Barcode Rattler

A Raspberry Pi Powered Barcode Reader to load a game on the Mister FPGA using MBC

This is a work in progress and a bit hackery 😅

There are limitations on the MBC side. Some of the computer cores don't work in loading games up. Such as the commodore computers as the cores have changed the menu layout is slightly different.

Currently i have only implemented getting games from out of zip files. You can do direct loading of a rom, just not implemented in my python script to do this.

The CSV file, spaces and other special characters need backslash \ or sometimes double backslash \\ not got around to sorting this out.

Versions

Raspberry Pi OS

I used the Raspberry Pi OS Lite Release date: October 30th 2021

Installation of files

Files need to be installed in to a folder called /opt/barcoderattler

sudo mkdir /opt/barcoderattler

sudo chown pi /opt/barcoderattler

cd /opt/barcoderattler

You can either get the zip file

wget https://github.com/chris-jh/BarcodeRattler/archive/refs/tags/barcoderattler_v0.2.zip

unzip -j ./barcoderattler_v0.2.zip

or the tar.tgz file

wget https://github.com/chris-jh/BarcodeRattler/archive/refs/tags/barcoderattler_v0.2.tar.gz

tar -zxf ./barcoderattler_v0.2.tar.gz --strip-components=1

or if you have git installed, you can clone the latest

git clone https://github.com/chris-jh/BarcodeRattler.git ./

all the above methods assume you are inside the /opt/barcoderattler folder before running

Installing MBC on Mister

Get the Mister IP Address

Enable SSH on the Mister

Copy the mmsmbc.sh file to Mister in the Fat folder

default password is 1

scp /opt/barcoderattler/mmsmbc.sh [email protected]:/media/fat

ssh into Mister and run the mmsmbc.sh file to install mbc

ssh [email protected]

cd /media/fat

./mmsmbc.sh

Running this file will download the latest release of MBC from https://github.com/pocomane/MiSTer_Batch_Control

It will be installed on your SD Card at /media/fat/Scripts/.barcoderattler

Configuring the PI Camera

Make sure to enable the Camera and SSH on the Pi

You may need to tweak the focus on the Camera, so it can read close up objects, like a barcode.

I had to adjust mine anticlockwise about 1 full turn

Intalling PYTHON LIBS

make sure to

sudo apt-get update

and then run the file barcodesetup.sh (do not sudo, it will ask for password) on the pi, this should install the python libraries that is required

KEYBOARD USB Permissions

A udev rule is required so that the pi user can have access to the USB events for the keyboard

create a file called (you will have to sudo nano)

/etc/udev/rules.d/99-hidraw-permissions.rules

and this should be inside it

KERNEL=="hidraw*", SUBSYSTEM=="hidraw", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"

The barcode scanner will need to be in USB Keyboard mode, it also needs to be the first usb keyboard device to be plugged in, or the only usb keyboard device plugged.

The barcode device i bought was this one from amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00Y83TXOE

NFC Support

NFC Support has been added by Symm.

Devices that are supported can be seen here Supported Devices

Set NFC_ID to the one you have from the list inside the barcoderattler_nfc.py file

There is no service or start file for it yet, but you can modify the startrattler bash script and change to run the barcoderattler_nfc.py

CSV File

The file is made up of the following headers

BARCODE,CORE,ZIP,FILE,TMP

any special characters in the file path including spaces needs the backslash
some need double backslash such as the [ ]

To see what the core names are on mbc, you need to ssh into the MisterFGPA and run

/media/fat/Scripts/.barcoderattler/mbc list_core

The core name is the first field

Running

There are two python script files

1. barcoderattler.py

This one uses the Barcode Hand Scanner, make sure to scan factory reset code in the book and then scan the USB Keyboard.

2. barcoderattler_camera.py

This is for using the Pi Camera on a Pi 3

In each of the python scripts there is an area at the top to Specify your Mister IP Address and to change the password is different from the default 1. You can also change the location of the CSV file to read and also if you put the mbc in a different directory also.

If you are going to use the Hand Scanner, this needs to be the first keyboard device. Remove any keyboards, and then plug in the barcode hand scanner.

You should do any interaction with the Pi via SSH

To run each version, only one should be run, from the command line type either

1. /opt/barcoderattler/startrattler

   To start the Barcode Hand Scanner version

2. /opt/barcoderattler/startrattler_camera

   To start the Barcode scanning via the Pi Camera

If you want to enable the barcode rattler on start up, run either of the following

1. /opt/barcoderattler/enable_barcode_scanner

   To enable the Barcode Hand Scanner on boot up

2. /opt/barcoderattler/enable_camera_barcode_scanner

   To enable the Barcode Scanning via the Pi Camer on boot up

To start and stop the service

1. sudo service start barcoderattler

   To Start the Barcode Hand Scanner

2. sudo service stop barcoderattler

   To Stop the Barcode Hand Scanner

3. sudo service start barcoderattler

   To Start the Barcode Camera Scanner

4. sudo service stop barcoderattler

   To Stop the Barcode Camera Scanner

To Stop the services for starting at boot up

Run

sudo systemctl disable barcoderattler_camera.service

sudo systemctl disable barcoderattler.service