2.1.3.1. Arduino sketches. The LED control was implemented in the
Python programming language (http://www.python.org/) using
Geany (http://www.geany.org/) as the integrated development
environment (IDE). The choice of Python provided a cost-free way
to interact with the Arduino in contrast to the commercial license required, for example, for Matlab and for LabVIEW. The use of
Python facilitates the integration of the Arduino system described
here, for example to existing electrophysiological (Spacek et al.,
2009) and visual psychophysics (Peirce, 2007) software packages
written in Python. The access to Arduino is very straightforward
under Unix-systems (Linux, Mac) as it functions as any serial interface
device, thus allowing one to read and write to it as if it
was a file. Additionally, there is a wrapper library called pySerial
(http://pyserial.sourceforge.net/) that handles the serial interface
between the computer and the Arduino, a library that works across
all operating systems.