MeshTerm/docs/devices/cardputer-zero.md

MeshTerm on the Cardputer Zero

Caution

The Cardputer Zero is not supported yet.

MeshTerm now runs on a real Cardputer Zero, with M5Stack's Cap LoRa-1262 as its radio, but only from a copy of the source code you set up yourself. There is no package in M5Stack's app store, and the keyboard has only been checked by sending key events to it from another computer, not by someone typing on it.

Don't buy a Cardputer Zero to run MeshTerm on it yet. This page will say so when that changes.

M5Stack makes three Cardputers. This page is about the Cardputer Zero: the one with a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 0 inside, running Linux. The original Cardputer and the Cardputer-Adv are ESP32 microcontroller boards; they can't run MeshTerm, and nothing here applies to them.

• The device
• Where the work stands
• Installing it on the device
• Trying it in the emulator
• Radios

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The device

Computer	Raspberry Pi Compute Module 0: four 1 GHz cores, 512 MB of memory
Screen	1.9 inches, 320×170 pixels
Keyboard	46 keys, with Shift, Fn and Sym layers
System	Raspberry Pi OS "Trixie", with M5Stack's own app launcher

MeshTerm draws the screen in 53 columns by 14 rows: the same width as on the PicoCalc, but only about half the height, so many screens have a more compact layout here.

The launcher gives an app the whole screen and the keyboard, but no text console to run in. So MeshTerm brings its own: a small program inside MeshTerm that draws every character on the screen itself and reads the keys directly.

Where the work stands

Done, and tried on a real Cardputer Zero:

• MeshTerm starts from M5Stack's app launcher and draws on the screen itself.
• MeshTerm's layout for the 14-row screen: a title bar that also carries the unread count and the battery, one-row tab strips, and dialogs sized for the short screen.
• The battery in the title bar is the Cardputer Zero's own.
• The row of function-key labels along the bottom of the screen, driven by Fn+4 to Fn+8, the keys that sit right under the display. Shift with them is a second set.
• M5Stack's Cap LoRa-1262 radio add-on (see Radios).
• Holding Esc for three seconds, which is how the launcher closes any app, closes MeshTerm properly.

Not done:

• A package for M5Stack's app store. Until there is one, you install MeshTerm yourself (see below).
• Typing on the real keyboard. The arrows, Enter, Esc, Fn+4 to Fn+8, and Shift have been checked by sending their key events to the keyboard from another computer, and the symbols on the Sym layer match M5Stack's own keymap on the device. Nobody has typed a message on it yet.

Installing it on the device

This is for people comfortable with a Linux command line. You need the Cardputer Zero on Wi-Fi, and a way to type commands on it: SSH from another computer is easiest.

Get MeshTerm and the radio library, and fetch the font the screen is drawn in:

git clone https://github.com/jpmartineau/MeshTerm.git
cd MeshTerm
python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -e '.[spi]'
.venv/bin/meshterm emulate --fetch-fonts

Then put MeshTerm in the launcher. This asks for your password once, because the launcher's list of apps belongs to the system:

scripts/cardputer-zero/launcher-entry.sh

MeshTerm now has an icon in the launcher. scripts/cardputer-zero/launcher-entry.sh remove takes it out again.

Typing long text from your computer

A long password or key is hard work on a keyboard this small. From another computer that can reach the Cardputer over SSH, scripts/cardputer-zero/type-text.py types it for you, into whatever app has the screen:

python scripts/cardputer-zero/type-text.py --host pi@cardputer.local

Paste the text when it asks, and press Enter. Your typing stays hidden, and the text goes to the Cardputer over SSH, so it never shows on either screen. Open the field you want it in on the Cardputer first, and leave its keyboard alone until the tool says it's done.

Trying it in the emulator

The emulator opens a window showing the Cardputer Zero's screen, scaled up so it's readable. Run it with a simulated radio, and you can try the layout without the device or a radio.

It isn't a strict emulator. It doesn't pretend to be the Cardputer Zero's computer: MeshTerm runs on your own computer, at your computer's speed. What it copies is the screen and the keyboard — the screen's size in pixels, the font, the colours, and the keys that drive the labels along the bottom. That's enough to show what fits on the screen and what doesn't, which is what it's for.

It needs MeshTerm installed with pip or pipx (see the README). The one-file downloads leave out the part of Python that opens windows.

Once, fetch the font the screen is drawn in:

meshterm emulate --fetch-fonts

Then start the emulator:

meshterm emulate cardputer-zero --mock

--mock is the simulated radio. Point MESHTERM_HOME at an empty folder first, so its made-up nodes stay out of your real history. --scale 4 makes the window bigger.

In the window, your keyboard's F4 to F8 stand in for Fn+4 to Fn+8, and holding Shift shows the second set. You can click the keys instead, either the ones drawn under the screen or the coloured keys along its bottom row; hold Shift while you click for the second set. Ctrl+Shift+S saves a screenshot at the screen's real size. Closing the window quits MeshTerm.

Radios

The Cardputer Zero has no LoRa radio built in. There are three ways to add one:

Radio	Status
M5Stack's Cap LoRa-1262 add-on board	Works, with no setup. MeshTerm runs the mesh node itself while it's open, the same way it does on a uConsole.
A MeshCore companion on USB	Expected to work as on any Linux computer.
A MeshCore companion over Bluetooth	Expected to work as on any Linux computer.

The Cap LoRa-1262

Push the Cap onto the expansion header at the back, then start MeshTerm. The device screen lists it as Cap LoRa-1262, and meshterm --spi reaches it from the command line.

The Cap has no MeshCore firmware of its own: it's just a radio chip. So while MeshTerm is open, MeshTerm is the node, the way it is on a uConsole's AIO board. It needs the radio library installed beside MeshTerm:

pip install 'mesh-term[spi]'

When MeshTerm connects, it does three things the Cardputer Zero needs before the radio answers. It switches on the power to the expansion header, which is off until something asks for it. It makes sure two of the header's pins are connected to the radio and not to the USB port that shares them. And it switches on the Cap's antenna path. When MeshTerm quits, it switches the header's power back off, so the Cap doesn't drain the battery while nothing is using it.

A new node starts on MeshCore's US/Canada settings (910.525 MHz). Anywhere else, change them on Device config before you send anything. The node's key, contacts, and channels are kept in ~/.meshterm/radio/spidev0.1/.

The Cap also carries a GPS. MeshTerm doesn't read it yet.