GoBlink, A Go interface to the Blink(1) USB device

This project demonstrates intefacing to a USB device in Go, the ThingM blink(1). The original interfacing examples are written in C, so this project uses CGO to integrate C code into Go.

Set up

The code was developed and tested on Mac OSX Mountain Lion, but uses nothing OS-specific, so should also work on Linux.

To run, you'll first need to install libusb. The easiest way to so is via MacPorts.

1. Install Xcode and the Command Line Tools for Xcode

2. Install MacPorts

3. Now use MacPorts to install libusb:

   $ sudo port install libusb-compat

   If your MacPorts installation does not install the libusb files into /opt/local/{include | lib}, then adjust the #cgo compiler directives in hid.go.

4. cd to the directory with this project's files, then to build and run

   $ go build goBlink.go && ./goBlink

TODOs

Several functions are shown, including blink, set, and random. Others can be added such as read and write.

Sources

The code is based on the C code in the blink1 repository, particularly the blink1-mini-tool. Christian Starkjohann's hiddata.c is used almost as is. The modifications are to use enums instead of #defines to make the values available in Go. Also, the single-inclusion #defines needed for C are not needed for Go and excised.

See also the other examples in the command line directory.