A new open source hardware project every month
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SparkFun has a tutorial about playing WAV files with an 8-bit AD5330 Digital Analog Converter (DAC). The AD5330 has an 8-bit parallel interface and operates from 2.5v to 5.5v.
SparkFun uses an Arduino, micro SD shield, and AD5330 breakout board to play WAV files. The Arduino reads uncompressed WAV files from a FAT formatted SD Card using the MMC/SD/SDHC FAT library. It writes the bytes to 8 output pins, and clocks the WAV data into the AD5330.
Months ago SparkFun mentioned that they were working on something similar to the Bus Pirate. We asked them to please consider using the Bus Pirate design because it already has a bunch of features, and it’s in the public domain.
Today we received a prototype of the SparkFun Bus Pirate. SparkFun is the fourth company to sell Bus Pirate hardware, a group that already includes an eBay seller, Fundamental Logic, and Seeed Studio.You might call this the Arduino-fication of the Bus Pirate.
It’s awesome that the Bus Pirate is becoming a popular, widely available prototyping tool. Hopefully SparkFun’s exposure gives a lot more people the chance to use one. Of course, we’d prefer you buy a Bus Pirate at Seeed Studio because each sale directly funds the development of this open source project.
We give our impressions of the SparkFun hardware after the break.
Tags: Arduino-fication, open source, SparkFun
Uwe sent some photos of an XMOS development board from SparkFun. We had never heard of XMOS, but Uwe explains:
The XMOS concept can be seen in direct competition with FPGAs – simple logic design in software (C/C++) using very complex standard logic cells (XCORE) while FPGAs use far simpler standard logic cells that require a far complex development approach (VHDL/Verilog).
To me the XMOS approach is very appealing for various reasons, one being that XMOS makes their IP (core code) freely available (open source) while the FPGA manufacturers attempt to make a lot of money with their IP, so they let you test their IP for free (with stringent restrictions and limitations in many cases because they don’t want you to use the IP on their competitors products).
Open tools and C programmer friendly, looks like an interesting platform.
