I have an old radio: an ICOM IC-PCR1000. It’s a nondescript little black box, with no controls other than a power switch. It is controlled by a computer.
Its age is perfectly characterized by this simple fact: It is controlled through a serial port, good old RS-232. Not even USB.
It works perfectly well. Or rather, it did, under Windows, with its 25-year old control software. But that same software cannot reliable connect to the radio under Linux, via Wine. It runs, it connects, but every few seconds it reports an error despite the fact that it seems to read and control the radio just fine.
Well, I solved the problem now, with the help of Claude. No, not “vibe” programming: the concept is mine, in fact it is based on software I myself wrote some 12 years ago. At that time, I was experimenting with a C-sharp back end connecting to the radio. This time around? A plain C back-end (a translation done by ChatGPT) and a front-end and midware in HTML+JS and PHP.
So the code logic is mine, even as Claude saved me a lot of time. The layout and visual appearance, however, are entirely Claude’s doing, Claude 4.6 Opus in particular, running on my WISPL Web site. I only introduced some very minor tweaks to refine the appearance.
And yes, I am using it right now, listening to CBC Radio 2.