How would I get something to communicate with my laptop?

[JoAuSc]

1.) Let's say you have some sort of sensor, say, a light sensor that can be connected to a circuit. How do you get a typical laptop to read this information?

Would you just hook up some device to the circuit that changes voltages to numerical data and transmits this to your computer via Bluetooth or something? I know nothing about this kind of stuff, but the idea of having sensors communicating with your laptop (and whatever programs you've written on your laptop) seems cool. Which brings me to my next question:


2.) Once you've gotten this data to your computer, how would you integrate it into some program you've written?

Would you add a BlueToothListener to your java program, or something like it? (I'm guessing there's no such class named BlueToothListener, but hopefully you get the idea.)

 

[robphy]

Some possible starting points, making use of your soundcard:
http://duncan.rutgers.edu/physicsfreewares.htm
http://www.oscilloscope-lib.com/

 

[EnumaElish]

Don't computers have infrared sensors? In any case, an "infrared port"?

 

[berkeman]

Some possible starting points, making use of your soundcard:
http://duncan.rutgers.edu/physicsfreewares.htm
http://www.oscilloscope-lib.com/

Or you could use a PCMCIA or USB data acq device from National Instruments or other vendors:

http://sine.ni.com/nifn/cds/view/main/p/sn/n24:PCMCIA/lang/en/nid/1036/ap/daq