepts required to put this stuff together (safely). That way people have a general mental model of the physical configuration to go along with the videos you do with the programming stuff.

[@knauregriffiths7666]

Nice little project Dave. Good to know the pro's don't get a clean compile on the first try either. 🙂

[@KieranShort]

Love it. I'm quite familiar with python but not c++. The syntax and functions are different, so are some of the declarations, so I'm enjoying this to learn more.

[@toby9999]

No offense intended but python is weird syntactically when compared to many other langueages such as C, C++ or java.

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

Programming can be fun, and frustrating at times. Way back, perhaps twenty or thirty years ago I bought some introduction book for C. This book was exactly meant for beginners who had never touched C so I thought it would be a good start. My history was basic, pascal, assembler for several processor architectures, Forth, and a few more I could code a Hello World message in. So I started reading and got through the first five pages and then nothing made sense anymore. I just couldn't understand what the author was tying to say and no matter what I couldn't make head or tails of his explanations. So I bought another book from another publisher and thought I'd give it a go again. Same thing at exactly the same part. Now I got frustrated and decided there had to be something wrong with me as I just couldn't understand WTF they were talking about. Finally I looked at the author and the name sounded familiar, so I looked at the first book and wouldn't you know, it was the same author writing another book about programming C and sold through another publisher. I got so pissed I gave up on C altogether and now I haven't coded anything more advanced than very simple batch files in the last 15 years.

[@KieranShort]

@@toby9999 Yeah but that's what I know. Same could be said for chopsticks vs forks. I also use a lot of R for statistics, that's another weird beast.

[@wheresmyclicker]

Really liked this format.

[@StarOfDavidKush]

Hi Dave! Great stuff. I just wrote a Python app that makes a LED light blink on a Raspberry Pi Pico.

[@TommiLipponen]

Hi Dave and thanks for this! Also SSH from VS Code to Raspberry Pi would be just great to see too.

[@Charly_Dont_Surf]

Thank you Dave! Just sent this to my son.

[@eugenezenzen]

This is great! More please!

[@UnwalledGarden]

I love these down and dirty instruction videos. All steak and no sizzle. Well, just your actual sizzle. But nothing extra.

[@jamescarrico1233]

Dave make a course I need an A to Z complete lesson for C/C++ from you. Idk, maybe I'm a bit autistic myself but I find it very easy to follow you. Cheers

[@KateAoyama]

I like Dave's curly brace style. I don't know why lot of people use the K&R style which looks very unbalance and ugly. Some said, it saved lines, I don't know what for.

[@FirstnameLamename]

I like the format.

[@richardmeyer418]

Thanks, Dave. Just one thing. You don't have to "touch" the file before you edit it with "nano" - just "nano blink.cpp" and you'll be fine.

[@markcentral]

I’m with you on std version 17 🔥

[@minixtvbox]

Loved this,

[@nemike42]

@DavesGarage, could you post what terminal program you were using to get into the pi, what font etc, how you got the long persistence!! I love it, reminds me of working on the old VT's back in the day! I would love to setup my terminals like this! Thanks

[@RandomTorok]

That was fun. Of course all your content is interesting.

[@toby9999]

Excellent demo. Thanks.