BeoBabble – a B&O multi-protocol interpreter

[TK]

I’ve spent (wasted, perhaps?) much of my free time over the past few months writing an interpreter for some of the old B&O protocols, mostly for my own education.  The software needs a few more weeks of vetting some of the crap code for clarity and maintainability (it’ll likely still be crap even when I’m done) before I upload it to GitHub. Included in this version 1.0 are relatively complete protocol syntaxes for Datalink ’86, Datalink ’80, Master Control Link ’82, and Datalink ’78.  Most of the translations are working, with plenty of memory leaks and syntax discrepancies left to chase down.

BeoBabble also has its own syntax which allows anyone to send commands and data via the Serial port, and direct it to the appropriate Datalink channel.  Everything is still very-much a work in progress, and I expect some of the rougher edges to be smoothed out as I start to look into expanding the system capabilities. In the future I hope to have something net-enabled, but for now I’m just using a serial interface.

Of interest to BM5000 enthusiasts is the inclusion of the ‘BM5000/Other’ version of MCL82.  By enabling this protocol, aspiring programmers can begin to integrate their systems with some components that use later protocols by adding a DL86 interface to their home systems.  This for example also opens up the possibility to use a Beo4 remote to control the BM5000 with just an Arduino.  There is some more coding and an IR interface that needs to be finished prior to it working seamlessly.  Hopefully there will be a few folks who find that appealing.

I’m including some screen shots below to show a bit about how the system works, as well as a make-shift user guide for the few of you who may be interested to learn more.

BeoBabble v1.0 User Guide

 

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