Simon Monk - Programming the BeagleBone Black: Getting Started with JavaScript and BoneScript

Programming the BeagleBone Black

About the Author

Dr. Simon Monk (Preston, UK) has a degree in Cybernetics and Computer Science and a PhD in Software Engineering. He spent several years as an academic before returning to the industry, co-founding the mobile software company Momote Ltd. He has been an active electronics hobbyist since his early teens and is a full-time writer on hobby electronics and open source hardware. Dr. Monk is the author of numerous electronics books, specializing in open source hardware platforms, especially Arduino and Raspberry Pi. He is also co-author with Paul Scherz of Practical Electronics for Inventors, Third Edition .

You can follow Dr. Monk on Twitter, where he is @simonmonk2.

Programming the BeagleBone Black

Getting Started with JavaScript and BoneScript

Simon Monk

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Copyright 2014 by McGraw-Hill Education (Publisher). All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of publisher, with the exception that the program listings may be entered, stored, and executed in a computer system, but they may not be reproduced for publication.

ISBN: 978-0-07-183213-7

MHID: 0-07-183213-0

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CONTENTS AT A GLANCE

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to all those at McGraw-Hill Education who have done such a great job in producing this book. In particular, thanks to my editor Roger Stewart, Sandhya Goya, and to Bart Reed.

I am most grateful to Stephen Hall and Cefn Hoile for their valuable help with reviewing my efforts at JavaScript and to Robert (BobKat) Logan for his invaluable technical review.

I would also like to thank Adafruit, SparkFun, and CPC for supplying many of the modules and components used in the preparation for this book.

And last but not least, thanks once again to Linda, for her patience and generosity in giving me space to do this.

INTRODUCTION

The BeagleBone Black combines the power of a Linux-based single-board computer with the GPIO (General Purpose Input/Output) capabilities of an Arduino.

This book shows you how to program a BeagleBone Black using its hardware library (BoneScript) and JavaScript. The book is suitable for beginner programmers and does not assume any prior programming experience.

Downloads

The book includes many example programs, which are all open source and available from the books website at http://beaglebonebook.com. You will need to follow the link to the code. You will also find an up-to-date list of errata for the book here.

What Will I Need?

This is a book primarily about software. So, for most of the examples, all you really need is BeagleBone Black. However, when you are using GPIO pins, a low-cost multimeter is helpful. Male-to-male jumper leads, or even just a short length of solid core wire that can be poked into the sockets of the GPIO connector, will be needed.

The two hardware project chapters require specific parts, which are listed in those chapters.

Other parts that are recommended when learning to use the GPIO pins are a solderless breadboard and/or a BeagleBone Breadboard cape and a selection of basic components such as LEDs and switches.

at the end of this book indicates possible suppliers for these parts.

Using This Book

This books main focus is on learning to program the BeagleBone Black from the viewpoint of someone who is new to programming. It therefore starts with basic concepts, gradually building on the earlier material while heading toward more advanced topics. It therefore needs to be read more or less in order.

This book is organized into the following chapters:

: Introduction and Setup This chapter introduces the BeagleBone Black. We look at what you can do with it as well as setting it up so that you can connect to it from your main computer over a USB or network connection.