Start the Emulator

1. From a terminal window, change to the Altair-8800-Emulator/src folder that you cloned to your computer.

2. You can run the Altair emulator in standalone mode.

   ./build/Altair_emulator
   

Command Line Arguments

The Altair emulator accepts the following command line arguments:

• -m, --MqttHost <host>: MQTT broker hostname (required for MQTT)
• -p, --MqttPort <port>: MQTT broker port (default: 1883)
• -c, --MqttClientId <client_id>: MQTT client ID (default: AltairEmulator_<timestamp>)
• -U, --MqttUsername <username>: MQTT username (default: none)
• -P, --MqttPassword <password>: MQTT password (default: none)
• -n, --NetworkInterface <iface>: Network interface to use
• -f, --FrontPanel <mode>: Front panel selection: sensehat, kit, none (default: none)
• -o, --OpenWeatherMapKey <key>: OpenWeatherMap API key
• -a, --OpenAIKey <key>: OpenAI API key
• -e, --OpenAIEndpoint <url>: OpenAIEnpoint

• -s, --SlowCpuOnDisconnect <bool>: true or false

  • The default endpoint is https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions.
  • For LM Studio, use http://IP_ADDRESS:1234/v1/chat/completions. If Altair runs in a container, use the LM Studio server's IP address—not localhost—since localhost refers to the container itself.
  • -h, --help: Show help message

Example usage

Run the emulator with MQTT and weather integration:

./build/Altair_emulator --MqttHost mqtt_host --MqttPort 1883 --MqttClientId MyAltair --OpenWeatherMapKey <your_api_key> --NetworkInterface wlan0 --FrontPanel sensehat

Example usage (short argument names)

Run the emulator with MQTT and weather integration using short argument names:

./build/Altair_emulator -m mqtt_host -p 1883 -c MyAltair -o <your_api_key> -n wlan0 -f sensehat