Network mapper
By Ashley Whittaker. Posted
We are, to put it mildly, bored with looking at screen after screen of glowing pixels. We understand that humans are very good at taking in information through their eyes, and that the invention of the alphabet made reading and writing a super-efficient way of transmitting data, but after staring at the TV, our phone, and occasionally our work computers, we sometimes dream of a better way. And here is that better way: a network map showing the status of, and bandwidth between, a series of data centres in Switzerland.
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Introducing the smarter desktop: use cloud apps, thin clients, and get real work done on a Raspberry Pi. Also in the magazine we’re building a digital jukebox, controlling a robot arm, storing…
Like many projects, this one began life not out of a need, but out of finding a stash of cool components and wanting to do something with them. In this case, the component haul was a tray of MD0657C2-R displays from a surplus component shop. Add a few MAX6952 chips to drive the displays, and six Raspberry Pi Pico Ws, and you’ve got the guts of a unique visual display that feels like it came from the set of Superman 3.
Maximilien housed these displays and their associated electronics in frames made out of wood and plywood, finished off with painted, laser-cut acrylic panels. It’s backlit with RGB LEDs that are controlled by the main Raspberry Pi Pico W, which also grabs the data to display from the data source and updates it in real time.
As data displays go, it certainly beats a spreadsheet.
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