BeepTimer is a successful experiment in Human-Computer Interaction. The question to test was the possibility to control a device using one acceleration sensor and one button. As already mentioned, it is possible even with OS functions intervening (long button press issues a shutdown of the device). The user controls the device by tilting it and by pushing the button. The description of possible gestures is provided on the project page.
BeepTimer for STM32 Primer released
July 26th, 2010GraspForth on STM32 Primer released
July 19th, 2010GraspForth is a simple, portable implementation of a Forth system in C. It works every 32-bit architecture GCC compiles for. The STM32 Primer devices were introduced on this blog earlier. These systems were combined in the GraspForth on STM32 Primer project. If you are interested, read the rest of the project’s description.
PDQt 0.8 released
July 11th, 2010PDQt is at version 0.8 now.
The function of the Action button was divided between the Shift button (Shift key) and the Action button (Return key).
Furthermore, now PDQt recognizes circling gestures. Circling around the center of the program’s screen clockwise increases current value, circling counter-clockwise decreases it.
You may download the new package for Cacko and maybe other Qtopia based distributions from this page. Otherwise you might want to download the source code and compile it for yourself – you will need only Qt3 compilation environment on Win32 or Linux.
PDQt 0.75 released
July 9th, 2010PDQt is at version 0.75 now.
The key map was adapted for a usual computer keyboard; Space is the Play button now instead of C, Shift is the Action button instead of D et cetera. Furthermore, mouse wheel can be used now for changing values. Look into the help dialog for explainations.
You may download the new package for Cacko and maybe other Qtopia based distributions from this page. Otherwise you might want to download the source code and compile it for yourself – you will need only Qt3 compilation environment on Win32 or Linux.
PDQt 0.7 released
July 4th, 2010PDQt is at version 0.7 now. There are no visible additions or corrections on the user side. All changes were internal. You may download the new package for Cacko and maybe other Qtopia based distributions from this page. Otherwise you might want to download the source code and compile it for yourself – you will need only Qt3 compilation environment on Win32 or Linux.
New code repository site and a petit release
June 25th, 2010Good evening! GitHub.com is a public Git repository provider; it’s declared aim is to facilitate social coding, i.e. to encourage members and even non-members to create their own version of thesoftware (more precisely, source code) hosted there.
I have repositories there. You may reach them under http://github.com/wincentbalin/. PDQt went there too.
Now about the release. Piano is a small music instrument, written in Java ME. Link to it’s wiki page and to it’s source code repository.
Piano MIDlet screenshot
Contiki on CircleOS
May 3rd, 2010Now it is a time to mention the recent release of another port of Contiki OS (it is version 2.2.1, not a recent one). This port is running on the STM32 Primer development kit. Because both current versions of this development kit run CircleOS, an embedded OS written by Raisonance, who also created the development kits, it was rather convinient to run Contiki on top of CircleOS. This port creates a serial-over-USB connection, as it was done in the VirtualCOM example. On top of this connection a SLIP connection is established, over which the device running can be accessed with usual TCP/IP tools. Currently this port runs on the STM32 Primer version 1 only!
While porting Contiki, a rather grave problem was encountered. It is the relatively small size of the USB data buffer of just 64 bytes. As Contiki scheduler runs only 10 times per second, the highest speed of connection is around 640 characters per second. Currently this problem results in very small IP packet sizes this port can process, for example a ping packet may carry only a few bytes of data.
A possible solution for this problem might lie in boosting the running frequency of the Contiki scheduler. Look at the function MENU_SetAppliDivider() in the CircleOS.
If this problem gets solved, it will be possible to run all applications Contiki provides over a VNC connection, because both versions of the STM32 Primer provide more than enough resources for doing so. Another extension of the current port would be getting it running on the version 2 of the STM32 Primer. This would make another extension possible — an implementation of Contiki File System interface using the filesystem functions CircleOS 3.x has. This, in turn, would enable working with files on a SD card (a feature of STM32 Primer version 2).
The port can be downloaded either from the Raisonance project page or the project page in this blog.
Contiki port for ez430 RF2500 board
April 28th, 2010The ez430 RF2500 port of the Contiki OS was created as the entry to the MSP430 Design Contest. Currently the port allows to use one RF2500 board as a terminal and another RF2500 board as a sensor node. For further development your may check out the source code from the repository of Contikiprojects (look for the directory with the same name as the server this blog is hosted on). Both the documentation and the source code archive can be found at it’s software page in this blog.
Touch Demo Drum Board
February 28th, 2010
Have you seen this video already? No? Then it is time to do so.
This music instrument was created a while ago. Recently I was asked whether I would like to put it online. I would.
The video tells (almost) everything. If you want to get the firmware sources or need further explanations, go to this project’s software page.
One Bit Groovebox for AVR Butterfly
November 15th, 2009This time it is a hardware device. One Bit Groovebox is a synthesizer which produces one bit sound waves. It was created by Noah Vawter (original page at http://web.media.mit.edu/~nvawter/projects/1bit/). The code from the original device was ported to run on AVR Butterfly (with a minor hardware addition), which is a very nice application board from Atmel. Look it up at http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools_card.asp?tool_id=3146.
The source code resides in the file OBG-BF.zip. Both hardware addition and the installation process are described in the ReadMe.txt file (in the archive too). The sounds are the same as in the original One Bit Groovebox device.
If you would like to know somewhat more, go to the software page of the project.