January 2013 - Oberon - mailman3.inf.ethz.ch

Re: [Oberon] The Oberon answer to Arduino
by Aubrey.McIntosh＠Alumni.UTexas.Net 09 Jan '13

09 Jan '13

On Wed, Dec 26, 2012 at 2:28 AM, Arnim Littek <arnim(a)actrix.gen.nz> wrote: > > > On Tuesday 25 December 2012 11:29:25 you wrote: > > > > I am getting some hard questions on my KickStarter > > > > project< > > > > > > http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1378252804/681865516?token=bfb4 > > Maybe I'd better get a higher level view before I say anything about the > schematic. Simply the fact that the design stems from 2004, means that > most > of a decade later, you might be wise to consider your options in light of > your > highest level objectives. > > a) understandability for your students - OK, got that. > > b) serial control of lab instruments - is RS232 still the best way for you > to > do this? > This depends on whether it is my instrument, or logging data off of an existing instrument. That probably means that those details should all be on a daughter board. For a new instrument, I would not use RS-232. Some of the applications that are unique to me are leaking into this "general" device. Actually, if I call this "a case study" it is a good thing. My specialty in chemistry is analytical chemistry. It is important to weigh items to a reliable 0.000 1 g. I have students each weigh the same set of clean nickels (US $0.05 coin that is nominally a metric 5.00 g standard, readily available in the US, resistant to wear, and has "serial numbers" embossed on them) on each analytical balance in the lab, and then take apart the data to see how each balance, and each student, are performing. To take this lab to the next level, I want to record the time, barometric pressure, temperature, humidity, and the balance output. The analytical balances cost about $5,000, so I am pretty much stuck with legacy interfaces or a converter board. In the case of the Mettlers in our lab, this is RS-232 out of a DB-9 connector. The environmental stuff should be recorded inside the weighing chamber of the balance without heating it up, the RS-232 port is on the outside. So, for this project, the daughter board should receive RS-232 and a host of other transducer inputs. It should transfer, with very high reliability, the data to a database server. I probably want to use WiFi or IR for this. I don't know the practicality of IR. All of this is backstory stuff. I think I should hide it from the KickStarter project, but I am just guessing there. > > c) you've got a socket for nearly everything. Is that because you weren't > confident in your design, or for other reasons? Sockets raise the price, > and > reduce the reliability of the finished assembly. > Interesting that you notice that. I am astonished at how much the sockets and headers add to the cost. I am pretty dissatisfied with the every I have thought of. I socket the LEDs so that I can swap them out, and generate current-voltage curves for different parts. I could accomplish this in a lab by having different models of board with directly soldered parts. I socket the hobby part so that I can swap out whatever I am working on that moment. That probably could be a customer added socket. I have mixed feelings about the transparent latch. My firmware defaults to transparent and I don't think I have ever actually pulled the chip to do an experiment. I might want to have 1 or 2 socket-ed in a lab, and have the rest of them directly soldered. Another situation for 2 models, I suppose. I pulled parts from one prototype to build out the next prototype. LOL. I even de-soldered sockets to go to the next board. I think this was a bad time-money tradeoff decision, but I grew up poor and have some poor people habits that keep me poor. Since the board is also a programmer, I have put a ZIF socket on some revisions. That really adds to the cost. The current board is a little too tight for a ZIF socket. I worry about students destroying chips prying them out of a socket. I have good luck with a chip puller, or even a slim bladed pocket knife inserted under the chip and twisted, but some students have bad attitude and a streak of vandalism. It seems feasible to make this a customer decision in the KickStarter environment. I would then have hard numbers at purchasing time, and I could buy 5% excess of everything for those who make an after purchase change of mind. > > d) ref. b), if you use USB, then you can simplify the power supply. > However > there are provisos on power via USB. For my own part, I find FTDI USB > interface chips good for anything I've wanted, and because the drivers are > widely, and well, supported, which matters to me as a Linux proponent. > The original revision, back in 2008, was to go to the PIC 18F4550 part. I changed the board to take power from USB, and to have fairly short traces for the USB data. I uploaded those EAGLE files<https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bx35YZ-0A4ffajNRVzd0R1BxZVE> . I forgot about the FTDI part in the past 8 years. I dropped an FTDI daughterboard into a prototype board, and ran jumper wires over to my board. It worked really well. I have laid out artwork where that chip is on my board. I can't remember if I ordered that artwork or not. I seem to have a pipeline of built out prototypes, bare board prototypes, files with ECOs on them, files with unrelated projects that might fill an empty spot in a prototype run. It's getting too complex for me to manage. > > e) how much help did all of those LEDs provide you on the existing samples > of > the board? Are there better ways to communicate the same information? > > The LEDs let me and a group of students see what is going on very quickly and without any new tools intruding in the experience. If I directly solder them, the total support is only about USD $1.10 for the board. > I'll leave that as a starting point, and we'll see where it takes us... > > Arim > -- Aubrey McIntosh, Ph.D. 211 E. 5th St. Morris MN 56267 (512)-348-7401

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Re: [Oberon] Oberon Digest, Vol 105, Issue 5
by Søren Renner 09 Jan '13

09 Jan '13

Your problem is obvious: your mind is constrained by three-dimensional space-time. Knots can only exist in three dimensions. The intellectual knot you speak of cannot exist in higher thought. Join us.

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This is a nice project on the kick starter
by Jan Verhoeven 08 Jan '13

08 Jan '13

Here's a nice example of a good kickstart project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1411349329/picnduino-dual-microcontroll… Just for fun. -- Met vriendelijke groeten, Jan Verhoeven http://www.verhoeven272.nl

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Re: [Oberon] Oberon / Lilith Modula-2
by Chris Burrows 03 Jan '13

03 Jan '13

> From: aubrey.mcintosh(a)gmail.com [mailto:aubrey.mcintosh@gmail.com] On > Behalf Of Aubrey.McIntosh(a)Alumni.UTexas.Net > Sent: Friday, 4 January 2013 7:15 AM > To: chris(a)cfbsoftware.com; ETH Oberon and related systems > Subject: Re: [Oberon] The Oberon answer to Arduino > > You can do a lot in 128Kb with software written in Oberon. I have had a > (very) experimental version of the Lilith Modula-2 M-Code interpreter > which can run 16-bit Modula-2 programs produced by the ETH M2M-PC compiler > on an ARM board. The interpreter executable is only about 28Kb. Admittedly > it is the bare basics but you could do a lot with an extra 100Kb. > > That's really cool. I have the 5.25" floppies for the M2M system from > Provo here at the desk. I don't know how to read them anymore, or even > if they are still good. > I bought a 5 1/4" drive some years ago from ebay to read mine and they still worked. You can download the MRI M2M-PC software and the four-pass Modula-2 compiler sources from my website if you can't read yours: http://www.cfbsoftware.com/modula2/ Alternatively, you can now download the complete Lilith M2M-compiler, linker and operating system sources (including the CPU microcode!) from Jos Dreesen's EmuLith (Lilith emulator) site: ftp://jdreesen.dyndns.org/Emulith/ P.S. If you also have a copy of Volition Systems Modula-2 system for the Sage II / IV (AFAIR you had a Sage as well) on your desk I would be really interested. I've been trying to track down a copy for the last couple of years. I'm also still looking for the source code of Wirth's single-pass M-Code Modula-2 compiler. The executable is on one of Emulith's drives but I haven't been able to track down the source code, Regards, Chris Regards, Chris Burrows CFB Software http://www.cfbsoftware.com

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The Oberon answer to Arduino
by Aubrey.McIntosh＠Alumni.UTexas.Net 03 Jan '13

03 Jan '13

I am getting some hard questions on my KickStarter project<http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1378252804/681865516?token=bfb40102> . They are basically of the form, why would someone buy my item instead of an Arduino. These questions came from people I respect, whom I asked to comment, so I want to have a strong and respectful answer. I have done some reading, and I have read some pretty testy exchanges between some PIC enthusiasts and the Arduino enthusiasts. Basically, the Arduino folks say that being able to use their wire it up user interface is compelling and the PIC folks are in the past, and the PIC folks are saying that the libraries are closed and have some critical design bugs and they want an architecture where you can control stuff down to the bits. At one level, my project is about a teaching tool. However, just knowing about the parts is not enough. I want the project to also be a nicely designed tool. I suppose that I envision something like a programmers VOM. Something to program chips via ICSP, step through simple logic sequences, safely accept user programs to do innovative things. I suppose I have to add that it needs to fill a niche that the Arduino does not fill. So this brings to mind the question, should I go with a MIPS processor? They are available for about $5 each, and there is an Oberon compiler for them. There is a similar situation for the SPARC, the 68HC11, and other processors. It would be trivial to load commands in the Oberon environment to either of these processors. They would stay as part of the firmware, until they are freed up. There would have to be some small design change to have the code in EEPROM and the volatile data in RAM, including the initialization flags. .... So, does it make more sense to use the legacy, V4 Oberon system with a few communication tools thrown in to accomplish this? I am confident that I can pull this off, and I have done a lot of the background work to do so. Does it make more sense to update these compilers to the Component Pascal environment, so that there is a product with a lot of modern cross compilers, a nice IDE, and a custom made board that competes sort of laterally with the Arduino? I can envision an interface made out of something like Kepler and the Hardware compiler language whose name I can't remember, to make a complete system, but in the Oberon flavor. I think this could be the killer app that I have thought Oberon needed for the past 20 years. I hope you guys have an enlightened moment about this soon. I'd love to see a community project come together. -- Aubrey McIntosh, Ph.D. 211 E. 5th St. Morris MN 56267 (512)-348-7401

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Re: [Oberon] The Oberon answer to Arduino
by Bernhard Treutwein 01 Jan '13

01 Jan '13

>> I wish I could be a catalyst to bring forth the "Killer Oberon App" >> but I don't see it happening. > > Perhaps a stand alone universal micro controller development system > (programmer, debugger, editor, compiler) written in Oberon. > jumping in lately ... having been just lurking ... hmm, ther is the .NET micro framework (see e.g.http://www.oberon.ch/netmf.html and Cuno Pfister's book mentioned there). And we have John Gough's Component Pascal (renamed Oberon/L) ... and we have BlackBox with its complete source ... Shouldn't it be possible to create something like BlackBox for .NETMF as killer app ... -- Bernhard

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