Embedded engineer Kosuke Saito has given the open-access Twitter utility programming interface (API) an actual send-off, with a devoted handheld console which reformats the microblogging service for a Nintendo Recreation Boy-style monochrome display screen.
“In February 2023, it was introduced that the Twitter API might be paid-for,” Saito explains, in translation, of the venture’s inspiration, a change launched by new proprietor and chief govt Elon Musk. “As a person developer, I used to create a service utilizing the Twitter API, so I felt the top of an period and felt a way of grief. It appears that there’s nonetheless a while earlier than it turns into a paid service. Lastly, I wish to create one thing utilizing the Twitter API. It is a huge deal, so I might like one thing that solely a person could make. What about particular devices?”
This handheld console performs just one “sport:” the formerly-free Twitter API. (📷: Kosuke Saito)
Usually, a {hardware} gadget tied to a third-party API is not the perfect thought: if the corporate decides to alter and even shutter its API, the system turns into ineffective. With the free Twitter API already set for closure when the venture began, although, Saito thought the system’s inevitable obsolescence becoming — and proceeded with the construct, dropped at our consideration by Adafruit.
The TW Boy, as Saito named the gadget, is impressed by the Nintendo Recreation Boy handheld console U2014 although its monochrome display screen is significantly bigger. A Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W drives the show and supplies the power to question the Twitter API, retrieve, and reformat tweets, in addition to monitoring the standing of the console’s face buttons and D-pad.
The {hardware} relies on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, a sunlight-readable monochrome show, and a few buttons. (📷: Kosuke Saito)
“Coloration pictures and illustrations are transformed to binary pictures whereas preserving the unique ambiance utilizing a course of referred to as systematic dithering,” Saito explains. “I made a program in order that the buttons can swap tweets, favourite, and retweet. I attempted to implement the minimal needed features for displaying Twitter.
“At present, just one hooked up picture may be displayed, and if a quoted retweet is quoted, the unique tweet (quoted supply of the quoted supply) can’t be displayed, and there are some restrictions. Nevertheless, the one factor left is whether or not or to not implement it, so you probably have the spirit, you may make it sensible sufficient.”
Python operating on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W interfaces with the Twitter API and reformats imagery for the monochrome show. (📷: Kosuke Saito)
“On the finish of March 2023, particulars of the Twitter API cost had been introduced,” Saito concludes, bringing the venture to its inevitable shut. “In keeping with it, with a purpose to proceed to run the ‘TW BOY’ that I made this time, evidently I’ve to enter a paid plan of $100 a month. Goodbye ‘TW BOY,’ thanks Twitter API. I’ll always remember that I used to be in a position to have a great time even for a short while.”
Saito’s full write-up is obtainable on Fabcross, although the supply code and design recordsdata haven’t been launched.
