A very silly CPU monitor

Hi, I’m Lex (they/them), I make silly projects. This one is a physical CPU usage display. Kinda like the CPU usage display in task manager, but with a physical analog meter for each CPU. It also does memory usage! Enjoy! FAQ: Q: How do you get the performance numbers from the computer to the arduino A: I wrote a Rust program that uses the systemstat crate to get the data from linux, it then does a little bit of maths to transform the data, and sends that to the ardunio over USB-serial Q: What’s the music? A: Just some random thing I threw together in a midi editor, I’m not very experienced with music production. Q: Does this slow down the computer? A: Not significantly. Yes, it does take a little bit of CPU time to calculate the numbers, transform them, and send them out the serial port, but as you can see from the meters, the CPUs are often almost totally idle, so it’s not a burden on the computer at all. Q: Is the code available? A parts list? A wiring diagram? A: Not really, but I can explain what you need: The wiring is very simple, you can follow an arduino tutorial for wiring up LEDs, and the meters just need to be connected up to PWM pins with the right resistor. The parts are just an arduino, some addressible LEDs, and any suitable ammeter. The software is designed specifically for my needs and I don’t intend to update it to work in the general case where the number of meters might be different to mine, so I’m not releasing the code. Sorry. Q: Why is the swap meter so high all the time A: I’m not exactly sure, but it’s probably a side effect of the way that Linux manages swap space. There might be some other more useful measure that I could use instead.
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