Hamster has written VHDL code for interpreting data from a PS2 keyboard. It’s currently a work in progress and is designed to work with his Papilio S6 (the Spartan 6-based Papilio board paired with the Megawing board, both available from Seeedstudio.) The code receives the scancode from a PS2 keyboard attached to Port A of […]
Category Archives: code
Lower Webduino server overhead with a favicon.ico
Martin Lormes recently acquired an Arduino and Ethernet shield. Once he got the setup running on the web using the Webduino Arduino web server library, he checked the traffic using Wireshark and noticed that if the embedded server didn’t offer up a favicon.ico file when initially requested the browser would keep requesting the file. This […]
Em:Blocks PIC24 and PIC32 plugin for Code::Blocks IDE
Code::Blocks is an open source IDE designed around a plugin framework to make it easy for users to extend/improve it without having to touch one line of Code::Blocks’ source code. Em::Blocks is one such plugin which adds PIC24 and PIC32 development functionality to the Code::Blocks IDE. Jim via the contact form.
Connecting Arduino to Mathematica on Mac OS X
Mathematica is a comprehensive computational platform that purports to automate workflow involving computing results, “from building a hedge fund trading website or publishing interactive engineering textbooks to developing embedded image recognition algorithms or teaching calculus.” (It’s not open source, but a hobbyist license is available.) William J. Turkel teaches a course on interactive exhibit design […]
ALSE free IP cores for non-commercial CPLD/FPGA dev
Advanced Logic Synthesis for Electronics (ALSE) is a Paris based company providing product development, IP consulting and training courses involving HDL, ASIC and FGPA devices. They are making available a series of IP cores free for personal, non-commercial use. They state: For non-commercial projects only, we have taken the decision to offer some functions for […]
Tutorial: play simple Arduino audio samples
David Mellis from the Arduino crew presents this tutorial on playing short audio samples using only the Arduino and a simple speaker. Using the PCM Library for Arduino, this project takes a short (4 second) audio sample of your choosing which you encode on your PC into MP3 format (down sampled to 8 KHz, 8-bit […]
Using Fixed Voltage Reference (FVR) for ADC in the PIC16F1827
Raj writes to inform us of his Embedded Lab tutorial with tips on using the Fixed Voltage Reference (FVR) module in enhanced mid-range 8-bit PIC microcontrollers for a precise and accurate A/D conversion. Raj demos how to use the built-in module of the PIC16F1827 that generates a stable reference voltage internally known as the FVR. […]
The LiveLight Project: open source ambilight solution
Juha Kuusama writes to inform us of LiveLight, a cool DIY ambilight project. This is a homebrew ambilight system by SunWind that has 9 PWM controlled RGB channels which drive RGB LED strips that are mounted in the back of a 40″ Sony Bravia. All the parameters can be reprogrammed to match your taste. The […]
Nimbits 3.3 is live
Nimbits 3.3 is live! With Nimbits, you can record data into “Data Points” hosted on a public or private cloud that can be connected to sensors, social networks, devices, software or anything else. The Nimbits team reports: This version of Nimbits provides full machine to machine (M2M) communication capabilities using the same protocols as Google […]
Arduino Morse Code generator
Denver writes that he has created a Morse Code generator, and posted a tutorial in my blog about how it is done. His tutorial begins with an explanation of how Morse Code is organized and proceeds to explain the process of writing an Arduino sketch to produce the sequences of “dits” and “dahs” corresponding to […]
Arduino code emulation object for Parallax Propeller
If you regularly use the Arduino, but want to explore the versatile multi-core environment of the Parallax Propeller, here’s a code project of interest. Perry Harrington has written a Propeller SPIN code object to emulate many of the functions found in the Arduino SDK. Perry describes his code: This is a basic _light_ implementation of […]
Arduino 1.0 released
The Arduino team has released the official version 1.0 of the Arduino IDE. New features include changing the file extension for sketches to “.ino”, new toolbar icons, the Serial class (as well as other classes inheriting from Stream, like EthernetClient, SoftwareSerial, Wire and more) now contains functions for parsing incoming data, support for DHCP and […]
Arduino 1.0 IDE code available for preview
Arduino team member David Mellis says: I have Arduino 1.0 uploaded and ready for release, but it would be great if you could try it out as a sanity check before I announce it. You can find links to the download for Linux, OS X and Windows here. Via Adafruit.
RFIDIOt: RFID IO tools
RFIDIOt, which stands for RFID IO Tools, is an open source Python library for exploring RFID devices. It is intended to work with a range of LF and HF RFID reader hardware including both serial and PCSC devices. It’s the work of Adam Laurie, a Director of the security research and consultancy company Aperture Labs […]
Parallax KickStart tutorials
Anticipating an increase in interest in their products now carried at Radio Shack and other retailers, Parallax has posted a number of useful tutorials on their Getting Started with Parallax Wiki Google code site. Designed to bring beginners up to speed with coding and interfacing peripherals with the Propeller multi-core MCU, the Basic Stamp module […]
GKOS keyboard for Arduino
The Global Keyboard Open Standard (GKOS) is an ongoing project to implement the full qwerty keyboard on a set of 6 keys. It is intended for use with tiny wireless terminals in order to minimize the space requirements. The standard was first published in 2000 and has been the subject of ongoing development. You can […]
RFDump open source RFID data analysis software
RFDump is an open source tool introduced at the Blackhat Conference in Las Vegas 2004 and is designed to work with certain RFID reader hardware to read tags and display their meta information on your PC. The current version is V1.6. “It is a backend GPL tool to directly interoperate with any RFID ISO-Reader to […]
The $5 Picaxe Beatbox
Corticalcafe has posted a project for an audio record and repeat device using a Picaxe-08M microcontroller, piezo speaker, and a handful of resistors. The Beatbox uses LDRs shielded inside nuts to sense the input “drumbeats”! When powered up the LED indicator lights and the circuit senses about 5 seconds of input beats. After the maximum […]
Minibloq v0.8 Beta released
Minibloq ver 0.8 has been released. “Minibloq is a graphical programming environment for Arduino™, Multiplo, physical computing devices and robots. One of it’s main goals is to bring closer physical computing and robotic platforms to primary schools, kids and beginners.” You can download this Beta version for Windows and OSX here.
MSPGCC Uniarch install tutorial
Sergio Campama has written this tutorial on installing MSPGCC Uniarch. “Uniarch is an initiative to unify all the work left behind by mspgcc3 and mspgcc4, while also separating the boundaries between the compiler and TI header files. This ‘branch’ of mspgcc is the most advanced one, having over 300 supported MSP430 devices.” Sergio writes: I […]