Esden's Blog

New Black Magic Debug Maintainer

Esden — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone!

As some of you might know Black Magic Debug was created and maintained for many years by Gareth McMullin. He has created a wonderful tool that we all use and love. You might have also noticed that Gareth did not have much time to dedicate to the project for the last few years. He asked me a while ago if I would be able to take over the project and become an official maintainer of Black Magic Debug. I did not have the necessary resources to dedicate to the project until very recently. But it is finally time, from now on I am officially taking on the position as the Black Magic Debug maintainer. :)

I want to thank Gareth for putting the faith in me and creating this amazing project. I also have to say big thanks to Uwe Bonnes who stepped in while Gareth and I were unavailable to keep the patches and Black Magic releases going.

I have a lot of plans for the Black Magic project, software/firmware and hardware wise. You might have noticed I already spent some time catching up on and cleaning the GitHub issues. It is by no means finished and probably never will be, but I hope we can keep open issues and pull requests on a better level going forward.

To resolve the issue that the native Black Magic Hardware is currently not available due to chip shortages, I am working on the new revision of the native hardware. This should make them available again and allow us for more alternative chip choices. We are adding some cool new features to the new hardware while we are at it. (more information soon) I am also working on a tool that will help users manage the Black Magic Probe firmware, opening doors to more flexibility and versatility of the project overall. (also, more information about that soon)

https://youtu.be/v1BNmTlc6FU

A small teaser of the new native Black Magic Probe hardware V2.3a

3D Printed cases for BMP V2.3a

You can also expect that we will finally get a proper CI system including HITL (Hardware In The Loop) testing. Something we are in dire need to keep the stability expectations as high as possible. I was collecting a lot of hardware over the years and I want to put it together to some good use. We will also improve the contribution process and document the APIs better, this should hopefully make addition of new targets easier.

There is one more thing that I would like to mention. In the process of changing maintainership the GitHub organization that the project is under will be changing it's name. As it is not developed by Blacksphere (Gareth's consulting company) we will be renaming the org to the project's name itself. It will serve as an umbrella for additional repositories related to the Black Magic Debug project. Don't worry GitHub should redirect the old organization names to the new one. I hope it will not cause too much disruption. We will also finally be officially retiring the SourceForge project page to avoid confusion. This means the old unused mailing lists will be disabled.

If you have questions or concerns and want to get in touch with the project you have multiple options: open an issue on github, join the 1BitSquared Discord server and talk to us in the #blackmagic channel. If it is something you would rather discuss one on one, you can also write an email to: contact at black-magic org where you will be able to reach the core developer team.

I am excited to work with you all to bring the Black Magic Debug project to the next level.

Stay safe, cheers,
Piotr Esden-Tempski

My Streaming Setup and Electronics Tools Collection

Esden — Mon, 11 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone!

As many of you ask about the tools I am using for twitch streams as well as what electronics related tools I am using. I decided it was time to put together a blog post for that. I will likely keep updating this specific post when my streaming setup evolves or I need to add more content. This blog post is derived and updated version of the Gist that I posted a while ago.

This post is currently reflecting the gear I am using in May 2020. If you think anything is missing from this list or it is not up to date any more. Feel free to ping me and I will do my best to update the list! :)

Computer

Currently I use a scratch built PC for streaming, here is the list of the major components:

AMD RYZEN 7 3700X 8-Core
Gigabyte X570 Motherboard
64GB of RAM
Gigabyte Radeon RX 5600 XT GPU
EVGA SuperNova 650 G3 modular power supply
Noctua NH-U14S 140mm SSO2-Bearing CPU cooler
Fractal Design Meshify C Black Compact Mid Tower case
Two 1080p Dell monitors I had since years

For the complete build and the exact parts used you can find the NewEgg build here: https://newegg.io/a1664311

Cameras

Face Cam: Logitech C920
Desk Cam: Lumix G7
- Mounted on: Manfrotto 244RC Variable Friction Magic Arm
- Clamp for the arm: Manfrotto 035RL Super Clamp
Microscope Cam: AiHOME HDMI C-Mount Camera

Lighting

Capture Devices

For Desktop Cam: Elgato Cam Link 4K
For Microscope Cam: Magewell USB Capture HDMI Gen2 USB 3.0
For Audio: SYBA USB Stereo Sound Adapter

Audio

Lapel Microphone: Sennheiser EW 100 G3

Software

Main Streaming software: OBS
Linux Browser view used for overlays and plugins
Free Plugins/overlays from Streamlabs
AlertBox: Displays alerts of new followers, subscribers, bit donations and more
ChatBox: Displays the twitch chat messages as video overlay
Cloudbot: Provides commands like `!uptime` and automatically sends out an invite to the Discord server.
Key and Mouse visualizer: TrayKeys
Text Editor: Sublime Text
ToDo List Sublime Text Plugin: PlainTasks
PCB Design Software: KiCad
- Plugin: InteractiveHtmlBom
FPGA Tools:
- Binary Distribution and build script: Open Tool Forge
- Synthesis: Yosys
- Place and Route: nextpnr
- Database and Programmer (iCE40): icestorm
- Database (ECP5): prjtrellis
- Simulator: iverilog
- Simulator: Verilator
- Signal Trace Viewer: GTKWave
Logic Analyzer framework/software: Sigrok/Pulseview

Other Gear

Microscope: AmScope 7X-45X Simul-Focal
Microscope Camera Lens: OMAX 0.5X C Mount Reduction Lens
I also got a focus adjustment barrell, but I can't find the source for it... TODO
Light Ring: AmScope LED Light Ring
Soldering Iron: JBC T210-A
- Soldering Tips: C245-029, C245-064
Hot Air Rework Station: AOYUE 852A
Reflow Oven: T-962A with all mods
HotPlate: Akozon 200x200mm
PreHeater: Coffee Cup Warmer
PCB Tab Route Tab Clipper: Hakko CHP DP-20-N Depaneling Tool
Multimeter: Fluke 115
- Multimeter Probes: Probemaster 8000
Oscilloscope: Tektronix TDS2014B
Logic analyzers:
- 1BitSquared BitMagic-basic
- A Sigrok Compatible "old" Saleae Logic 16 clone. (until BitMagic-pro is done)
Vise: Stickvise
- PTFE Jaws
Tweezers:
- Angled: Erem E7SA
- Straight: Erem E3SA
RoadRunner Wiring Pencil

1BitSquared and other stuff

iCEBreaker FPGA related products
- USA
- Germany
- CrowdSupply
- Mouser
Black Magic Probe
- USA
- Germany
- Adafruit
BitMagic-basic Logic Analyzer
- USA
- Germany

If you like what you see and would like to support the streams and development of new open source devices, but you already have all the 1BitSquared hardware you need, you can support me through Patreon and/or Twitch subscriptions.

You can reach me through twitter and on our 1BitSquared Discord server. I hope this list is useful.

Cheers,
Piotr

Upgrading a T962a Reflow oven (old)

Esden — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post is the old version of the T962a Reflow oven upgrade documentation. A more up to date version of this post with additional information and pictures can be found in the 1BitSquared forum. The following text is being left here for historical reference. :D

Hey!

Many people ask on a regular basis what Reflow oven I am using. To answer that question I use two fully upgraded/modified T962a reflow ovens. You can get them from ebay for around $300 give or take. I heard some people had some success using toaster ovens with modifications for reflow but I personally do not trust that solution enough from not only the safety standpoint but also from the ability to follow a reflow temperature curve in a repetitive manner that I can trust. That also means you will need the T962a and not the less powerful T962, you will need the power to be able to reliably follow a reasonable reflow temperature curve.

That said the T962a is completely useless when you get it and you need to make a few modifications to it. If you do not make those modifications you will create a safety and health hazard. Also you will likely burn up your pcb's or evaporate the flux from your solder paste before it reflows creating cold solder joints.

The closest thing that I could find that could be an out of the box working replacement is about 10x more expensive than the T962a including the modifications.

This are the supplies you will need:

Screw driver
medium width Kapton tape
Multimeter
Small file or other scraping device
A serial to USB adapter. (and FTDI cable is a good choice)
Soldering iron
A little bit of wire
Thermocouple interface board with parts (https://github.com/UnifiedEngineering/T-962-improvements/wiki/Better-thermocouple-interface)
A small replacement "silent" 40mm fan

And these are the following steps you need to perform to modify your oven.

Open the oven
Remove all the masking tape and replace it with Kapton tape (pay attention to the masking tape that is hiding under the insulation in the front of the oven attached to the "ruler" shaped cover above the oven's drawer, you need to replace that too)
Make sure that the whole case of the oven is connected to the earth ground of your power connector using the multi-meter. You might need to scrape off some paint under the back panel screws to create a connection between the earth and the bottom half of the oven.
Re-flash the controller board with the Unifiedengineering firmware: https://github.com/UnifiedEngineering/T-962-improvements/wiki
Build the Thermocouple interface board and mount it in the oven: https://github.com/UnifiedEngineering/T-962-improvements/wiki/Better-thermocouple-interface (you can use the oven without the TC interface to reflow the TC interface, but it might be better if you have some other place you can reflow the board in, but it should work for that one time :D)
Replace the small cooling fan for the controller electronics with the new "silent" fan.

If you have all the supplies that modification should take no longer than one afternoon and it is really worth it!

Notes about usage:

Pre-heat the oven to 40C before use.
Put down scrap PCB material under the board you are reflowing so that it is not sitting directly on the metal tray. If you don't do that the tray will suck out valuable heat out of your PCB and cause problems.
Use only the center 1/3rd of the oven tray. The outer area of the reflow tray will not have the same temperature as the center and you will have consistency issues around the edges of your PCB's. This is a good reason to design your boards as small as you can so that you can squeeze a bunch of them into the center of the oven. ;D

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Esden

Black Magic Discovery

Esden — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone!

Today I had to fix another STM32F4 Discovery board. By fixing I mean replacing the STLink firmware with Black Magic Probe firmware. I do that on a semi regular basis but as I have not done it in a long time I did not remember the process anymore. Obviously this calls for a blog post with some step by step instructions on how to do it, so that I have a reference in the future. Also you might find it useful yourself.

First of all let's explain what we are trying to do. The objective is to replace the STLink SWD (Serial Wire Debug) firmware with Black Magic Probe firmware. The board is setup by default to use a smaller chip to run the STLink firmware to talk to the main stm32. We need to change the smaller chips firmware. The initial adjustments to the board are needed to be able to access the programming pins of the smaller chip and replace it's contents to Black Magic Probe firmware so that we can use GDB (GNU DeBugger) to program and debug the board instead of the very unstable and unreliable proprietary STLink protocol. The adjustments needed to access the small chips programming pins need to be reversed once the firmware is changed to Black Magic Probe firmware, resulting with an stm32 f4 discovery board with Black Magic Probe firmware ready to use.

For the "Fixing" process I use a genuine Black magic probe, I have one of those very early ones with a 0.1" header that is very useful in this particular case. You can also use a Black Magic Probe Mini with a PCB adapter, make an adapter cable or you can use another Discovery board that has already been "fixed".

Step 1

First step is to change the two solder jumpers on the bottom of the discovery board.

[caption id="attachment_503" align="alignnone" width="510"] Jumper modification for SWD programming.[/caption]

Remove the 0Ohm resistor/jumpers marked with red circles, and close the jumpers marked with blue circles.

Note: The easiest way to do that is to use a soldering tip, add a bunch more solder over the resistor and swipe them of. After that is done use solder wick to make sure there is no short on the "red" jumper. You can discard the 0Ohm resistors. It is much easier to just add a small blob of solder to close the "blue" jumpers, it is easy to remove them later in the process by just using some solder wick.

Step 2

Remove the SWD and slave MCU jumpers as indicated by the red circles in the photo.

[caption id="attachment_507" align="alignnone" width="576"] STM32F4 Discovery board Jumpers for updating the programmer chip firmware[/caption]

Step 3

Attach jumper wires to the Black Magic Probe header.

[caption id="attachment_509" align="alignnone" width="576"] Black Magic Probe Serial Wire Debug connections for Discovery board "fixing"[/caption]

Standard JTAG/SWD 20Pin 0.1" header

Black wire - Pin 14 (GND)
Orange wire - Pin 9 (TCLK/SWCLK)
Yellow wire - Pin 8 (TMS/SWDIO)

In case you are trying to figure out which pins these are on a standard ARM Cortex 10Pin 0.05" header. Here you go:

Standard JTAG/SWD Cortex 10Pin 0.1" header

Black wire - Pin 3, 5 or 9 (GND)
Orange wire - Pin 4 (TCLK/SWCLK)
Yellow wire - Pin 2 (TMS/SWDIO)

Step 4

Attach the Black Magic Probe to the discovery board.

[caption id="attachment_510" align="alignnone" width="576"] STM32F4 Discovery board Serial Wire Debug connection for "fixing" the on board programmer firmware[/caption]

Black wire (GND) - Pin 3 of the SWD (CN2) header
Orange wire (SWCLK) - Pin 2 of the ST-LINK/DISCOVERY (CN3) header
Yellow wire (SWDIO) - Pin 4 of the ST-LINK/DISCOVERY (CN3) header

Step 5

Now you can connect the discovery board and the Black Magic probe to your computer via USB. The order should not matter, but usually I tend to connect the usb wires to the laptop before connecting the SWD wires between the two devices, just to make sure we don't have some strange current loop that powers one or the other via IO pins, which might be problematic.

Step 6

Now we turn our attention to the software. You can obviously do these steps before you wire everything up but this is the order I followed.

The process requires a few dependencies that you should install using either apt on Linux or homebrew or macports on OS X:

Python
pyserial

In my case I use OS X and homebrew so I needed to run the following two commands:

brew install python pip install pyserial

Step 7

Download and make the an arm gcc compiler "findable". I recommend using GCC ARM Embedded as it is maintained by the ARM developers themselves and they seem to generally know what they are doing. :)

So download it from here: https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded

Then unpack it into your home directory:

[code language="text" gutter="false"] cd ~ tar xfvj ~/Downloads/gcc-arm-none-eabi-replace this with the version-mac.tar.bz2 [/code]

Then you should add the binary directory of the newly unpacked compiler package to your system. Obviously to do this you add the directory to your PATH environment variable. If you don't know what that is you should learn a bit more about your Unix/Linux basics. :)

export PATH=~/gcc-arm-none-eabi-someversion/bin:$PATH

To make this addition persistent you can also add that to your .profile, .bash_profile or .zprofile depending on the shell and setup you use.

Step 8

Download blackmagic firmware source code. You can get it at https://github.com/blacksphere/blackmagic

The easiest way is to clone the github repository, look for the small window at the center right of the github page for the git repository url. If you have a github account choose the ssh url but if you refuse to do so then you can go with the https one too. :)

If you did not learn about GIT and GitHub yet this is the perfect time to take a break from all of this here and come back after you have caught up on your homework. :D

git clone git@github.com:blacksphere/blackmagic.git

Step 9

Now let's build the firmware. This consists of three steps:

Fetch the libopencm3 submodule
Build from the toplevel so libopencm3 is built
Build the blackmagic firmware for the stlink

cd blackspheregit submodule initgit submodule updatemakecd srcmake cleanmake PROBE_HOST=stlink

Step 10

We can finally connect to the hardware we wired up before and erase the pesky stlink firmware. When the discovery boards ship, the firmware is read and write protected on the STLink chip. So to be able to overwrite the firmware we will have to unlock the chip. Thanks to Gareth there is a small python script that can do that for us. You just have to call the following command inside the src directory of the blackmagic repository and it should be able to remove the write protection:

../scripts/hexprog.py -s -d /dev/cu.usbmodemSOMESERIAL1 -r blackmagic.bin

In the case you are on Linux you can leave out the -d device parameter. For reference the -s parameter tells hexprog to use Serial Wire Debug instead of JTAG and -r tells it to unlock and erase the target chip.

If you skip any of those two parameters it will not work for you.

Step 11

Flash the bootloader. We are getting very close. To upload the blackmagic bootloader you use arm-none-eabi-gdb.

arm-none-eabi-gdb blackmagic_dfutarget extended_remote /dev/usbmodemSOMESERIAL1monitor swdp_scanattach 1loadexit

This sequence of commands attaches to the virtual gdb server that is provided by the Black Magic Probe on it's virtual serial port 1. (The second serial port is the USB to serial interface located on the back of the BMPM) We then tell the monitor (this is the BMP) to scan using Serial Wire Debug as our protocol. Next we attach to the virtual process number 1. (As we are on the embedded systems there usually should only ever be 1 process unless you run an RTOS) We load the firmware from the elf file that we passed on to gdb earlier and exit GDB.

Simple right? :D (Believe me that is definitely simpler than setting up and making OpenOCD work with Eclipse)

Tip: To make things easier for the future you can add the following to your .gdbinit file:

set target-async onset confirm offset history saveset mem inaccessible-by-default offtar ext /dev/cu.usbmodemSOMESERIAL1mon versionmon swdp_scan#mon jtag_scan att 1

Note: On Linux the cu.usbmodem device name will be /dev/ttyACM0 instead.

After setting up the .gdbinit file the upload process becomes quite a bit shorter:

arm-none-eabi-gdb blackmagicloadexit

Step 12

Upload the black magic firmware itself. Here you have two options. Either you can use the same process as before using GDB or you can use the now uploaded DFU bootloader to upload the Black Magic Probe firmware payload. Using GDB you would run the following:

arm-none-eabi-gdb blackmagictarget extended_remote /dev/cu.usbmodemSOMESERIAL1monitor swdp_scanattach 1loadexit

Alternatively you can upload the firmware using a DFU script. Before you do that though you should disconnect the genuine Black Magic Probe from your computer as you want to make sure the script flashes the Discovery board and not your BMP. To do that you will need to install python libusb as an additional dependency. But having done that you can then run the following to upload the firmware:

./scripts/stm32_mem.py blackmagic.bin

Step 13

Put everything back together. Now you just have to do four things:

Disconnect your Black Magic Probe and Discovery board from your computer as well as each other.
Remove the solder blobs you have added on the back of the board.
Add solder blobs to where you removed the resistors at the very beginning.
Put the jumpers back to where they were on the front of the Discovery board.

You are pretty much done now. If everything went well you should have your "fixed" discovery board. Follow to the one additional step below to test that.

Step 14

Plug in your Discovery board into your computer. The dual color led next to the USB connector should be solid Green. If it is blinking Green it means the bootloader is running and the board is expecting to be flashed with the firmware. This can happen if you still have the power jumper disconnected that provides power to the "slave" STM32F4 chip. This is actually very useful if you want to upgrade the Black Magic Probe firmware on your discovery board. :D

Additionally if everything went well if you are on Mac OS X a /dev/cu.usbmodemSOMESERIAL1 and /dev/cu.usbmodemSOMESERIAL3 should appear. If you are on linux you should be able to find ttyACM0 and ttyACM1 in the /dev directory.

I hope this write up is useful for you and the future me. :) I am planning to write another blog post on how to build and upload an example firmware onto the slave processor. So hold on to your hats! :)

Cheers,
Esden

P.S. Big thanks to Jack Ziesing for proofreading and introductory paragraph and sparking the work on this article. It is a great help! :)

libopencm3 Discovery

Esden — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

As promised in the previous post. Here is a short write up how to download, compile and upload your first example program using libopencm3 and a STM32F4 discovery board.

Very similar process will apply to any other evaluation boards that employ an STM32 microcontroller and Black Magic Probe JTAG/SWD programmer. Like for example Lisa/M, Lisa/MX, Lisa/S, Apogee and so on.

Step 1

If you did not already do that, download and install GCC ARM Embedded. You might have already done it if you were "fixing" your Discovery board.

You can download the compiler from here: https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded

Unpack it into your home directory:

cd ~
tar xfvj ~/Downloads/gcc-arm-none-eabi-replace this with the version-mac.tar.bz2

You should add the binary directory of the newly unpacked compiler package to your system. Obviously to do this you add the directory to your PATH environment variable. If you don't know what that is you should learn a bit more about your Unix/Linux basics. :)

export PATH=~/gcc-arm-none-eabi-someversion/bin:$PATH

To make this addition persistent you can also add that to your .profile, .bash_profile or .zprofile depending on the shell and setup you use.

Step 2

Download libopencm3-examples. You can find this repository at https://github.com/libopencm3/libopencm3-examples

git clone git@github.com:libopencm3/libopencm3-examples.git

Step 3

Build the libopencm3 examples. The repository contains libopencm3 as a submodule so you will have to initialize and update the submodule before you can compile the library itself as well as all the different examples.

cd libopencm3-examples
git submodule init
git submodule update
make

This will take a bit as there is a lot of examples included in that repository. In the past the examples were part of the main library itself but there became so many of them that we had to split it off. Otherwise the build and clone process just took too long.

Step 4

Prepare your environment. To make your life easier you should set up your .gdbinit configuration file. This will make the firmware upload and debug process so much easier. Just add the following lines to the .gdbinit file:

set target-async on
set confirm off
set history save
set mem inaccessible-by-default off
tar ext /dev/cu.usbmodemSOMESERIAL1
mon version
mon swdp_scan
#mon jtag_scan
att 1

Note: On linux the cu.usbmodemSOMESERIAL1 becomes ttyACM0.

For reference here is the breakdown of what the commands inside of the .gdbinit file mean:

set target-async on: Enable background execution commands.
set confirm off: This disables the really annoying "are you sure" questions. :)
set history save: This forces GDB to save the command history.
set mem inaccessible-by-default off: This is one of the most important commands here. Very often when you are trying to debug your code on a microcontroller you have to read the content of memory mapped registers. If you don't set this option the debugger will prevent you from doing so as it has no idea that this memory is actually accessible. On a PC having the option on makes total sense but on a microcontroller it is mostly a burden.
tar ext /dev/cu.usbmodemSOMESERIAL1: tell gdb to connect to Black Magic Probe
mon version: Print version of the Black Magic Probe.
mon swdp_scan: Scan for devices using SWD protocol.
att 1: Attach to the first process. On a microcontroller you will have only one process...

Step 4

Upload fancyblink example. The simplest example for the STM32F4 Discovery board is the fancyblink example. It is also very easy to upload. As long as your Discovery board is "fixed" and uses the BMP firmware.

cd examples/stm32/f4/stm32f4-discovery/fancyblink
arm-none-eabi-gdb fancyblink.elf
load
run

Now the LEDs on the Discovery board should be blinking. You can interrupt the execution of the program by pressing -C. You can continue the execution by running cont.

Here is a short reference of GDB commands that you might find useful when playing around with code:

load -> load the binary from the provided elf file. (Note: it detects if the elf file changed on the hard disk and loads a new one if available. So you don't have to quit GDB every time when you recompile your code)
run -> start the execution of your firmware
backtrace -> print the call stack trace of the current line of code being executed
make -> runs make command in the directory you started gdb. Very useful if you want to update the binary you are running really quick.
break filename:lineno -> you can add a breakpoint inside your code. GDB will stop the execution of the program as soon as the line is hit by the firmware.
step -> execute one single line of code and return back to the command line
next -> same as step but it does not enter into the functions called and skips them. Useful if you want to step over functions you know take forever and you are not interested in what they are actually doing. :)
print variablename -> print the content of a variable
print/x variablename -> print the content of a variable as HEX
list -> prints the context of the line being executed at the very moment
kill -> if used in a GDB script it will reset the MCU and exit GDB. Very useful as last command of a GDB script.

I hope this will be helpful for you.

Cheers, Esden

P.S. Big thanks to Jack Ziesing for proofreading and introductory paragraph and sparking the work on this article. It is a great help! :)

Lisa/S, SuperbitRF, 1 BIT SQUARED

Esden — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

Again it was a while since I posted something here. I just wanted to write a quick update on what I've been up to lately.

I am working very hard on Lisa/S and SuperbitRF. The goal of the project is to develop the smallest and lightest possible UAV controller system without compromising functionality.

The Lisa/S board is only 20mm x 20mm and weighs about 3g with a lot of integrated sensors.

3 Axis Gyroscope
3 Axis Accelerometer
3 Axis Magnetometer (Compass)
Barometer (Altimeter)
GPS Receiver

Just like Lisa/M it's bigger sister. Lisa/S is powered by the STM32F103 ARM 32bit microcontroller. Providing quite a lot of processing power for your UAV needs. On top of it all the board has 4 MOSFET solid state switches. They make it possible to use the board directly on the tiny brushed motor quadcopters, nano helicopters and fixed wing airplanes. I am quite excited how much I managed to put onto that tiny footprint. Usually much bigger boards don't even include a GPS receiver on the board.

Another feature of Lisa/S that I think is worth mentioning is that it has a CYRF footprint.

CYRF is a module that I developed as part of the system. It contains the CYRF6936 2.5GHz transceiver chip. It is connected to the MCU on Lisa/S through SPI. The particular transceiver is the one at the heart of all the Spektrum transmitter and receiver systems and many others like Walkera Devo. It is very exciting because we have direct access to that chip from the autopilot and can implement compatibility to a lot of 2.4GHz RC gear available out there.

Our current software implements support for some Spektrum RC transmitters and as a bonus we can simultaneously connect to a laptop using the USBRF dongle. This removes the need for having two radios on your vehicle thus saving weight.

All of these items are currently available for pre-order in the 1 BIT SQUARED shop. We are working on finalizing the production process of the first batch of Lisa/S, CYRF and USBRF. We are projecting they will be available in the shop by the end of May. We have put a lot of effort into making these boards, if you are interested you can read more about it in the 1 BIT SQUARED blog.

Last but not least 1 BIT SQUARED is my own company that I founded early last year. I want to develop and produce hardware and software that I am excited about and would like to share with others that are interested in the field of airborne robotics. If you like open hardware and software and want to support me directly the shop is the most direct and easiest way to do so.

Cheers, Esden

Black Magic

Esden — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

A few months ago I met a great guy Gareth MacMullin in the libopencm3 channel. He was working on a new Open-Source and Open-Hardware JTAG solution called Black Magic Probe(BMP). I got one of those and instantly fell in love with it.

OpenOCD is great in a sense because it supports lots of targets and probes but that is its disadvantage too. It is very often difficult to set up and tends not to work properly in many cases. The approach of BMP is quite different. Instead of the probe being quite dumb and using OpenOCD to do the JTAG magic the BMP uses a microcontroller (STM32F1) and implements a GDB server inside the controller. This solution cuts out the middleman and talks JTAG as well as the new Serial Wire Debug (SWD) protocol itself. Requiring only a working GDB on the computer.

The BMP supports several Cortex-M3 targets and more devices are being added fairly quickly. The first time I tried it with an STM32 it just worked. No command line parameters just:

arm-none-eabi-gdb some_elf_file target extended-remote /dev/ACM0 mon swdp_scan att 1 load run

It shocked me how fast the loading process was. Because it is not one of the FTDI chips and does not have to bitbang all of the JTAG protocol over USB it can run much much faster. I know there are commercial devices like JLink that have logic inside them but they cost arm and a leg if you don't want to just get the educational version of it.

One more thing comes to mind when you realize that the BMP supports SWD. You only need three pins to be able to use it GND, SWDIO and SWCLK. That decreases the required real estate on the PCB significantly. I am not sure what the status of OpenOCD support for SWD is now but it is work in progress as far as I understand. On BMP it just works.

Since I started using the BMP there were several interesting developments that Gareth added. The BMP is not only offering one serial port for the GDB extended remote interface but also a second one providing a TTL level UART interface. The BMP also supports tracing by now using the TRACESWO pin. This provides a reasonably high speed tracing. Gareth also wrote a plotter for this feature that plots the contents of traced variables in your code.

Early versions of BMP were 2.5cm X 5cm the current version called Black Magic Probe Mini (BMPM) is smaller, the same size as the FLOSS-JTAG I made a while ago, it is mere 1.5cm X 3cm, packing in all the power of the BMP what makes it great for doing embedded stuff on the go, for example in the subway.

So to wrap things up, it is a high grade, Open-Source and Open-Hardware device. For $60 this thing is a steal!

Shameless plug: On 1 BIT SQUARED store you can order the Black Magic Probe.

There are also some other distributors listed on the BMP page too. So check it out! I bet you will love it. :)

Quadshot - an aerobatic blend of RC quadrocopters and airplanes

Esden — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

As you probably notice I am very busy lately. Together with some friends we were working on the Quadshot an aerobatic blend between a quadrocopter and an airplane.

It takes off and lands vertically like a quadrocopter as well as it can fly forward like an airplane using its wing to add additional lift extending flight time.

We submitted the project to Kickstarter and we are very happy to see that we got such a great response. The Kickstarter funding runs for another three days and if you pledge you can get a Quadshot at a discounted price as a reward.

At it's heart Quadshot is using the avionics and software framework of Paparazzi. We developed the additional necessary controls for Quadshot and released them. So Quadshot has Open-Hardware electronics and Open-Source firmware making it a great platform for research and hacking.

Having an autopilot makes it also very easy to fly for a beginner RC pilot.

I hope to find some more time in the future to get into more details about Quadshot. But till then check out the following links:

Cheers Esden

Open-BLDC and the CLogic story

Esden — Sun, 15 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

[embed]https://www.flickr.com/photos/esden/5188383797/in/album-72157625281995565/[/embed]

Hi,

It was again a while since my last post, but as always I was quite busy. :)

The last news about Open-BLDC was about its V0.3 iteration. A lot has changed and happened since then. I was realizing that I am getting more and more inquires where people were asking about obldc being able to control very different sizes of motors, ranging from 12V and 10A up to 48V and 200A.

This requirement does not really ask for different logic and controls but it definitely asks for many different power stages. Open-BLDC was designed to be modular from the beginning but still to accomodate that kind of a power range it would be necessary to design and create quite a big lineup of hardware.

Around that time I had the opportunity to take a look inside a dead motor controller from Castle Creations just to realize that these guys seem to know what they are doing and that they went with a modular design too. To make a long story short I decided that it will be better to buy one of their of the shelf motor controllers and retrofit them with my logic. That is how CLogic was born.

As it seems other manufacturers are selling ESCs that have the same interface between the logic and the power stage too. Tekin for example. But my guess is that they are just OEM of castle themselves. But who knows. :)

Turingy also came out with an ESC that seems to have the same interface, the Turingy dlux. I ordered a few of them to take a look for myself and see if CLogic will fit in there. That would be a great source of cheep power stages. :)

CLogic has most of the functionality the Open-BLDC v0.3 had. Because of the size constrains I had to get rid of the dedicated i2c and PPM connectors, but I added isolation on the CAN interface that should provide additional safety when used on a 50V and bigger systems. The i2c and PPM interfaces are still available either over the new AUX connector or through the UART interface connector.

The new AUX connector gives the possibility of easily connecting encoders or hal sensors for sensored operation. So the interfaces stay very flexible with added flexibility due to the big variety of power stages you can use, while being very very compact.

Sure some people complained "The power stages are not Open-Source!!!", yes that is true. Also these systems start at a higher power and weight class than some of you would want to operate them. That is why there is CPico Power. It is a very small, low power and a hopefully cheep power stage that we are putting together for those who want it all fully open! So no worries. :)

I think that wraps up the news about the new direction Open-BLDC is going. I hope you like it. I am looking forward to your comments.

Cheers Esden

FLOSS-JTAG V1.0 Released and Available

Esden — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone,

As you might know some time ago I have developed a small JTAG adapter based on the FT2232H chip. I gave it the name FLOSS-JTAG as the idea was that it should be absolutely OpenSource and OpenHardware.

You can find the project at GitHub and some more info at it's random projects wiki page.

FLOSS-JTAG not only has the high speed 24MHz FT2232H chip (there are some designs based on my idea that are using a low speed version of the same chip). It provides the new standard 0.05" pitch 10 pin Cortex JTAG header as well as a TTL level serial interface on it's second interface.

I am glad to announce that I have reached the V1.0 with it. All necessary files to make your own are in the GitHub repository. But if you don't want to go through the pains of ordering PCB, sourcing parts, assembling QFN SMD packages you can also purchase it in the Joby Robotics online shop.

At Joby Robotics you get a cable assembly to connect the FLOSS-JTAG to a target. This allows you to debug and connect to targets that are difficult to reach otherwise. You also will get a cortex connector to old standard 20pin 0.1" pitch connector adapter.

The adapter is small and will make it also easier to debug targets that are difficult to reach.

You can get precrimped Molex Picoblade wires in 10 different colors at Joby Robotics too. This way you can easily build a UART cable that connects FLOSS-JTAG to a device.

I am very happy that FLOSS-JTAG is finally easily accessible to anyone who needs it.

FLOSS-JTAG works perfectly together with Openocd and Summon-ARM-Toolchain.

Cheers Esden

Open-BLDC V0.3 Hardware Based Closed Loop Control

Esden — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Hi,

Good news everyone!

After again a way too long time some new news! I finally implemented hardware based commutation detection and the associated closed loop controller.

That was quite a run because of a cascade of timing and timer problems. And a very nasty compiler bug. But now it works and very well on top of that. Woohoo o/ But see for yourself in the video.

The video also shows the new implementation of the startup routine. It uses now a separate software timer. It was made possible by using SysTick as timer base and implementing the timer in software. This way it is easy to add new timers that don't need to be very time precise, as it is the case in startup, or ignite as I like to call it. :) The old implementation was using timer overflows of the commutation timer that led to nasty speed jumps while starting up and made the startup unreliable.

Next step, put Open-BLDC on a plane! :)

As always you are welcome to drop by in #open-bldc channel on freenode if you have questions or just want to hang around to follow the cutting edge development. :)

Open-BLDC Documentation

Esden — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Today was a big documentation day for Open-BLDC.

As Tobi is learning about Open-BLDC to be able to help me with development I really felt the lack of documentation. So together with him we wrote down how the ignition system currently works. Also I added a getting started page describing how to build the firmware.

Last but not least (that took me most of yesterday) I finally managed to add doxygen generation to the firmware code. It is even being automatically generated out of the git repository and making it available on http://doc.open-bldc.org.

There is still a lot that can be told about the system, but I think we are on the right path. The documentation should grow now significantly when I am not the only person working on the code. :)

Open-BLDC v0.3

Esden — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone!

Just a short update so that you don't think that I have disappeared completely. :)

Lately I am really busy so that is why my updates here are very rare. I have moved to California few months ago to work full time on Open-BLDC and Paparazzi. Although Open-BLDC got quite a bunch of attention there is still a lot to do, and this project is still not in a state where it is possible to put the controller on a vehicle and fly with it. :(

There is some good and bad news. I got the sampling based commutation detection running pretty good. There is an issue with it. Because you can sample the BEMF only once a PWM cycle the resolution prevents turning the motor very fast without adding some kind of an estimator or at least a PLL. So currently only 4000RPM with a 7pole pare motor are possible. :(

That is why I started working on Open-BLDC v0.3 hardware. It is assembled now and you can look at some pictures here. It has a comparator integrated into the power driver board to make commutation detection really easy and have something usable _NOW_. I also found out that using many small mosfet's is much more efficient then using single big ones. The gate capacitance is lower, the heat dissipation is easier, the on resistance is tiny. The only question is if they will distribute the power evenly between the switches. That is still something that has to be tested. But the power stage board looks really pretty with all those tiny fets on it. There are many more other smaller and bigger improvements that would be too much for such a small post.

I am currently bringing up one subsystem after another. I had to change some of the connections to the STM32 which means that I have to change the low level drivers and it is always a pain to do.

Anyways, there is progress and Open-BLDC is not dead! I am working on it. And I am sorry for not keeping you guys more up to date. As always I will try to be better about that. ;)

Floss-JTAG V0.1 Assembly and V0.2 boards.

Esden — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Because I wanted to have a small JTAG adapter with additional UART port and a different (smaller) connector then what is available out there, I have decided to make a JTAG adapter. I chose the FT2232 USB adapter chip. This guy is pretty nice because it has a special engine inside that is supporting many different protocols. One of them is JTAG. I have released what I made as always on GitHub under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license. There is no software needed on the adapter side so no software included. All you need is OpenOCD. It now even has a config file dedicated for Floss-JTAG. Calling for example:

#> openocd -f interface/flossjtag.cfg -f board/open-bldc.cfg

will connect to Open-BLDC using the Floss-JTAG adapter.

Building Floss-JTAG I learned a nice lesson. Always check your footprints 10x before you send the gerber files to the manufacturer!!! I had to customize the footprint for the FT2232 chip and made a mistake. The pads were not long enough so the pins had only 0.1mm overlap area. It was a real pain to solder that. I assembled 3 of Floss-JTAG using this design. Sadly only two are working.

Because of that mistake I immediately corrected the board layout and sent it out. I got the boards today. I hope that there is no other mistake hidden somewhere. :) Attached are the images of V0.1 assembly and of the V0.2 boards.

[gallery]

Open-BLDC V0.1 Fully Assembled

Esden — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I finished soldering Open-BLDC V0.1 boards and took some pictures while doing so.

After connecting it to the power everything seems to work properly and nothing is burning. That is really good news.

One little thing that is bothering me. The board draws 60mA, what is a value that I expected. The 5V linear regulator gets really warm. I am not sure if that will be a problem or not. But I did not find any other problems or screwups yet, even the big MOSFETs can be soldered using a simple soldering iron. It takes some time though, because the board and the MOSFETs are monstrous heatsinks.

More news coming up as soon as I start playing around with the software. [gallery]

Open-BLDC V0.1 is alive!

Esden — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I assembled the basic STM32 circuitry of Open-BLDC and it works. I also made a video showing the logic board and blinking around. I know it is a bit pointless but I love blinking LED's! ;) I wrote the software using libopenstm32.

Have fun:

Video on Youtube and here the same video on Vimeo.

While assembling Uwe and I made some photographs that I don't want to hold off either.

[gallery]

Open-BLDC V0.1 boards are here

Esden — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Good news everyone! The Open-BLDC boards are on my table. If you ask me they look gorgeous. :) But decide for yourself ...

Cheers Esden [gallery]

Open-Source and Open-Hardware Multicopter platform

Esden — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last two weeks many things happened. I found out that there is a really open-source and open-hardware quadrocopter project in the wild. It is called booz and is part of the paparazzi project. Code and schematics just as board layouts are under the GPLv2 or later license. That is really awesome news.

This project is intended for research and universities so the boards are using BGA parts that are difficult to solder for a mere mortal, and there is some lack in documentation. That is why some other people and me started a project called openmulticopter. The basic idea is to create and maintain a completely open-source quadrocopter/multicopter platform for everyone. As a multicopter does not consist only of the control electronics but also contains parts like remote control receiver, brushless motor controllers, a frame, and so on, we tried to combine many open-source parts that are already out there. Just take a look into the wiki for more details.

Some highlights of open-source components that we have chosen so far are:

booz (the core of the platform)
libopenstm32 (firmware library for STM32 microcontrollers)
RCOPEN24 (a 2.4GHz remote control system)
open-bldc (brushless motor controllers)

We also formulated a mission statement that can be found in the openmulticopter wiki.

There is still a lot of work in front of us, but I am really happy with the progress we are making. If you are interested in contributing just drop into the #openmulticopter IRC channel on Freenode, or write an email to the mailing list.

PWM Schemes/Fieldvector Control

Esden — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Some time ago I announced the Open-BLDC project in the Mikrokopter Forum, the post, that you can find here inspired a very interesting Discussion. One of the topics were PWM Schemes and why one should think about them. The most important reason is efficiency. Most controllers to use H_PWM_L_ON or H_ON_L_PWM schemes. An alternative is PWM_ON_PWM scheme which prevents currents through freewheeling diodes connected in parallel to the MOSFET's. The freewheeling diodes have higher losses then a MOSFET. I am really asking myself why it is not used. One reason I can think of is that this scheme has 12 steps instead of 6 and therefore is more difficult to implement and BEMF measurement for commutation detection may be more complicated.

Another approach to the efficiency question may be using fieldvector control. This involves a sinusoidal pwm scheme and current measurement on the phases. Using that way of control should decrease torque ripples which are typical the other schemes mentioned above. It also involves a lot more work on the firmware side.

I started building a rig for testing the efficiency of the different schemes. It involves a harddisk platter connected to the motor and two harddisk magnets. At the end I will have a eddy current break and can measure how much current is needed to achieve a specific rotation speed. I hope that this way I will be able to make a more or less scientific comparison of control approaches.

If you have a motor controller I would be really happy if you could take an oscilloscope and record the voltages on the phases. I am really interested what control schemes others use.

Open-BLDC mockup

Esden — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Hi!

As you already know I have layouted the Open-BLDC boards. I was not sure if everything fits mechanically. So I took some cardboard and created a mechanical mockup. It really looks good! It is darn stable (even though it is only cardboard and not FR4) and the screws fit snugly. I think we are getting really near to a state where I can order some boards.

You can take a look at some images attached to this post.

Have fun! :)

[gallery link="file"]

Open-BLDC SMD prototype and final prototypes

Esden — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="attachment_252" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Open-BLDC SMD Prototype"][/caption]

It has been again a long time since the last post. (I have the feeling to repeat myself here)

There have been some news on the Open-BLDC front. I have been on Motodrone two weeks ago. Because I took the plane to get there I realized that it will be too difficult to take the breadboard prototype with me. So on a short notice I soldered together a smaller version using smd parts. As an extra feature this prototype includes Allegro hall based current sensors. These will enable us to investigate vector control (aka. field-oriented control).

At first it worked perfectly. Sadly after some tests I burned two of the three bridge drivers. I only had one spare to replace, so I could not work on the software for long. Today I got replacement bridge drivers. Now I should have enough spare ones to compensate for more burning. ;) So no news on the vector control front yet.

[caption id="attachment_255" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Open-BLDC Logic Board V0.1"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_257" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Open-BLDC Powerstage V0.1"][/caption]

But I was not lazy while waiting for the replacement parts. I finalized the circuit and routed the logic board and powerstage. The powerstage was more or less straight forward but I am not very happy about the size and dimensions. I just am not sure if it is fittable on a standard Quadrocopter. Still it should be good enough as first etched prototype.

A much bigger challenge was the logic board. I somehow came up with this crazy idea to constrain the size of it to 45mm X 20mm. Still after many many hours of struggling with that puzzle I managed to squeeze all parts and wires into 45.5mm X 21mm! Yes you are right I am pretty proud of myself. I am still a routing beginner so the result seems to be good for me. :)

Now I have to wait so some other people review the work I did to try decreasing the amout of possible bugs in this boards. (If you like you can clone the repository here and check the stuff out, and give feedback on the mailinglist. (please subscribe before posting! :/ )) When I feel confident enough I will order some boards for testing and we can finally concentrate more on the software. :)

Open-BLDC PWM Schemes

Esden — Sun, 10 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Only a short note. I made a video showing all the different PWM Schemes Open-BLDC supports. Have fun watching:

Cheers Esden

Open-BLDC Sensorless Commutation Detection

Esden — Thu, 07 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Hi!

As promised I made some videos. First one is showing the maiden run of a motor connected to the breadboard prototype of Open-BLDC.

(There is also a Vimeo version: Maiden Run of Open-BLDC from Piotr Esden-Tempski on Vimeo)

Yes the motor sounds like a truck. The reason is that I am making forced commutation (not detecting the right time to commutate but do it in fixed time) and the PWM duty cycle is higher then it should be. This way the motor is just jumping between the magnets and has a lot of vibrations.

The second video is a demo of sensorless commutation detection.

(There is also a Vimeo version: Open-BLDC Sensorless Commutation Detection Test from Piotr Esden-Tempski on Vimeo)

We are using a novel way without a virtual crosspoint. (you can read it up in this paper) We do it even a little bit differently then described in the paper, there are no comparators and latches. What we do is condition the signal to be in the range of 0V to 3.3V and sample it with the ADC at the right times. This is probably the simplest way to do something like this in the STM32. One can now play around with the data that the ADC delivers. I think there is a lot of stuff that can be done using such an approach.

In the video you may also wonder why it is so loud. Well the PC fan that I just forced onto the rotor is not really the best payload, also it is not balanced well and the bearings in the motor are not the best anymore because of the unbalanced load. ^^ I am also using the simplest and worst PWM scheme that I know of. The so called H PWM L ON scheme.

"H PWM L ON" PWM scheme. Click on the Image to see other PWM schemes.

You can also see in the video that the motor is pretty robust to external disturbances when running in the commutation detection closed loop. Still I am sure that it can be improved. (If you are interested the sourcecode running this can be seen here)

If I am not mistaken then only current measurement is missing in the circuitry. When that is done then I can design the first etched prototype of Open-BLDC. WOOO! :)

Cheers Esden

P.S. If you have any comments/ideas feel free to write them in the comment section. ^^

Open-BLDC status report

Esden — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Hi!

It has been a pretty long time since my last post. But do not worry there is happening a lot "behind the scenes". Well not so much behind them because I commit everything I do to the github repository (http://github.com/esden/open-bldc). If you want to follow the progress you can also subscribe to the commit mailinglist and/or the discussion mailinglist. Feel free to write on the mailinglist if you have any questions or just catch me on #uavp channel on the freenode network. (I think that are enough channels of communication :) )

Ok back to the topic. Last week I was able to turn a bldc motor the first time using the bread board prototype of the power stage, the STM32 Olimex H103 evaluation board and firmware that you can find in the repository. The basic PWM scheme that is used by most controllers is implemented and works pretty well. I am also trying out other PWM schemes that may improve efficiency. You may ask why I am doing it now and not after I made a real hardware prototype of the system. The answer is pretty simple. I have to see if and how it is possible, to make sensorless commutation detection, when using different PWM schemes. I had to realize that the schemes have a big influence on the signals that can be captured.

As soon as I have more results I will make a video showing the current state and how the controller behaves when using different approaches. So stay tuned!

Cheers, and I hope hearing from you too in the comments! :)

IR2110 based power stage circuit

Esden — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="attachment_201" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Circuit"][/caption] I started to build up the Open-BLDC circuit on a breadboard. Then a problem occurred. The low side works as it should but the high side just did not. After several hours of trying and reading the data sheet of IR2110 I gave up and asked Federico again for help. After some time we found an application note AN-978 from International Rectifier. This explained everything. You need to select very carefully the Boot capacitor. This is the one between VB and VS pins of IR2110. It is providing the charge for the gate of the high side MOSFET when you turn it on.

For testing you can take a big capacitor, so that when you manually switch on the high side you see something happen. I took a 330uF capacitor and it is enough to turn the high side MOSFET on for about 30 seconds. Still you have to be careful because the capacitor only gets charged when the low side MOSFET is turned on. So after turning on the power the capacitor is not charged and you have to turn the low side MOSFET on first, then turn it off again and finally switch the high side on.

In the final design one should probably select the right bootstrap capacitor. The equation for calculating that value is described on page 6 of the International Rectifier application note AN-978.

You can probably get rid of the capacitor and the diode if you connect VCC directly to VB. The problem you get then is that when the current on VS gets higher then 12V you get a problem. But I may be mistaken. Correct me if I am wrong.

Conclusion: read the damn application notes and I still have problems with understanding the electrical engineer talk! :)

I hope this helps someone. You can see my circuit for one half bridge attached to this post. And a picture of my breadboard.

I use the two LEDs to see what happens with the MOSFETs. They are glowing a little when both sides are off. The one connected to 12V is switching off when the high side is on and the one connected to GND switches off when the low side is on. I love LEDs! :)

Cheers Esden [gallery]

Breadboard Adapters

Esden — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I am currently working on building a breadboard prototype of Open-BLDC. I will write about that in more detail in a separate post. I had a problem there. The Olimex STM32 board has two dual in line connectors that just don't fit on a breadboard. There are some adapters that you can buy for money, for example from Number Six. But that would cost me too much time and money.

So I decided to build my own adapters with parts that I had ling around and a prototype board that I got from Uwe. (Thanks Uwe I will buy one and give you a replacement as soon as possible!) It was a lot of fun building the adapters. They are really easy to make!

Step 1 Just cut out piece of prototype board with the length you need and four holes wide.

Step 2 Solder a dual in line connector to the copper side of the board. Just don't push the connector completely into the holes so that you can reach the copper with your soldering iron.

Step 3 Solder two single line pin connectors on the other side of the board, right and left of the dual connector.

Step 4 This is a bit tricky. You can use some wire to connect the pins of the DIL (Dual In Line) with the single line connectors. But I found out it is much easier just to put a bit more solder between the pins and let them connect. You may have to try one or two times. Having some desoldering wick around is a good thing if you happen to solder together wrong pins. ^^

Step 5 Profit! ;)

I appended some images you may consider more or less useful. I should make one more adapter to document the build process. :/ I am sure there will be such an opportunity soon.

Cheers Esden

[gallery]

Selecting parts for Open-BLDC power stage prototype

Esden — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The other day I ordered parts to build the first prototype of Open-BLDC on a breadboard. It is a bit different animal then the board designs I already have because it needs legged parts.

The main problem is to find the right MOSFETs and driver chips for this application. As I have no electrical engineering background I did not really understand the values that were listed in the data sheets. I asked an electrical engineering friend and he helped me with locating the most important values. Thanks Federico!

MOSFET Values

I realized that the most important values for MOSFETs are:

Drain to source voltage
Gate to source voltage
Continuous drain current
Input/Output capacitance (turn on/off time)

The MOSFET I selected is not perfect but should do for this first prototype. It is the IRF1010N from International Rectifier.

Drain to source voltage In my case as I am using the standard three cell LiPo batteries used in models. I need something above 12V. The smallest ones are 20V but the one I could get from Reichelt was 55V. That is still OK.

Gate to source voltage For example the high side MOSFET has 12V attached to source. When the gate is driven low, the voltage difference between gate and source are 12V. In many cases that is a problem. Because when you charge your battery full the voltage difference gets even bigger or even worse when you try to use a battery with 4 cells instead of 3. Most MOSFET that I found have only 12V specified as gate to source voltage. It still probably works with more because of tolerances but still it is probably not good. The MOSFET I am now using for the prototype has ±20V in the specification. That should work.

Continuous drain current This one will get more important in the future. It is telling how much current the MOSFET can put through. For the prototype that is more or less a functional test of the circuit it does not matter so much. But in the future when I want the controller to support up to 20A continuous current this one will get very important. The IRF1010N is specified for 85A at 25ºC and 60A at 100ºC. So this values are meant for applications where you have a heat sink attached to the MOSFET's. I will try to avoid using heat sink. I could calculate the exact number but the rule of thumb is that one should take 1/10th of the value. This means that with this MOSFET I will be able to run at about 6A to 8A. As the lab power supply, I have access to and will use for the prototype, can only deliver 2A that should be more then enough. There are several other values that are connected to this one. Like drain to source on resistence, thermal resistence, power dissipation aso. One can use them to calculate the exact amount of current the part can put through. But I think it is too early to make all the calculations yet.

Input/Output capacitance (turn on/off time) This is a set of values that tell how fast the MOSFET can be switched on and off. It will also get more important in the future when selecting the right MOSFET for the final design. For now the 76ns rise and 40ns fall times should be enough. They will probably get even lower because I am using a dedicated half bridge driver chip.

Half Bridge Driver

I did a lot less research here. Thankfully there are not as many half bridge drivers out there as there are MOSFETs. The one I selected is the IR2110. It would be a bit big for the final design because of the additional leads. But it should be OK for this prototype. The problem I had here is that I have 3.3V digital input from the microcontroller and I want to drive the MOSFETs with 12V. As it seems the other drivers that I considered don't recommend that. That is why I had to choose this one. I hope that I will find something that is smaller and still supports the 3.3V input.

Conclusion

Selecting parts is a very tiresome endeavor. The shops only have a subset of the parts that are available out there. I wanted to order all parts from one shop that is somewhere in Germany. I could probably get better parts ordering from Digikey but it would cost more. For the next stage of Open-BLDC development I will have to select better parts. But first I how a feasible circuit should look like. That is why I am going for the breadboard test first.

If you find any mistakes or I misunderstood something here feel free to tell me.

Cheers Esden

How to build arm gnu gcc toolchain for Mac OS X [Updated 8x]

Esden — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Hi!

[Edit: This HOWTO is mostly outdated now because of the script summon-arm-toolchain I have created together with Uwe. You can find it here at GitHub. A short description on the usage of the script can be found in the Open-BLDC wiki.]

As I decided to use the STM32 for open-bldc and ordered an Olimex H103 evaluation board. I had to build the toolchain for it. This controller is an ARM Cortex-M3 and needs a GCC version beyond 4.3 because there the support was added.

There is a pretty good HowTo on eLua. But as I decided to use the newest versions of the tools some things changed and I decided to write my own HowTo. And here it goes!

I am using macports on my mac, so the howto is based on that. You need to install additionally gmp and mpfr. It is needed so that gcc can be compiled. I also use for most of the stuff I use stow. The toolchain cannot be installed using stow because of the softlinks it creates. You cane install it using macports too.

Sources:

Now you will need the following:

binutils: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/binutils-2.19.1.tar.bz2
gcc: http://gcc.cybermirror.org/releases/gcc-4.3.3/gcc-4.3.3.tar.bz2
newlib: ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/newlib/newlib-1.17.0.tar.gz
libusb: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1674&package_id=1632&release_id=398442
libftdi: http://www.intra2net.com/en/developer/libftdi/download/libftdi-0.15.tar.gz
openocd: I am using svn version of openocd. The revision I tested was 1382. So to get it you need to run > svn co -R 1382 svn://svn.berlios.de/openocd/trunk openocd-svn
insight: The versions that I tested for now all had infinite loop bug. Will update that later when I found the right solution.

Compiling binutils:

I store everything that I build by myself in /opt/mine directory. I added it to my path and other relevant environment variables just as I did with /opt/local (the macports install directory). The toolchain needs its own directory. I call it /opt/mine/arm-none-eabi to distinguish it from other arm toolchains that I have on my machine.

I need to add another note here. I chose to use the arm-none-eabi target. This way the toolchain builds Version 4 EABI binaries instead of GNU EABI. I am not 100% sure what the difference is. (Please enlighten me here) But if I understand it correctly the Version 4 EABI is the ARM standarized EABI and not the GNU version of the EABI. But as stated before I am not really sure about that.

> tar xfvj binutils-2.19.1.tar.bz2 > cd binutils-2.19.1 > mkdir build > cd build > ../configure --target=arm-none-eabi --prefix=/opt/mine/arm-none-eabi --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --disable-nls > make > sudo make install > cd ../..

Now you should also add the toolchain bin directory to your PATH so that the further steps can find the binutils binaries.

> export PATH=/opt/mine/arm-none-eabi/bin:$PATH

Building GCC bootstrap:

GCC needs the newlib to build all of it's libraries but newlib needs gcc to build. This chicken and egg problem can be solved by building GCC without libraries first, then building newlib and finally building GCC it it's full form.

> tar xfvj gcc-4.3.3.tar.bz2 > cd gcc-4.3.3 > mkdir build > cd build > ../configure --with-libiconv-prefix=/opt/local --target=arm-none-eabi --prefix=/opt/mine/arm-none-eabi --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --enable-languages="c" --with-newlib --without-headers --disable-shared --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --with-gmp=/opt/local --with-mpfr=/opt/local > make all-gcc > sudo make install-gcc > cd ../..

I have to comment here on some options used. Somehow the configure of gcc is not able to find gmp and mpfr by itself. Because they are installed in nonstandard directories when you look at a linux system. That is why you have to help it by providing --with-gmp and --with-mpfr. In the case of libiconv you have to add --with-libiconv. Not adding this option does not break the configure but introduces problems in the build process.

Building newlib:

Now that we have binutils and a basic gcc install we can build newlib. This one is pretty streightforward.

[EDIT This section should be obsolete! The patch does not even apply to the newlib-1.17.0 sorry] Still you will probably need a patch that deals with makeinfo being not found by configure. I found it in a post on comp.gcc.cross-compiling.arm. But I offer the patch here for download and your conveniance.

> tar xfvz newlib-1.17.0.tar.gz > cd newlib-1.17.0 > patch -p1 -i ../newlib-1.14.0-missing-makeinfo.patch # the patch will yield a warning because it is for an older version of newlib but should apply > mkdir build > cd build > ../configure --target=arm-none-eabi --prefix=/opt/mine/arm-none-eabi --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --disable-nls > make > sudo make install > cd ../..

Building GCC:

This should be simple now. We build the full GCC version.

> cd gcc-4.3.3/build > rm -rf * # clean up everything it makes stuff safer ^^ > ../configure --with-libiconv-prefix=/opt/local --target=arm-none-eabi --prefix=/opt/mine/arm-none-eabi --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --enable-languages="c" --with-newlib --disable-shared --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --with-gmp=/opt/local --with-mpfr=/opt/local > make > sudo make install > cd ../..

Building libusb: This library and the following libftdi is needed for jtagkey-tiny support in openocd.

> tar xfvz libusb-0.1.12.tar.gz > cd libusb-0.1.12 > mkdir build > cd build > ../configure --prefix=/opt/mine/DIR/libusb-0.1.12 > make > sudo make install > sudo -s > cd /opt/mine/DIR > stow libusb-0.1.12 > exit > cd ../..

Building libftdi:

> tar xfvz libftdi-0.15.tar.gz > cd libftdi-0.15 > mkdir build > cd build > ../configure --prefix=/opt/mine/DIR/libftdi-0.15 > make > sudo make install > sudo -s > cd /opt/mine/DIR > stow libftdi-0.15 > exit > cd ../..

Building openocd:

I am using the jtagkey-tiny from Amontec, and usbprog. If you are using something else the options to configure will need enabling the other device.

> cd openocd-svn > mkdir build > cd build > ../configure --prefix=/opt/mine/DIR/openocd-svn --enable-ft2232_libftdi --enable-usbprog > make > sudo make install > sudo -s > cd /opt/mine/DIR > stow openocd-svn > exit > cd ../..

Building insight/gdb:

Well I still have some problems here. I will update the post as soon as I find a solution here.

Compiling and flashing an example program:

Openocd supplied config file for jtagkey-tiny has an error in my case. On my machine the jtagkey-tiny appears as "Amontec JTAGkey" and not "Amontec JTAGkey A". You have to edit /opt/mine/lib/openocd/interface/jtagkey-tiny.cfg and change the line ft2232_device_desc "Amontec JTAGkey A" to ft2232_device_desc "Amontec JTAGkey".

Now you can download stm32-blink.tar.bz2 that I cleaned up a bit. It is based on the example blink project from Olimex.

The example project from Olimex uses parts of the Firmware Library from ST. The documentation and the library itself can be found and downloaded here. You have to be careful though, the library has a very wierd license that is probably problematic when used in open source projects. I assume that the strange license may pose also problems when used in closed source projects too. But I am not a lawyer so do not kill me if I am wrong. :)

> tar xfvj stm32-blink.tar.bz2 > cd stm32-blink > make

Next step is to start openocd. You should start opencd in the stm32-blink directory so that later openocd can find the binary you will be uploading.

> openocd -f /opt/mine/lib/openocd/interface/jtagkey-tiny.cfg -f /opt/mine/lib/openocd/target/stm32.cfg

Now open a new terminal and run the following commands to flash the stm32-blink binary.

> telnet localhost 4444 > halt > flash write_image erase stm_h103_blink_rom.bin 0x08000000 > resume 0x08000000

Now the diode on the stm32-h103 board should start to blink happily! :)

Notes and links:

Here I gathered some additional links that may be usefull:

Disclamers:

I hope this tutorial is useful. If I made any mistakes feel free to write a comment to this post. I will try to update it if something changes and/or needs to be corrected.

Cheers Esden

Updates:

Fixed link to stm32-blink.tar.bz2
Changed links to source packages to real links.
Added newlib patch for missing makeinfo
Added some additional links. For example to the ST Firmware Library and it's documentation.
Added link to the Reference manual of STM32.
Removed the newlib patch section.

Open-BLDC MK

Esden — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In the last few weeks I was working on an alternative firmware for the Mikrokopter Brushless Motor Controllers. The main goal is (as always) to create a firmware that is under the terms of a known and proven Open Source License. In this case it is GPLv3. (I am thinking about relicensing it under some BSD like license, but I am not sure yet.)

The code is available at GitHub here. There is still a lot work to do, but the motor is starting and turning as it should. Well nearly. I have some slight problems with the startup code, that needs some further tuning. Also when you break the motor it does not always detect that no more commutations take place and freezes the motor in one place. I think that I still have some problems with the commutation detection and the debounce.

The next goal is to make it possible to change the commutation timing corresponding to the commutation detection. That means that it is possible to do the commutation slightly before or after the commutation detection. For that it is necessary to capture the time between detected commutations and according to that trigger the commutation cycles. I hope that the 8bit timer that I have available is enough. The only 16bit timer of the Atmega8 is occupied by PWM generation and I am not sure if I can use it for the timings too. :/ (needs more reading ^^)

I have to make a video of the running drive soon so I can show it to you ^^

For now it is all. Take a look at the Open-BLDC site for more info and links to some interesting resources I found about brushless sensor less drive controller techniques. ^^

Cheers Esden

Updated: Open-BLDC and open source Quadrocopters

Esden — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Hi ho everyone!

Today I will write a bit about a "little" project I started recently. It is called Open-BLDC.

As I was writing my Diploma thesis I got involved with the Quadrocopter Community. There are some different projects and companies producing, selling and developing these small alternatives to helicopters. I really love these things.

There is only one really open source Quadrocopter, namely UAVP. The source is GPL but as far as I know you can not get any hardware anymore. The board schematics is somewhere in the repository. But still it is no more under active development and the code is pretty outdated compared to other projects like Mikrokopter.

Talking of Mikrokopter, it is an amazing project with a really amazingly big community. The problem I see there is the License. It is some strange proprietary license. I don't want to get into the legal stuff here but it just feels wrong. Read it yourself for example here (sorry that it is only in german, it is not my fault ^^). The other thing that disturbs me is that you only get the ready product. You can not follow the development because the development branches of the code are not available to the public, so getting involved is very difficult. (yes I know there are branches of the code of other people in the repository that are doing their changes ... but still) (I will for sure get bashed for calling Mikrokopter not properly open source ... try to convince me ^^)

There is another project that grew out of UAVP, called NG-UAVP. The guys are working hard since 1.5 Years on their hardware and software. And as I asked them, they will probably release their source under GPL and the hardware under CC-NC. That would be awesome!!! But they want to have something really working and stable before the first release. Hopefully they will release it soon and stick to that licenses. (yes it is not completely sure :( )

Anyways. I really would like to have a completely open source project from the license to the way to develop everything. One thing that is a basic part in the current Quadrocopters are Brushless DC Motor controllers. There is no open source one anywhere. So hoping that UAVP-NG gets released under GPL I decided I should start with the controllers. If NG-UAVP fails to release under a proper license and organize the development so that everyone can contribute I will move from here to the IMU and controller.

Enough said. I started up the free version of Eagle (another missing thing in the open source is a really usable pcb cad software) and created a first shot at the schematics. After that I uploaded it to GitHub (and another place where open source is lacking, a good web interface to GIT, I really would prefer to have the interface installed on my own server). Not long time after that MarcusBec from the #uavp channel on Freenode took a look at it and told me that many things were just bullshit, and what I should do to make the design better. I am very thankful for that! So I already have one very major contributor to the project! That is how Opensource works. ^^

Now it seems that the schematics make somewhat sense. The controller pretty high end, using drivers for the P-MOSFETS and three rows of them. The microcontroller is an Atmega168 which makes a lot of space for code. Three interfaces are available for now, PPM (standard interface used in modelling), Serial and I2C. In the future I plan to add Can-bus too, for more robot centric applications. Currently I am working at making a PCB design, and hope I get it somewhat useful.

I am still looking for feedback and ideas. Check out the repository at http://github.com/esden/open-bldc and take a look at it. Perhaps you find something wrong and/or worth cleaning up. If you just have questions, don't hesitate to contact me too! It is Open Source after all!!! :)

Cheers Esden

Update: I got informed that my information about UAVP was wrong. The boards of the original project are still available from http://lipoly.de/ and http://www.quadroufo.com/. The source is also still under active development also by its main developer Wolfgang. So it may be a viable basis to work on for a really open source quadrocopter after all. But thankfully is open-bldc still no wasted time, because there is still none, at least to my knowledge, open source bldc useful for quadrocopters out there. Sorry for the mistake here I will research my information better next time!

Ok ... back again

Esden — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It is really time that I write something here. It is nearly one year since I last posted something here. But I was doing some things in the mean time. ^^

First of all I finished my Diploma at the University of applied sciences in Rosenheim. Now I am working at the computer science chair of Prof. Radig. The name of the chair is "Image Understanding and Knowledge-Based Systems" it somehow sounds cool. ^^

But basicly I get payed for programming Common Lisp. My work now involves getting the high level systems running on the real Robot. Till now all the high level planning stuff was only running in simulation.

In my short free time I started the ELCO Project which should become a framework for developing Lisp based software for Embedded systems. But I have to write a more elaborate article on that topic.

And the last thing for today. I just released my first shot on the schematics of a really Open source Brushless Drive Controller. You can find the eagle schematic (yes I know eagle is not open but the open source alternatives just suck!) in a git repository on GitHub.

I also can only encourage you to subscribe me on identi.ca. I am posting bit more frequently there. ^^

Cheers everyone!

cl-opengl-thomas mac os x bindings with native GLUT.framework

Esden — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I got the information that the branch I used in the previous version is an older one and that I should migrate to the so called thomas branch.

So I did it and now it seems that all examples are working. Ok ... the varray example is not working. It somehow is not willing to compile for me and I am too lazy to look into this problem. (perhaps next time)

You can get it here.

Have fun!

cl-opengl mac os x bindings with native GLUT.framework

Esden — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I have adapted the cl-opengl bindings so that it runs with the GLUT bundle that is being shipped with mac os x.

Most examples seem to work. The ones that do not work need a more complicated fixing. But the API should run correctly. (I hope so (tm))

You can get the first version here.

I will try to continue testing and fixing the bindings. I i do so there will probably be also a repository for it. Who knows ... ^^

I have tested it with sbcl 1.0.12 on a Leopard driven MacBook Pro.

Have fun

P.S. Greetings from 24c3 ^^

P.P.S ... I made a screenshot that is attempting to proove that it is really working: shot

BL-Ctrl and Serial Converter assembled

Esden — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Finally after some problems I was able to assemble three BL-Ctrl and the serial converter.

Why I have not built four BL-Ctrl is because I broke one Atmega microcontroller while assembling the PCBs.

Next step will be to test the BL-Ctrl modules. To do that I still need some things. First I need some possibility to connect my 12V power supply to the modules and second I need multipin connectors on the BL-Ctrl modules where I can connect the serial converter.

I will look for the parts I need at Reichelt and order them. During the assembly of the modules I realized that I miss some tools so I will order them too.

At least I did one step towards my own Mikrokopter. ;)

Programming the BL-Ctrl'ers

Esden — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Some days ago I was able to program my BL-Cntrlers using PonyProg.

I had some problems doing this because I do not posess a machine with a builtin Serial interface and Windows. The problem is that the programmer uses a bitbang protocol on the serial port with very stirct timing constrains so I can not use a Serial to USB converter. First time I tried to program the controllers I tried to use the laptop of a friend but it seems that because it has frequency scaling the timings were not right, so I had to use a windows machine at my university.

It seems that everything works so far. The programmer said that the download was successful and the LEDs light up.

Later I also tried to program the controlers using avrdude under Linux. I built up a linux machine from some spare parts that were lying around my room. Sadly it is not working. avrdude says that the device is not responding. I have to try some other linux machine with builtin serial device to see if the problem is because of the very old hardware.

Next step will be to get some brushless motors and build up the fourth controller. I was thinking about getting four Robbe ROXXY2824-34. I heard that they often have problems so I will have to buy more then four to make sure that I get 4 working ones.

Still I will have to wait some time until I start working at my diploma thesis company. Before that I have no money to purchase them.

But still I am very happy that programming was a success what means that I did not screw anything up during the assembly (at least for now). Another small step towards my own mikrokopter. ;)

The Mikrokopter PCBs not here yet

Esden — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Sadly I had to realize that the guys selling the PCBs are currently on vacation. I should have read their homepage more carefully.

But the positive thing is that they will be back on monday the 19th so they will perhaps ship them tomorrow. Can't wait to get them and start building.

I will need some kind of tweezers for soldiering the parts. Hopefully I will be able to organize them before the PCBs reach me.

BL-Ctrl and Serial converter parts

Esden — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Today a DHL guy stood in front of my door and left a package full of parts for the BL-Controllers and serial converter.

I still wait for the PCBs but according to PayPal the payment is through, so I should get them in the next days too. Hopefully I can start to assemble everything on this weekend.

Mikrokopter

Esden — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Long time no post...

Some weeks ago a friend of mine showed me these incredible machines at mikrokopter. I was so amazed about these small flying machines that I got myself the first parts for building such a small flying machine myself.

Because I have nearly no money I split the purchases in small pieces. First of all I got myself four brushless motor controller pcbs and an Atmel programmer pcb from the mikrokopter shop and the nessesary parts.

The next steps will be getting following parts:

One brushless engine to test the controlers
Flight-Control pcb with all parts (that will be a pretty big chunk)
A reciever and a remote to test the flight-ctrl
A frame
The remaining engines
And finally the rotors

Then I should have a complete and flying mikrokopter. I will probably stretch the purchaices over many months while I progress with assembling, testing and earning nessesary money.

Wish me luck with that project. ;)

Apple and their Support

Esden — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

After a long time finally a new entry here.

Some time ago I owned a Powerbook 15". This one had a problem with its second ram slot. It was not detected by the system. I called Apple Care but they were not willing to fix that. I really was upset about that because it was a known problem. Still the serial number of my Powerbook was not in the range Apple considered affected by that problem. >_< Now I have a MacBook Pro 17" and some days ago my battery grew to its double size. Yes just like the one in this article here. I realized that only because my touch pad button was not clicking anymore and when I put my hand near the touch pad it triggered the button. Searching the web showed the article at Gizmodo above. I looked at the back of my laptop and was shocked.

Yesterday I called Equinux and asked what can be done. They checked my Serial number and said that I should bring my laptop over. So directly after work I went there and without much asking they took my battery and said that they will replace it. (That is something that I was not expecting after my experiances with my Powerbook.)

As I was already there I pointed out a little cosmetic problem I had. The band underneath the keyboard weared off and lost its matt look just some weeks after I got my Macbook. (I will post a picture of it later.) They also said with no hesitation that they will replace the whole top if I want to. The problem I have is that I need my laptop all the time for my work so I can not leave it even for a day for fixing. So they said that they will make a appointment with me so I can come over and the technician will replace it in one hour. That is what I call service.

Now they showed me that Apple can also have a very good support as long as you have a guarantee coverage on your hardware. I can only say that I am very happy that I bought Apple Care along with the MacBook. That will save me lots of money and annoyance in the future.

Installing cl-opengl on Mac OS X

Esden — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Ok I am back with one more rant on Lisp.

Because of an idea I have, that is not yet ripe for decision, I was trying to get a graphics library that is portable and has a Common Lisp binding. Finally I got stuck on opengl and cl-opengl binding. I had a hard time getting it to run on Mac OS X so I tried it on Linux first where it worked out of the box. It is pretty nice even if making a mistake sometimes kills your lisp.

To install cl-opengl you need a Common Lisp implementation (I use sbcl), cffi (I used cffi 0.9.1), an opengl library (I used the one shipping with Mac OS X) and GLUT (I used OpenGLUT but more on that later).

First I tried to get cl-opengl running with the native Mac OS X GLUT implementation but it did not work. I found information on the cl-opengl list that you need FreeGLUT. The problem with FreeGLUT is that it does not compile on Mac because of some joistick problems.

So... get the source tarball of OpenGLUT.

Untar it and run "CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/X11R6/include" ./configure". You need the CPPFLAGS variable because otherwise the build system will not find the right opengl headers.

Now run make and make install. In my case I added the option --prefix=/opt/mine to configure to not taint the running system with self compiled stuff.

Finally you should end up with OpenGLUT libraries.

Now download cl-opengl (probably using darcs "darcs get http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cl-opengl/darcs/cl-opengl/")

Link the .asd files to your sbcl systems directory: # ln -s ~/cl-opengl/*.asd ~/.sbcl/systems

The problem with OpenGLUT is that it uses X11 to create windows. So you have to start the Mac OS X X11 server and start sbcl in the xterm within X11. After starting sbcl you can run at the repl the following: * (asdf:operate 'asdf:load-op 'cl-glut-examples)

That should compile and load the cl-opengl cl-glut and cl-glu bindings and also cl-glut-examples.

Now you should be able to test it running: * (cl-glut-examples:gears)

on the sbcl repl.

Conclusion:

cl-opengl binding is really nice. It still needs work so that it catches all errors that may occur. Doing something unpredicted with opengl may cause your lisp process to crash. It also requires at least FreeGLUT that is not willing to compile on Mac OS X but that is understandable because GLUT itself misses some features that are required to create really dynamic applications what is what you want. OpenGLUT does compile on Mac OS X but seems to be pretty old (2005 last release) and just like FreeGLUT requires X11. That is really nasty. I do not want X11 :(

It is usable it is pretty nice but there still is a lot to do! I will for sure dive more into that stuff and try to fix at least some of the problems I found.

But nonetheless thanks OpenGLUT and cl-opengl guys for your fine work! Now I can finally create some nice graphical stuff! Woot!

One more thing... the cl-glut-examples:gears demo gives the following frame rates on my MacBook Pro: 23857 frames in 5.0 seconds = 4771.400 FPS 24407 frames in 5.0 seconds = 4881.400 FPS 24316 frames in 5.0 seconds = 4863.200 FPS 24293 frames in 5.0 seconds = 4858.600 FPS

I think it is amazing! Tell me what framerates you get! ;)

Back from Scotland

Esden — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

You probably know it already but I am back from Schotland. I spent 10 days on the Ile of Arran with some friends. We Made a 100km tour around it. I shot about 460 images and hope that there will be something useful among them. But you will have to judge for yourself.

We arrived back in germany last friday and I was fighting with my emails and rss feeds. Now I am catching up with other things. I hope that I will have enough time to work through the Scotland images in the next days and put them online in my gallery.

My photoblog seems to be working pretty well. It was running on auto pilot the last two weeks and I think that it is a pretty nice thing. I will now put more images online and they will get visible over time. That makes the blog regular and I do not need to spend so much time on it. But I will now start answering your comments in the photoblog. If you provide your email address then you will also get an email. (the email address will not get posted so do not fear).

Lisp Machines

Esden — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Some days ago I watched some Lisp Machine Videos. These films show what it was like to use a lisp machine and code on it.

I really have to admit that I was not surprised to see what wonderful ideas the guys had back then. Current OS's still have a long way to go to incorporate (copy) the functionality you had 20 years ago in LispM Operating systems like Genera. Apple as always is on the front line of incorporating this old stuff. For example Time Machine. The new feature that will be there in Leopard (the next version of Mac OS X). The idea of easily going back in time and looking at your files was there 20 year ago.

Still as I now know Time Machine is still far away from the idea the LispM developers had. There you had a filesystem that had versioning built in. You can tell you do not save files just like that. You save patches to your files. That is somehow comparable to having SVN as your filesystem. Just a bit more sophisticated.

Sure that is not the only thing. There are tons of others. Like objects that are mouse sensitive depending on what you are doing. Accessing the displayed object structures that are behind that what you see. And many more...

I do not want to let myself get carried away too much. The condensed idea I wanted to share with you is the following. Genera is amazing. And if you think that any currently known OS is cool then you know nothing. And if you think that Java and Eclipse are cool then you live in the stone age in the matter of knowledge.

Sit down, learn lisp. It may hurt at first, but the freedom is worth it. Others had to pay their lives for freedom and you only have to learn.

Flashing M16C and R8C under Linux and Mac OS X

Esden — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday and the day before Uwe and I were trying to flash an R8C and alternatively an M16C under Linux. We were finally successful using the Flasher from Thomas Fischl. You have to be careful to get the one on his site not the original from Lost In The Ether. The original seems to be somewhat broken.

Still there are some points you should be careful about. First of all the image you want to flash has to be for R8C or M16C respectively. The problem is that the addresses contained in the images have different order (endianes) depending on the chip. The sample srecord image contained in the tarball from Fischl is for _M16C_ and _NOT_ R8C.

Next thing is you should try to use a real hardware serial interface if you get problems with a serial to usb converter. We found out that even if the converter contains a prolific usb to serial chip it does not mean that it will work. We have two cables here and we know that Sitecom works.

We will probably write a patch for the flasher program containing some additional documentation and some checks and timeouts. The checks should validate the addresses one wants to flash are valid for the chip, and the program should timeout if it does not get data back from the chip during flashing. At least that is our TODO.

More information to come. ;)

[Update] Added some links.

Supermoine

Esden — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I just got pointed to a very very funny film, I have to share it with you immediately. ;) It is very well done and is really hilarious. You can see it here

Of course Channel Frederator also has very nice films in its videocast if you do not know it yet.

ROCK Linux 3 Released

Esden — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Finally after many months of hard work ROCK Linux got a version bump to 3 and has many new and updated things to offer.

You can read the Changelog or simply download a Crystal build ISO or the sources.

Now you have to try it and start contributing. No?

Why Nerds are Unpopular

Esden — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Today I found a very nice article about $TOPIC. You can find it here.

Like most articles by Paul Graham it brings a lot of interesting light to the topic. If you ever considered yourself a nerd, or still are, you should for sure read it. It is based around the social dynamics in american schools but I think you can transfer many of the ideas to other countries and cultures.

Have fun reading.

Watching Grass Grow

Esden — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

If you are also in the same situation as myself and feel all tensed because of an exam ... perhaps watching grass grow will calm down your nerves a bit.

Over some corners and edges of the internet I came to this "Watching Grass Grow" website.

(yes I know this post is the most useless till now but I had to share that with you)

Lisp Interpreter in Java Script

Esden — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Today I found something pretty nice a Lisp interpreter in Java Script.

I came to it through logowiki. I found it pretty amazing that you can run the example programs you have in your wiki. So I asked google about it.

The interpreter lacks some functionality like defun, defmacro and so on but I think it would be a nice base for creating logowiki like interpreter. I have not read the source yet but I think it may be a nice way to show someone how to create a simple lisp interpreter.

Lisp in Todays Embedded World Investigation

Esden — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I continued my reading about Lisp and also searched the Web a bit more for anything related to Embedded Systems. I think that this is a pretty sad story.

I heard from a friend that I missed ecls in my last post. He said that it is possible to compile Lisp to C with it and then you can crosscompile the resulting C source to any architecture you like. But that simply does not feel right. That is only a hack. You miss the things you want the most (beside Lisp itself) REPL and with it the integrated inspector and debugger just like the profiler and tracer. Also you miss binary upload of functions. Think for yourself. If you do not have that things does development with lisp feel like it should? If you ask me it does not.

So I searched further. I knew that there was someone who developed the triple L, Mars and Venus. I did not know what it exactly was but I knew that it was a lisp development environment for embedded systems.

Looking more in depth in to that, I had to realize that the only thing that exists is the paper L - A Common Lisp for Embedded Systems (pdf format is here) by Rodney A. Brooks and Charles Rosenberg. This paper is telling a beautiful story about a development system that would be the thing one would like to have. But you can not get it anywhere! On the page of Charles Rosenberg you find the pointer that the company IS Robots (that was developing L, Mars and Venus) is now iRobot (yes the Roomba guys). Searching their site does not say anything about lisp though.

The only other person bringing iRobot together with Lisp is Lemindor I have not read all his posts yet but he does not really say anything that helps me neither.

I also asked about the topic in #lisp on freenode but it seems that the overall opinion is that everyone is brewing his own Lisp if he/her wants to use lisp on embedded system.

That is really bad news. I was hoping that there will be something I will be able to base on. The only solution that I see now is to take some common lisp implementation and port it to some embedded system. And when it works start changing it and splitting in parts so that it fits development on embedded systems. (you do not really want the compiler on your embedded system normally an interpreter is enough)

That somehow sounds pretty big and heavy. :(

The second solution would be to start with a small Lisp implementation by oneself. When you read Paul Graham's article Roots of Lisp you get the feeling that it can not be that hard. But still I think that is probably a false feeling. But if I had the power and money to hire some people that are bright enough I think I would attack that. I even know some people that are bright and that would be able to create such thing but none of them would want to invest their time in such a project when they do not get money for that. So there is high possibility that Lisp on embedded systems will remain a dream. :(

Lisp on Embedded Systems

Esden — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I had a very inspiring conversation today. I was trying to lay out why one should learn Lisp. I found that there are tons of reasons why Lisp is superior to other Languages. But I found some articles in the web that can explain that much better then me. There are some Articles written by Paul Graham that describe the reasons beautifully. For example "If Lisp is So Great" or "Revange of the Nerds". I can only encourage you to read them.

What I found very interesting is the main statement of these Articles. Popularity of a Language is not the same as greatness as very well explained in the second Article. Another statement is that programming languages are slowly closing up with functionality and paradigms found in lisp. That is also one of the reasons why I started learning it, because I heard about that trend some time ago somewhere in the big depths of the net.

Most articles are stating that Lisp is the way to go to create web applications and financial systems. But I would even go further. I think it is also the way to go for embedded systems. Some people may think that Lisp is too big and too slow to use it for development on embedded systems. But look at your cellphone. It will probably have a JVM (Java Virtual Machine) running on it. What is that thing? It is a full emulation of a system. It runs bytecode. It is slow like hell but people still develop applications for cellphones compleatly written in java. I bet that there are phones that have their entire software written in Java. Now we look at Lisp. I found a comparison between JDK and SBCL here. It really seems that Java is faster and uses up less memory in most cases. At least taking a glimpse on the Graph. But as I already posted before. SBCL is not perfect. But there are developments like "Headless" coming that will better up that situation. On another site I found that the commercial Allegro Common Lisp implementation is the fastest. But sadly I do not see any benchmarks anywhere. And it does not support any embedded system.

I think that even if the benchmarks show that Lisp may be less efficient in speed and memory usage, it is only a matter of time and dedication to change that. But what do you buy with that loss of efficiency anyways. You get a REPL (you can interact with everything in the running program) you get binary upload (you can change the code of a running program) you get macros.

But for the beginning we could start with something more simple then the full fledged Common Lisp on embedded. There is still L (a Common Lisp language subset specially designed for embedded systems) and Mars realtime kernel to run L on. I sadly have not found a project site for that only a paper. I ask myself how much of Lisp goodness it provides.

Next semester I will have to make a project in embedded systems and the topic is not yet fully set. But I hope that I will be able to work towards the target of running lisp on embedded systems. I already asked my Professor about the idea and he is not negative but he still wants to talk about it. So wish me luck. (also I hope that my partners for the project will be willing to work in that direction too)

If you have any pointers and ideas about this topic then do not hesitate. I will appreciate any pointer.

[Update] Corrected minor stylistic mistakes.

Compiling Binaries with sbcl

Esden — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

There is one thing that you really want to have when you are creating programs. You want to create binaries. You can give them to others so that they can run them, without the hassle of compiling your programs by themselves, or you do not want them to see your sourcecode for some strange reason.

When you look at ruby, perl, python or even the all praised Java (do you hear the holy horns play? >_< ) you will see that you always need to install the appropriate one with tons of libraries so that you can run the scripts. I know I know ... I already see you running in my direction with your blades pulled out. There are compilers and packagers out there that can create binaries and you can even create a static binary that runs without the need of additional libraries.

But think for yourself are these solutions good? Is it working well?

I remember trying gcj. I had a test program of some hundred of very simple and standard java code. It was screaming very loudly "I am not ready to do that, I am too young!" perhaps it is better these days but I can not imagine that it works as it should. I also tried a perl to c converter but it was even more a mess.

As you know I am playing around with lisp, common lisp to be exact. As most people I was thinking that it will be the same way it is with the languages mentioned above. But I could not be wrong more. There are compilers and today most of the implementations do not even have an interpreter. Most of them compile the code to at least bytecode. (I know ruby does that too, and Java too ... damn do not pick out every word I say separately) But sbcl for example (my implementation of choice for now) compiles everything. In CMUCL from which SBCL was inherited still has an interpreter additional to the compiler.

I wanted to try out how it works with compiling a binary. I first thought that it will work just like with gcc or other command line batch compilers but I once more could not be wrong more. What you do is start SBCL load all libraries you need with "require" or "load" also load your program code and initialize everything you need. Then you run:

(sb-ext:save-lisp-and-die "my_binary" :executable t :toplevel 'main-program-function)

After that you have "my_binary" on your disk and you can start it on every compatible machine. What it does is saving the state of the lisp with everything that is present at the time you run the command. When you leave out the :executable you get a core file that you can use to run with sbcl -core commandline parameter. The :executable command only adds to the core file the ability to be executed by the operating system. In fact sbcl binary is just this kind of core dump that was created at compiletime of sbcl. The :toplevel keyword says the save function which function should be called the next time the core gets loaded. In most cases it probably will be the main function of your program. But when you think about it a bit more you can imagine how much power it is to be able to say what function is the main function. ;) (I know it from the lowlevel embedded programming side of the world ;) )

But now comes up the Question. It is a coredump so what does it contain? Well there it comes. It contains everything. Really everything including all libraries and the lisp compiler. So when I compile the robots game I introduced in the previous post here I get a binary of 23MB (yes megabytes). That is pretty much. Sure it does not count if you have a really big system that is 100 times bigger but still that sucks somehow. I informed myself and now I know that there is something called "headless" in the works that will enable sbcl to create coredump with an integrated dynamic linker. This will make the binary significantly smaller and when you run your program it will dynamically link the libraries it needs. Just as it should be. Next thing is from the slime world. There is a profiler in the works that will be able to even more optimize the code so that you will be able to create really small binaries.

All that is of course only SBCL other, commercial lisp implementations, like LispWorks or Allegro, already have very efficient mechanisms to create such binaries. But as long as you do not need that stuff immediately you can stay on the open source side of the world. ;)

I hope that was interesting, and also hope to get some comments. That would encourage me to write more...

Robots in Lisp

Esden — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I worked a little bit more with lisp. As a side effect I wrote a clone of Robots (a classic bsd game called robots). The idea is to run away from robots that try to hunt you down. You also may teleport yourself if they cornered you but you never know where you land so it may be possible that you land on one of them or on a heap of junk (that one appears when two robots collide). It is pretty much fun to play.

I also managed it to configure my emacs with a beautiful font called proggy tiny. This one required non antialiased drawing. I was able to disable it with (setq mac-allow-anti-aliasing nil) in my .emacs configuration file. I also changed all the relevant faces to use that font but still it did not work properly. Finally I found out that you have to use the size 16pt of the font so that you do not get strange artifacts.

Here you can see the result:

Click on the image to get full version.

You can get the source of robots from my devel server svn repository:

svn co http://repl.esden.net/svn/cl-games/trunk/robots

There is still a lot to do. I am still learning a lot of lisp so the code gets (hopefully) better with the time I am learning. I will have to add asdf package description (asdf is make for lisp). Also packaging should be added and probably I should use CLOS (Common Lisp Object System) and cl-ncurses (ffi (foreign function interface) for ncurses).

There is also a trac for cl-games project you can write tickets in if you find something worthy to add there.

So happy coding and dammit start learning lisp if you have not yet!!!1eleven ;)

Common Lisp

Esden — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Some time ago I listened to a Chaos Radio Express podcast dealing with Dylan.

Dylan is a pretty nice language developed by a research group leaded by Apple Computers. The idea was to create a better lisp language. One of the biggest changes was a switch from the S-Format syntax that marks lisp to an Algol like syntax most of you know from C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby and so on.

After hearing that podcast I had to try it but did not come far somehow.

I also told a friend of mine that I was checking out Dylan and he told me that I should try lisp. I did not care at that moment. Last friday I was curious and asked him to give me pointers about Lisp. I got a pretty big list where I should look and what I should get. The best pointer was Practical Common Lisp.

Practical Common Lisp is a book that is available free in the internet (you can also buy it as treeware). I installed sbcl and slime(do not wonder if the link to slime is not working, at the moment I am writing this the guys of common-lisp.net have some problems with their dns, but you can still reach the site using the ip 80.68.86.115 on my shiny new MacBookPro 17" and started reading.

I tell you that book is amazing and lisp even more.

I can only encourage you to try it. REPL (Read Evaluate Print Loop) is the best thing ever. The integrated debugger interface, REPL and slime mode for emacs provided by the Slime package is beautiful!

It is really difficult to describe why. It just feels right and is mighty. Take a look by yourself and you will be shocked why Java, Perl or even Ruby are used so much. Lisp just rules and not only for scientific stuff.

I will write try to write something more in depth later.

THC Address Space

Esden — Wed, 10 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I have created a small memory map displaying the current usage of the address space in THC.

0x0000_0000	Bank 0. ROM address space.
0x00FF_FFFF
0x0100_0000	Bank 0. Unused address space.
0x01BF_FFFF
0x01C0_0000	4M bytes reserved for Special function Registers. This area contains S3C44B0X special registers to control the processor itself and the peripherials that are integrated into the chip.
0x01BF_FFFF
0x0200_0000	Bank 1. This bank is currently unused. Probably the Graphics controller will get mapped to this memory area.
0x03FF_FFFF
0x0400_0000	Bank 2. Key control. In this area the key control circuit is being mapped. Through reading some of the addresses in this area you get access to the current state (pressed/not pressed) of the keys in THC. (more details to come)
0x05FF_FFFF
0x0600_0000	Bank 3. Currently unused.
0x07FF_FFFF
0x0800_0000	Bank 4. Currently unused.
0x09FF_FFFF
0x0A00_0000	Bank 5. Currently unused.
0x0BFF_FFFF
0x0C00_0000	Bank 6. SRAM address space.
0x0C7F_FFFF
0x0C80_0000	Bank 6. Unused address space.
0x0DFF_FFFF
0x0E00_0000	Bank 7. Currently unused.
0x0FFF_FFFF

THC RAM banks

Esden — Wed, 10 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Many parts in the schematic of THC have been based on the schematic of the S3CEV40 board schematic. This applies for example to the RAM wiring. I understood the overall idea but one detail was still a riddle to me, until yesterday.

As you can see in the following screenshot of the schematic the bank select pins BA0 and BA1 are connected through a set of 4 resistors to the address pins A21, A22 and A23 of the processor.

That is a strange setup, don't you think? Well, I dug into the documentation of the RAM chip and the processor and found out that when I am using an 8MB SDRAM chip with 4banks x 1MB x 16bit for S3C44B0X (the processor) I have to connect the address pins A21 and A22 to the bank select pins BA0 and BA1 of the RAM chip. But in case I want to use a 16MB chip with 4banks x 2MB x 16bit I have to connect the address pins A22 and A23 to the pins BA0 and BA1. !bam! finally I knew what was going on! The design of the evaluation board is made in such a way that you can put an 8MB or a 16MB RAM chip on it. And to match the address pin connection they put only two of the four resistors on the board to match the connection. I today checked that on the real board. Here is an image of the relevant part of the board.

As you can see my thoughts were right. Only two of the four resistors are in place. In my case there is an 8MB RAM chip and so only the upper alterating pair of resistors is in place.

Yes it is pretty simple, I know. But when you look at the schematic you do not think about the purpose of such a set up at first. I am still learning to think in the terms of hardware design so this was a challenge for me.

There are still many riddles to be solved. One that I know of is the way the keypad on the eval board is connected to the chip. I will write about that when I know more about it.

VIM7 Fun

Esden — Tue, 09 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

At work I have to use a pretty nasty Windows based development environment for a microcontroller.

You can configure it so that it starts a text editor of your liking to edit the source files. This editor gets called when you click on a file or on an error message in the compiler output. The DE also accepts a setting for parameters to the editor. There are two meta character codes. One is for the file (%F) and the second for the line the editor should jump to (%L). The problem is that it uses the same settings for the error invocation as for the normal file opening.

I wanted to use VIM7 and the new nice feature of tabs. As vim also supports remote invocation I decided that I want the DE to open the files in one central vim instance.

It took me some time to find out the correct command line setting so I want to share it with you.

gvim --servername <some_distinct_name> --remote-tab-silent +0%L %F

Now some explanations.

--servername is needed so that it always finds the correct vim window.

-- remote-tab-silent is a directive that vim should start editing the file provided by %F in a remote window in a new tab if the file is not yet being edited. The "silent" addition makes vim not yield an error if there is no vim instance running yet, and start a new instance by itself.

The +0%L is there so that when %L is there vim jumps to that line but when %L is empty it does not jump to the end of file but to the beginning. That is why the 0 is there.

Ok I hope it is useful for someone. Have fun with VIM ;)

Update: Corrected the unvisible some_distinct_name ;)

First encounter with S3CEV40

Esden — Mon, 08 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Some time ago I got the S3CEV40 evaluation board from Embest. This is a nice board featuring an S3C44B0X ARM7TDMI microcontroller, ROM, RAM, RS232, USB, Sound, Ethernet, Keypad and a Display. A nice starting point for THC work. The decision why I picked that board are described in the previous post.

As I got the board I found out that there is a test software already flashed on the board. I tested it and everything seemed ok. It took some months till I really took the challenge to get everything working. First I wanted to flash linux on the board. To do that I needed a JTAG device and flash software.

On the site of Embest there is a description how to build a JTAG cable by yourself. I soldiered one and installed a demo version of the flash software on a machine. Sadly I had to find out that the device I soldiered did not work as it should. Next step was to find a different device. I had a development kit for ARM devices from Keil available with a matching JTAG device. I connected it up and after calling Keil two times for help I managed it to flash the board with the binaries that were supplied on the CD for the evaluation board.

The problems I had were the following. The binaries on the CD were flat binaries. (the raw binary data) The Keil software can not read binary files so I had to convert them to something Keil would understand. I got a very nice open source program called srecord from the internet and converted the binaries with some offset to intel hex files. Strange thing was that Tasking reported that the files are broken. I called Keil and they told me that I should call the file not .hex but .h86 . I did that and !bam! it worked. I really do not understand why they do not have a propper parser that could distinguish the file format by the content of a file.

After these fights I could flash the board.

Now the next step was to get the uClinux distribution contained on the supplied CD to compile. It also did not work from the beginning but the only thing I had to do was to make sure all files in the uClinux distribution have 'n' ending and not 'rn' and !bam! it worked too.

Now I had my selfcompiled linux kernel + userspace that I could flash.

The last thing that was not in my hands was the bootloader. The bootloader on the CD was only in binary format and the sources were missing. I looked in the binary and found out that it is the common ARM bootloader called blob that was patched by Embest. So I called BSM-Technik and got some sources. These were wrong at first (not matching the binary) but after I asked once more I got the right sources and after some hacking I got them to compile too.

The problem was that when I compiled the bootloader and flashed it on the board I got no response. So I fired up Keil debugger and read the disassembled code. Stepped through and looked what was wrong. After some hours stepping through the pure assembler I found out that the drivers the bootloader needs were not in the binary. After some more hours I found out that because I used GCC 4.0 and not 2.95 the driver stuff got optimized out from the binary. I only had to remove the -Os command line switch for GCC and !bam! the bootloader worked.

So now I have my own linux kernel + userspace + bootloader all compiled by myself. So now I have a good starting point for writing my own software.

I still have a dream... I would like to have the 2.6.x linux kernel working on this board but that still is a big problem. I compiled the kernel but it throws a kernel panic... but for now I will work on other things before I invest my time in that.

First steps towards THC design (UPDATEx2)

Esden — Mon, 08 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

On last thursday I started with drawing the schematic for THC. I also worked on weekend on it and now I have pretty many things wired in the schematic.

This is the list of devices that are already in the schematic and wired:

S3C44B0X (Main processor)
SST39VF320 (ROM)
HY57V641620HG (RAM)
Power supply (wall plug)
RTC power supply with battery
JTAG plug
Reset circuit
Main system oscilator circuit
RTC oscilator circuit
RS232 serial IO
Bluenicecom BlueTooth interface board (based on LMX9829 chip)
UDA1341TS (Sound interface)

What is still missing:

Key interface
Display controller (will probably be the Lime chip by Fujitsu)
Display
Battery power supply
SD Cardreader
Speakers

After I have made the schematics for the missing parts I think I will be able to start designing the PCB.

I am pretty happy with the progress till now. If you have any specific questions do not hesitate and write me. ;)

UPDATE: Added SD Cardreader to missing parts UPDATE2: Added Speakers to missing parts

THC controller interface

Esden — Mon, 08 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

During the last weekend I thought a bit about the controller interface of THC. I found that using buttons for the cross would be a pretty big mechanical hassle. I found a solution to that at Alps. Here it is. This 8-Directional mini joystick seems to be pretty cool. Don't you think?

I also found a solution for the shoulder buttons in their product line. You can see it here.

I also called Alps today and asked for some samples. They redirected me to a supplier and he said that they will send me them. I will update you as soon as I have them.

(it is pretty funny how happy one can be, just because he is getting some switches ;) )

THC schematics rev6

Esden — Mon, 08 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Here are the current schematics of THC. I will be happy about every constructive feedback.

THC test programs

Esden — Mon, 08 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Another good news for today.

I just managed it to compile test programs for S3CEV40. To explain, the CD supplied with the board contains some small programs to test functionality of the board. For example 8LED test (driving a small 8 segment led display), LED test (driving the two led's on board, RTC test, LCD test and so on... Untill today I had problems with compiling them, because the project files were not complete or had wrong paths or other things. I now found out what the right settings are and I am able to compile them with the Education version of the Embest IDE.

Thanks to these tests I found some thing out. For example that something is wrong with the LCD (it has a blank area in the middle of the screen) or that the RTC battery is drained. I will have to get a new battery tomorrow to see if it works then. The problem with the LCD is not really important, because I will use other system to drive the LCD in the future, anyways.

But still it is good that I have these tests now. I can later apply most of them to the THC prototype to test the subsystems. So I can only say "YEY ... another step forward." ;)

VIM7 Released

Esden — Mon, 08 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Finally! After years of development a new major release of my and many others favorite text editor is there. It contains many new very nice and useful features:

Spell checking support for about 50 languages
Intelligent completion for C, HTML, Ruby, Python, PHP, etc.
Tab pages, each containing multiple windows
Undo branches: never accidentally lose text again
Vim script supports Lists and Dictionaries (similar to Python)
Vim script profiling
Improved Unicode support
Highlighting of cursor line, cursor column and matching braces
Translated manual pages support.
Internal grep; works on all platforms, searches compressed files
Browsing remote directories, zip and tar archives
Printing multi-byte text

Grab it here!

Finding the Controller

Esden — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

As you already know from the previous post the decision which microcontroller architecture to use was set pretty fast. Now the time came to find a chip and evaluation board for that project. The search took some months as my practical training ended and I came back to study. Finally with help from a developer, at the company I was working for at that moment, we finally found a chip and an evaluation board that seemed to fit the future projects, as also THC.

We decided that S3C44B0X would be the right choice and that the board S3CEV40 from Embest would be the right choice. We also found a distributor in Germany BSM-Technik.

Why did we decide that S3C44B0X would be the right one, you ask? Well... we wanted something that we can soldier by ourselves. That means that the packaging should be something like a QFP (Quad Flat Package). That are the chips where you see the pins on the sides. In the case of QFP you have the pins extending from all four sides of the package. Sadly the most ARM chips are produced only in BGA (Ball Grid Array) packages. These packages have a matrix of balls at the bottom of the package that are the contacts. To soldier BGA you need special equipment that we did not have. That would mean that we have to ask someone to soldier it for us. And that sux(TM). ;)

You say that there are other chips that have these specifications? There were also chips in QFP packages from Atmel and Philips but Atmel is expensive and Philips is not powerful enough.

THC The beginning

Esden — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Ok let's start. How did the whole story start...

Somewhere around one year ago I started practical training at a company producing hardware and also developing it. Seeing it I thought that it would be cool to create something in the style of blinkenleds there was also a prototype but finally I saw that many people were doing it so I came to the conclusion that it did not really make sense. I wanted to create something new that no one has done before.

From that point I thought that it would be better to get a bigger display and more features.

As I loved to play gameboy as I was a kid I came up with the idea that it would be cool to create a device that would have similar features. A display, some controls and a speaker.

After a session discussing the idea with Daniel Reutter we also came up with the name: "THC" that stands for "The Handheld Circuit". And the idea was born.

THC Preludium

Esden — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I finally decided that I should write about the THC project and the current progress. I also decided that it should still remain private because I do not want to disturb the public. Still there are some people that may want to read it so I added that private posting capability to WordPress.

If you want to read the RSS feed you can link your RSS reader to http://www.esden.net/blog/feed/atom?http_auth=yes. Your RSS reader should ask you for your user and password you provided while registering to my blog.

I hope you will enjoy the story ;)

The features

Esden — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The list of requirements for THC changed a lot during the last year. But the basics remained the same.

- It has to be handheld (Battery powered) - A display - A microcontroller - A possibility to create sound - A SD Card reader (To store games, applications and media on it) - Some way of connectivity Bluetooth, USB and or serial (Which ones varied also a little) - Gamepad controls: A cross or a joystick, some buttons

First design that did not get finished used an M16C microcontroller that was used, at company I was working for, for many projects already. Soon I came to the point that it will not be enough and that people will have problems with writing their own software of it because there was or even still is only a commercial compiler for windows available.

After some thinking and googling and talking with the lead electronics designer, in the company I was doing my practical training, we came up with the idea that an ARM microcontroller would be the best choice. This architecture is supported pretty well under Linux, Mac OS and Windows and there are GNU tools to compile for that architecture. Linux also does run on these microcontrollers. That is at least what we thought at that time. Another motivation to choose that chip for that project was that the company I was working for could use it for newer projects that require more power then the M16C could provide.

The other components drifted very often between different manufacturers and solutions. The first design containing the M16C chip was targeted at a small LCD display that we already used for a different product but it was small and slow. Not really a good choice for a device that should be able to display high paced animations, something you would expect from a gaming/multimedia device. At that time I also saw some OLED (Organic LED) displays that amazed me with brightness and contrast. But soon I also realized that this also can not be the solution because the displays are very expensive, and the massively produced ones are pretty small. We also had a prototype of such a display to test it but it was flickering terribly. So I had to leave the idea too.

Sound... yes that is the component that I made myself the least thoughts about. Something with a AC97 codec would be nice but a beeping piezo speaker would be enough for the beginning.

SD cardreader was one of the easiest parts. We had a sample of a slot for SD Cards from Glyn and that will do it's work very good. So that component was also set pretty early.

Which connectivity to use was the next thing. Providing Bluetooth would be pretty easy as we already used a module using an LMX chip that could be connected to the serial port of the microcontroller. USB? That is something for the future so I did not make a lot of thinking about that. Serial was another pretty easy thing. The microcontroller provides a serial port and the only thing you need beside that is a level shifter. That is really no real problem.

The last thing to think about were the controles. After a short time I was sure that A/B buttons would not be enough beside the cross/joystic controller. So I ended up with A/B/C/D block with addition of (L)eft shoulder and (R)ight shoulder buttons and (S)tart and s(E)lect buttons. That should be enough for most things that one would like to do with the device. The problem that remained was the cross/joystick, but I would think about that later.

So I ended up with a feature list like this one:

- Portability: Battery powered (Dough!) - A display: something bigger with fast refresh rate and reaction time, so that it is usable for multimedia. - Microcontroller: An ARM (Which one exactly still had to be found out) - Sound: at least a beeping piezo speaker connected to one of the timer interrupt ports or so. - SD Cardreader: (The one we got from Glyn) (If every decision would be so easy) - Connectivity: Bluetooth (LMX chip already used, by the company I was working for, for some products), Serial (We already need it for debugging so this one is a sure thing), USB (The time will show, "perhaps") - Gamepad controls: Cross/Joystick plus A/B/C/D block plus (L)eft shoulder and (R)ight shoulder buttons and (S)tart and s(E)lect buttons

Puhh that took months to decide. It sounds crazy but really all that was not as easy as it sounds.

V for Vendetta

Esden — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone. It has been a very long time since I posted last time. My life was very hasty in the last time. But now I have something that I must share with all the people that want to take the time to read it.

I just saw the new filmy by the makers of Matrix. It was called "V for Vendetta". I do not want to write a critique of the film. I only want to say that it is a must see and take the message of the film as a starting point for some reflections.

The main message for me was that if we do not take care we could end up in a state where "People are afraid of their governments." We see many changes taking place that most of us do not see. Data retention, tracking, RFID... and so on.

The problem is that taking a side in the discussion if it is OK or not is also a problem already. If I say in my blog that I am on either side the internet will never forget that. And I may get in trouble in the future. So I will not take any side. At least not here. The reader should take a side by him/her self.

The biggest problem I see is that most of the People around us do not know about this changes. Most of them are not interested if the changes are made or not. Most of them say that it does not affect them. I think (and here I take a side) that it is a problem. I know that most people are not interested in politics. I can not say that I am a person that is politically active or really interested. I am in no party and I read news only as much as it is necessary to know if there are very heavy things happening. But one thing I know is that the changes our government is making are affecting us all and we all should open our eyes and think on which side we are. Not taking a side is the same as agreeing with the side that won. I took a side and will look for ways to express them in a way that will not get me in trouble in the future. I will be happy to hear any tips to how do that.

New Lens

Esden — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I decided to buy myself a new lens. It is the Nikon AF Nikkor 70-210 1:4-5.6. It was a used lens so it did not cost much. I hope at least that I did not pay too much for it. As far as I know such lenses do cost around 300Eur so 170Eur should be a fine price.

If you have other information or tips, tell me. I still have two weeks to give it back, if I am not happy with it.

I made some images with it. The last image in the photoblog is made with the new lens. I still have to learn how to use it. What setting it needs and so on.

You can see the lens here.

Bloggies awards

Esden — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Web log awards candidates have been announced. Many very interesting blogs have been nominated. It is very interesting to browse through the categories. Perhaps you find something interesting?

No I have not been nominated. I would probably die of the shock if my blog or photoblog would be nominated for that prestigious award.

Perhaps you also want to vote for some of the blogs listed there. But the most interesting thing is probably to have a list of very good blogs in different categories on one sight. I found some interesting ones for sure. ;)

Exams once more

Esden — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

It is nearly half a year ago as I had my last exams. But it seems that I had them only some days ago. I did not really recover yet from the exams back then and now I have to write some more new ones. When will this end? My predictions are in one and half year. But who knows what happens in that time? Perhaps it will take even longer what I would really hate!!!

I hate that stuff as you can imagine.

My photography is suffering from all that. At least I try to finally work over the images taken in Warsaw this winter. But it needs it's time. I can imagine though that when the exams are over I will not have one spare minute to do anything. Now ... we will see.

Rushing makes it ugly?

Esden — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Slowly some more images of the new intel Mac's are spreading over the internet. Like for example kodawarisan.com.

There is a nice comparison of the old iMac G5 and the new Intel iMac.

You really see that it was made in a rush. The inside is not so pretty like in the predecessor. I hope that when Apple finally finishes the switch to Intel they will take the time to get not only the outside, of the machines, beautiful, as always, but also the inside.

I really hope that Apple will not lower their quality because of the switch to Intel. I know that not many people care about the insides. But if a product is not only beautiful, easy to use and ergonomic on the outside but also on the inside it really shows the quality. So once more I pray that Apple gets back on with the expectations we have.

Macintel wishes

Esden — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday Steve announced new macs at Mac World Expo. And they have Intel inside. The brand new Core Duo! They are a dream!

I can't wait to get my hands on the Powerbook successor called Macbook Pro. It is a dream! Anyone willing to give me money?

Take a look at the beauty:

You can see more here.

They also released a new iMac with Core Duo inside. Also amazing but I need a portable upgrade.

I want to win in Lotto! ;)

Gallery comments

Esden — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Only to let you know. I added the possibility to add comments in the gallery. Have fun commenting ;)

Shadowrun Citywars

Esden — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

We played Shadowrun Citywars on our last RPG session. I took some images during our session and I because the pictures I took the time before were lost due to a drive crash I thought to post the new ones in the gallery.

I think they are not very interesting for most people but for the ones that were there it may be of interest.

You can see the images here though.

New Year's eve

Esden — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I wish you all happy new year.

It may be that you come here to see the images from the New Year's eve. They are here.

There are more photos to come from XMas and the days after that I spent in Warsaw (Poland) visiting my family. But it takes some time to sort them and process so that I can bare to upload them to the gallery.

I think that the requirements I have to the images I share with others has risen somehow, or I get paranoid. Because it takes more and more time for me to prepare the images so that I feel that I can share them with others...

Anyways, I wish you all happy new year and fulfilled wishes.

Nikon D50

Esden — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

As you probably saw in my Photoblog the EXIF information on the right under the Picture shows in the last few images that they were taken with a D50. Yes I really got my Nikon D50! Weee! ;)

I hope now that at least the quality of the shots got better now. But I also think that the images themselves are better now. I have a lot more freedom compared to my old camera. And taking an image is no more such a hassle.

I still miss some wide angle lens and a tele lens from time to time. But with some time on my hands I hopefully will have some money to change that situation too. Tamron or Sigma or even Nikon themselves will have some nice lenses for me. The problem is that photography is a very expensive hobby.

Someone in the #photogeeks channel posted a nice comparison some time ago: "I had a choice for my hobby. Collecting Faberge eggs or photography." The only difference between the two is that the photo gear is not gaining on value like the eggs do.

I love my new camera and I hope to be able to take some amazing shots with it. For my and your amusement. Photography is now making even more fun.

The only problem is that my expectations to myself and yours probably too will rise now and I will have to work even harder to satisfy them. ;)

Photography Podcasts

Esden — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I would like o share with you two podcasts that I regularly listen to.

The first one is Secrets of Digital Imaging by Dennis Hays. It is a very interesting podcast for everyone new to digital photography or photography at all. I encourage you to listen to the podcasts from the very beginning. They are very educational. You can subscribe via iTMS or through this link.

The second one is MBP-Podcast by Martin Bailey. Martin is discussing his own photography and how he did the photographs. One can learn a lot here too. You can subscribe via iTMS or through this link.

If you know any other podcasts about photography that are worth listening please let me know.

Woot!

Esden — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I did it! Ok ... with the small hint from Daniel ;)

Thank you man!

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Having a Cold for doing Art

Esden — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Damn ...

Why can't I be a computer. I would have an antivirus ... and could download a quick fix for that flew. That really sucks I tell you. My head explodes and feels like filled with batting.

I pump myself with teas for a cold and Aronia tea, aspirin and Rutinoscorbin.

I hope that I am fine soon. :/

I used my time where my head was not able to think to take photographs is my room. I made up a scene with shells, dice, ipod and glasses. I took about 20 images, with different times and aperture openings. I am really eager to see how this images got. (of course I took the pictures with Praktica that is why I can not show you the Images yet)

On friday I tested out the flash for Praktica on a friend's birthday party. I am also eager to see them.

I will try to make the images if I manage it to get out of bed tomorrow.

Praktica super TL (2)

Esden — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I finally have the first Images developed that I took with Praktica. They are really good, better then I expected. I posted the first sample in my photoblog, there are more to come. Sadly the scans are not as good as they could be so you can not see the real quality of the shots :( but I think you will still get an impression.

I developed the images at PhotoPorst. The guys cut the negatives not correctly so some images have cut off corners. The scanned images are also not the quality I would expect. The next time I will try another photo shop. Hopefully they will do it better. We have 5 photo shops here in Rosenheim so I have something to choose from. ;)

photoblogs.org

Esden — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

After another session tweaking around my site I finally added Creative Commons licensing notes to all pages (hopefully). The photoblog site is also pretty finished contentwise. The thing that still remains is matching the themes of the blog, gallery and the photoblog. That means a lot of work.

I also added Twisted view of Esden photoblog to photoblogs.org. If you like photoblogs go there and you will surely find tons of very nice blogs. I also would be very happy when you add me to your favorites there. ;) You can see my list of favorites here.

Back to germany

Esden — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

After two months of traveling and visiting three countries I am back in germany. As you may know I was in Holland and Poland what you may not know is that I also was in Bulgaria for two weeks. I had a very nice time with some friends from Rosenheim there.

I really miss the warmth of the climate there. It is really cold and unfriendly in Germany now when you compare 12 degrees here with 24 degrees that we had there.

But everything that is nice has to end some time.

Tomorrow semester begins and I have to go back to university. Somehow I am sad about vacation ending but otherwise I am very happy to see my friends here and that I had such nice time the last two months.

Being back home means also that I will restart regular posting in my blog and coding. Hopefully I will find enough time between lectures to do that. I whish everyone who goes back to University in the next days a good semester and lots of interesting stuff to learn.

Photoblog

Esden — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I added a Photoblog to my site. You can find it here. I hope you will like the images I will post there. Currently there is only one image that I already posted here in the blog. Tomorrow when I got some sleep I will add first really fresh image. Uwe outrun me with adding a photoblog just by a day. I started setting it up on friday but had some technical problems. More about them tomorrow.

Pixelpost

Esden — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

As you already know I have installed a photoblog on my site. I use Pixelpost for that. It is a pretty nice and simple system having nearly everything you need.

The problem is that this software is very crappy written. I installed it and tried to upload an image. Everything went ok only that the thumbnail has not been created for the image. I spent one hour debugging only to find out that it is failing because I have no jpeg support in gd2 php plugin. I do really not understand why people are not doing right error handling. At least the install script could have checked that! The calls to these functions are muted (not yelding anything on an error). I really could kill someone for that.

Spending another two hours on bugfixing the code I finally acheved that I do not get 20 error entries in my apache logs on a link click. I will try to collect all my fixes and post them to the pixelpost developers in the next days. But for that I have to spend another evening getting the code really clean because my fixes are pretty hacky for now. I really wanted that thing running.

I also added another WordPress plugin to integrate the latest and one random thumbnail image on my blog site. You find the plugin here. It worked without any hacks or tweaks. That is how I like a software to be. ;)

Praktica super TL

Esden — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I was at home in Ingolstadt visiting my parents. My mother was so nice to borrow me her SLR camera. It is a pretty old Praktica super TL. It is a Eastgerman production and even has a fan community. You can find the documentation of that camera here. More info can also be found here.

The camera has a Carl Zeiss Jena, Tessar 2,8/50 lens. It is a very good lens. The design is 100 years old but it was remade many times. Zeiss is producing the lens till today. Even if the lens is pretty dark 2,8f. The positive side of the lens is that it draws very sharp and is very light. It as also called Eagle Eye of your camera. You can read more about it [here](http://www.zeiss.de/C12567A8003B0478/Contents-Frame/87BB92AB3C30AB86C1256BA4 002F79AE).

As you can imagine it is not a digital camera so it takes some time till there will be sample images. I took today 18 images and in the next days I should finish the film. Taking that images the camera got stuck three times and messed up three images. That happens when you use old mechanics that are not used often. But nevertheless it is a lot of fun taking images with it. It is loud like hell and heavy. Just like firing some kind of weapon.

I am really asking myself if there is a photoblog somewhere where someone is shooting photos with such an "ancient" technology.

Glasses

Esden — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Hi folks. A strange thing happened. Since some minutes I am wearing glasses for computer work as you can see here. I hoped that tests will show that I do not need them.

The doctor said that in fact I do not need them because my eyes are good enough to compensate my ~ +1.5 on both sides. But she also said that glasses would not be bad.

Now I near myself to the cliche of a geek ;)

Glowing Sparcle

Esden — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I installed the wp gallery plugin, to integrate my gallery with the blog, today. I want to post some images I like in my blog entries little bit in the style of photoblogs.

Today and here is the first image I would like to share with you. I hope that it in some way proofs that also with a very cheep digicam one can make pretty nice shots that on one hand could be better but on other hand look very nice the way they are. Bit fuzzy and cloudy ;)

Buying a camera

Esden — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Ok I am so far! I am buying a camera.

I spent many hours surfing the net reading reviews and comparisons. That was a hard work that showed me what camera I want. Finally I found that there are three cameras that come in closer selection:

Canon EOS (Digital Rebel) 300D Canon EOS (Digital Rebel) 350D Nikon D50 Most probably the camera I will buy is the Nikon because of the price. Nikon costs about 450Eur the canon 300D about 500Eur and Canon 350D about 700Eur.

I really want a SLR camera because something small that I can have always with me I already have namely my Trust 910Z.

Now I have to raise money from somewhere. Magic would be nice here ;)

Photos in Warsaw

Esden — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I have added some photos taken in Warsaw. You can find them here.

I added too family meeting documentations (as almost all images they lack caption I hope to find time to add them later on).

The first meeting was at my aunts Magda (sister of my father) and the second was at my uncles Witold (brother of my mother). Have fun watching ;)

Also some images of my nearly brother Boleks car and a party with Boleks friends are there too.

Vacation but no time

Esden — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

As you can see I do not write very often at the moment. Imagine why, yes, vacation.

As you know I am in Warsaw currently and because all my family lives here and I have friends here too I do not have much time.

Sure my granny or my parents would say directly the contrary, they would say that I spend all my time at my laptop doing "something". Sure I spend some time at my machine but that is only because I am taking a lot of images and have to postedit and select them. Trying to stay up to date with e-mail and news too becomes very difficult then, as writing blog entries does.

But finally after getting many times on my father nerves we finally finished selecting and postediting the photos I made in the Gdynia week. The gallery is finally online here. I hope you enjoy the images.

I do also hope that I will get some Warsaw images online in the coming days. It still stays a challenge looking through imaginary, removing bad and crappy shots, cleaning some of them up, converting to the right format, uploading to my sever and adding to the gallery. It is a pretty long process and also time consuming so that the gallery does not get cluttered and looks like a dumpster. I will do my best. I hope that at least my family will like the imaginary. (if so please write me a comment ;) I will really appreciate it as always)

Lock bumping

Esden — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday on HackADay there was a post linking to lock bumping. A very interesting technique for opening most of the current door locks.

It is a security vulnerability that is so severe because it is so terribly simple that it looks nearly like magic. A guy inserts a self made key into a lock, hits it with the head of a screwdriver and the lock pops open. Having only 10 most common bump keys you can open about 90% of the current door locks.

You can see a full video about lock bumping on the Toool home page here recorded on WTH this year. There is also a list of locks that are not vulnerable to the bumping attack.

I really encourage you to check if your door lock is vulnerable and get a new one if you can. The only real problem is that there are not many good lock under 100Eur level. But everyone knows how much security is important for him.

Security discussions

Esden — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I just had a discussion with my father and with my granny about security issues ignated by the previous post.

My father and my granny say that one should not spread the information about a vulnerability and the way it may be exploited. One only should say that there is one and that one should change something and what to change.

I think in the contrary that when I do not tell how to exploit a big security hole no one will give it trust. Everyone will say that it is only a hoax and not truth because fixing the potential security hole is very expensive (to fix the security hole from the previous post you need to spend 100Eur or more).

I ask you for comments and statements about that. Also links to pages dealing with this problematic.

Arrived in Warsaw

Esden — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Finally my family and me arrived in Warsaw at the house of my granny. We arrived yesterday at about 21:00 or so.

All the way to Warsaw I was hearing a classic Rock collection that Daniel recommended and it was really good.

Somewhere on the way we made a stop to get some food. We landed in a pretty nice old "Herren Haus" called Dworek Sople it looked pretty nice and the food was also good. The only downside was the loud street, otherwise I could recommend it not only for a short stop on the road but also for staying longer. I will post a scan of their brochure later.

Catching up

Esden — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Since the morning today I am working on getting all the images I have online. I want to do it before I start reposting my blog entries that are on my laptop. It is really not so easy as it seems. The images I get from my camera are all way too big for web so I have to downsize them. Sadly iPhoto does not have (or I am blind) an easy batch option for resizing images. I got a program called Downsize for that. I really ask myself why all that useful little stuff has to cost money. 20$ here 20$ there ... every little tool costs money. I am a poor student I do not have the money to pay every little tool I get and that nags suck badly and test time outs even more. I would prefer if the programs were free and there were donation buttons on their pages. I am really sure that the time I start working and have some pennies left I will donate money to every vendor of a useful program I use that is free and has a donation button. You may hit me on that later ;)

Ok I finish uploading the images and then I start to add all the blog posts that accumulated here on my disk ;)

Pre liftoff day, my new watch

Esden — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Today was a real lift off day as I know it in my family. First we were at the beach near to here to get some sun (my mother and my aunt Dana are going there every moring). At 10:30 we were back at home to eat the second breakfast. Then I left with my grand mother to the city for shopping getting a clock back from the clockmaker and buying nutrition stuff at the grocery store so nothing really exciting for me beside the fact that my granny bought me a really nice simple clock I catched in the eye some days ago. It is a simple Casio MTP-1142 but not using a clock for a long time and always being afraid of loosing the wrist watch I decided that it was the right thing to wear. At first I wanted to buy the watch by my self but my granny heard about it and wanted badly to buy it for me because she still needs a present for my upcoming name day (we get presents, that day, similar to birthday).

I really love that wrist watch! It is simple in design and does what it has to do. Just like a macintosh ;)

After shopping we had late lunch and my granny, my mother, my brother and I left for shopping at the coast to get some presents for birthday's of my friends in germany. You may be eager now what I bought. *GG* After that shopping tour we got back home and visited my aunt and uncle in the house near by. That way the evening ended and I am sitting now on my bed. Tomorrow we are leaving to Warsaw. I really hope that when I get there my Internet communication improoves and I will be able to document my blog entries with pictures, links and similar.

For now gn8 gf8 ... I need to catch some sleep before driving 300km in 5hours (yes that takes really so long on polish roads but I will poast the exact numbers tomorrow night if communication channels allow)

Sea view

Esden — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I am currently siting in the gardent of my aunt and uncle in Gdynia. It is a very beautifull place with a view to the sea. I am looking at the see and daydreaming. This beautifull view is crying at me that I take a photo and make it last for eternity. Sadly I can not make a braindump so you will never get the impression I get from this view. You will have to be happy with an image from my Trust noname digital camera. It is better then nothing. ;) (here you can find more images taken from the garden)

I tried to continue my work on deBlog but the view stopped me from that and I decided that watching the view was more importaint then working.

Garczyn and Olpuch

Esden — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Some minutes ago my mother, my brother and I arrived back in Gdynia in the house of my aunt Dana. We spent the whole day in Garczyn and then in Olpuch.

Garczyn is a very small village with some houses, fields, a lake, a church and a cemetery. On the cemetery there are many graves of Esden-Tempski family members. We washed the new finished tomb and posed some plastic flowers so that it looks a bit more colorful.

We also were talking with the grave digger so he takes care about the graves.

There is also a chapel built for that is full now.

It was a very interesting excursion in the history of our family.

The rest of the day we spent in Olpuch at the house of my uncles Leszek. His wife, daughter, son and goddaughter were also there.

First we spent some hours at a lake that is in the area. Very nice warm and clear water. Beautiful simply beautiful.

Then we ate late lunch that took a lot of time was very tasty and flavored with witty discussions about everything and everyone.

After the lunch my uncle showed me his camera and photos he made with it. Very nice camera (a porsche compared to mine but I am happy I have a camera... time will show.. you know ;) ) the images were also pretty impressing. I took also some images with it. That was marvelous... sigh.

The day ended pretty fast and we left back to Gdynia and so we are here at the end of the day.... good night.

You can see gallery for Garczyn and Olpuch to see how it looked like.

Visit to Gdansk

Esden — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Today my parents, my grandmother, my brother and I have visited Gdansk. It is a very beautiful city lying at the northern coast of Poland. I have visited some churches and marked called after a saint: "Dominican Market" my brother and I have bought two coats with Poland written on it's backs. Very nice stuff. (very warm ;) )

I am currently working on deBlog all the time. Work is progressing very slowly because every several minutes someone wants me to do something or, what is more common, I fall asleep. That are that damn climatic changes. I really ask myself if I ever get that thing finished if I continue to progress with my work like that.

I am making a lot of pictures here. I will upload them some time when I have better internet connection then here. I am currently connected to the I-Net line of my uncle and aunt. For some strange reason the provider allows full bandwidth only to single mac addresses that are registered. My mac address is not registered yet so I have only 5kb down and something around this upload. I hope now you can understand why I will not upload my pictures ;)

I hope to have better network in Warsaw. I will leave in that direction on Tuesday and my Grandmother has DSL Hardline now so I may have a better connection there ;)

I think that is all for today.... cu ;)

Arrived in Gdynia

Esden — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

As I wrote yesterday I did not manage it to find a appropriate software to help me driving. The only thing that comes close to my needs is GPSDrive but I did not manage it to get it compiling.

Today I had the second part of my trip to Poland. Now I am in Gdynia (this is a part of the threecity Gdansk (LAT: 54o30.73'N LON:18o32.99'E)) at my aunt's house.

The trip was pretty funny. The only real problem during the trip were three things. First: get out of Berlin, Second: the bad signs on polish roads and Third: uneven roads. If I had a GPS navigation the first and second one would be unexistant. Only thing that would remain is the third.

Blindy gave me his GPS mouse so I can use it here. I will try to finish building GPSDrive as soon as I have time and got some sleep. I had to visit and talk to a lot of people here after arriving at 19:30 or so. (that were 7:30 hours driving *sigh* becaus I left Berlin around 12:00).

Ok ... so good night good fight to everyone ;)

Geek or not a geek that is the question

Esden — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I am bigger geek then Uwe ... woooho ;)

Leaving for Poland

Esden — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Today about 15:30 I left Ingolstadt for a trip to Poland. My current final destination is Gdynia at the coast of Poland. I have about 5 hours driving behind me and my head aches a bit. I hope that is over after I cached some hours of sleep.

Thanks to Blindcoder I do not have to drive the whole way to Gdynia in one peace but can make a stop in Berlin from where I am writing this entry now. I really missed a GPS navigation program or device. I did not have a detailed map of Berlin and leaving Ingolstadt I did not have the address of Blindy.

I searched the net a bit to find some Mac OS X software that can show me maps at least but did not find anything for now. It would be really great if it would be able to use GPS data too. Blindy has a usb GPS mouse that he offered me but that will not help until I find some software that can work with that.

I will really have to think about buying a TomTom or so if I do not find anything. Please let me know if you find or know some OS X GPS "navigation" software.

Now I go sleeping my head is bursting ;)

Pallas is back on!

Esden — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

That was a hard day yesterday. I woke up in the morning to find out that the server my blog is on is down.

I talked to a friend of mine that also has his servers hosted at Hetzner and got the information that the provider wrote an e-mail some days ago that they will add UPS to the server room and that the admins have to stop their machines due to a power down caused by the change.

I am not the admin of the server but a friend of me that left to Turkmekistan (I hope that it is written that way) last weekend. So I did not have that information.

After calling my friend and getting username and password of the Hetzner robot I called the technician of our provider. He checked our machine and realized that the hardware was broken and he will change it. It took some minutes and he called back saying that the hardware is changed but that rock is not finding the network card.

I booted to the rescue system and took a lot of time to check what was wrong and recompile the kernel with tulip drivers that were missing.

After a reboot (my adrenaline was at 150% during the reboot (we do not have an automatic reset only a manual that takes a lot of time to be triggered) (we need a hardware reset to start the rescue system)) everything was back to normal.

That was the story of pallas aka www.esden.net ... the pure adrenaline ;)

Sitecom USB to Serial on Mac OS X

Esden — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

The day before yesterday I have bought a Sitecom USB to Serial cable (UC-104). The common problem with such cables is that there are no drivers from the producer for Mac OS X. The good thing is that most of these cables use a Prolific chip. Prolific is offering a driver for cables based on their chip on their site.

When I connected the Sitecom cable "About this Mac" reported that it is a Prolific but the driver did not load. I figured out that it is the Vendor Id and Product Id that were not matching.

I had to edit /System/Library/Extentions/ProlificUsbSerial.kext/Info.plist and change the vendor and product Id's apropriately. (You can do that with every cable that has a prolific chip in it)

And after that I had to run kextload /System/Library/Extentions/ProlificUsbSerial.kext . And imagine what was the biggest problem I had. Yes exactly that I forgot to run kextload >_<

But now it works and through my post it is hopefully helpfull for someone that googles for this cable and mac ;)

(if it was usefull for you write a comment! I will be very happy about it ;) )

Holland Pictures

Esden — Sun, 07 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I have added pictures from Holland to the gallery now.

I wan to remind you that you are able to write comments to the images ;)

I am back

Esden — Sun, 07 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Finally I am back in Germany. Last week me and Daniel have been in Holland. We had a pretty good time there doing nearly nothing drinking beer, walking on the Beach and visiting the nearby city.

The way to holland was pretty much not organized. We only knew that we want to camp somewhere near the see and that it has to be in Holland.

We left on last Monday somewhere around 5:30 AM from Ingolstadt. We drove the A9 then the A3 in direction of Koeln.

Somewhere around Koeln we made a short stop to go shopping. We bought two cans of food that we could worm up on our gas cooker and some coke for the remaining ride.

We continued our jurney to holland somewhere in the south but you have to ask Daniel where exactly because I was only following his instructions.

Around 17:00 PM we arrived at the coast of Holland and landed in a very small Town called "Wiek am Zee" IIRC. We also found a camping place there that was in the middle of the town. Because we wanted something that is not so far from the sea (this camping place was 1km away from the water) we decided to drive back to the south and search something else. We also bought a card of Holland with recreation centers marked on it.

We finally found a place to rest around 19:00 PM

The camping place had not much space so we had to check first if we manage to put our car and tent somewhere on the Youth camping area. We were lucky.

On tuesday we went to the sea because it was pretty hot. And did not pretty much that day. The following night it got bit colder and on Wenesday it rained the whole morning. But in the evening it got better.

On thursday we went to the nearby city to look at it a bit.

In the night from thursday to friday it rained a lot and our tent turned out to be not really a tent. I do define a tent a thing that prevents the rain to get on your head or in our case on our feet.

We were simply too long so we opened the door all the time with our feet.

On Friday we have decided to pack our wet things and drive to Amsterdam, visit the city and drive back home.

In Amsterdam we visited the Vincent Van Gogh museum. That was very interesting and we spent over 5 hours there.

We arrived at 4:00AM Saturday in Ingolstadt.

I am now uploading the images I took there.

Sorry that this description of the week is so short but I did one very big mistake. I have not made sure that I can write blog entries without being so dependant on a hardwired power plug and I hate paper because I always have to retype everything I write on it ;)

[Note to self] make sure to be power independent when you drive somewhere where power is not a sure thing ;)

Lightspace

Esden — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Looking through pages writing about the OLED Keyboard I have found something very nice.

I have seen something made by some students at MIT before but this one is a commercial pendant to it. An interactive blinking floor and wall. It was made by Lightspacecorp and you can see some videos here.

I really have to admit that it is a nice thing something in the style of the lighting dancefloors known from the 80's disco. I really would like to see that in some club nearby so I could dance my ass off on it ;)

Tag Heuer's V4 watch

Esden — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Another thing I found very interesting is this concept watch. Gimme one of them ... ;)

Which character I am

Esden — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to Uwe's Blog I found out that I am Aragorn: Humm...

OLED Keyboard updated!

Esden — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Good news everyone!

From the new FAQ on the Optimus keyboard homepage:

It's in initial stage of production

We hope it will be released in 2006

It will cost less than a good mobile phone

It will be real

It will be OS-independent (at least it can work in some default state with any OS)

It will support any language or layout

Each key could be programmed to produce any sequence

It will be an open-source keyboard, SDK will be available

Some day it will be split ('ergonomic')

It will most likely use OLED technology (e-paper is sooo slow)

It will feature a key-saver

Keys will use animation when needed

I snipped out some uninteresting stuff (see their page if you still want to read them).

The most important thing is that it will get real! Weehoo! I have to save money to buy it in 2006 ;) The open source thing is also veeery nice ;) The other things too. ;)

I am already looking forward to that shiny lightning keyboard!!!

DE:BUG and Sami Koivikko

Esden — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I heard a Mixtape on DE:BUG. It was so good that I have to share that with you. It was made by Sami Koivikko and is called hot pepper. I am now checking out his other mixtapes. I will post if I find something good.

All exams over!

Esden — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Finally all exams are over!

With the todays exam I was already ready after 45minutes what a nice feeling! I have never finished an exam in such a short time till now!

Now I go partying! Scoll!!! ;)

An Oled Keyboard

Esden — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Fascinating! Through Slashdot in this article I have found the keyboard of my dreams!

In every key there is an oled display that shows the current function this key has. I was thinking about something like that some time ago. I should have patented it :/

I only hope that some day someone will produce such a keyboard!

Only one more to go!

Esden — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

The SE exam was not that hard at all. I really managed to write everything down. That was a lot of writing.

I had to write down some use cases, create a data model, create an interface for a class and that is nearly it. I am not sure how many mistakes I have done there though. That means I am not sure what grade it will be, but I have a good feeling about it.

Now there is only one more exam to go: DB. Now I will do some previous exams to get a feeling what is expected. I hope that will go smooth. Still, wish me luck. ;)

Tomorrow at this time I will probably be already drinking beer with some friends in Sinnlos. We have to celebrate that the exams are over. I am really ready for vacation! ;)

Too many Exams

Esden — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Sigh... that is a really busy week. Writing 7 exams in one week is really a mess. It sucks all your brain out. There are still 2 to go. One about software engeneering and one about DB systems. Whish me luck ... I hope that I will be able to write a bit more in the blog when they are over.

Now I need a bit rest after today's compiler exam that was really hard. I did not expect it to be such a problem. I only hope that I managed to do it well enough to get a 4 :/ I do not really want to write it once more.

After that I continue learning for the next exam. Wish me luck!

Gallery and language change.

Esden — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I have decided, that because there are some people, that expressed the wish to read my blog and do not understand German or at least it is a problem for them, to change the language of this blog to English. (That is a long sentence.)

I also added some Pictures to the gallery. I took this Pictures some time ago at Sinnlos. Sinnlos is a pub really near to here where we use to go in the evening after a busy day learning stuff. ;)

Have fun reading my crappy English. I know my German is not really better. ;)

Questionable Content

Esden — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Ok ... I was accidently pointed to a very nice Comic some time ago. I would like to present it today.

The name is Questionable Content. You can even find an entry on Wikipedia about it.

The story turns around Marten a frustrated music nerd, his anthromorpic PC named Pintsize and his roommate Faye.

It is pretty funny and dealing with problems finding the right person for a relationship and strange discussions about Indie Rock bands that I have never heard of.

The story is still pretty dense and not getting boring. The drawing style is pretty nice and the guy drawing it is getting all the time better. I can only forward you to it so you can make your own decision about it. But if you ask me it is pretty nice and worth reading.

You really need Unittesting!

Esden — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Some days before I wrote about how important Unittesting is and thanks to Uwe's Blog i got another proof.

That reminds me of writing the diff code for Diagnostics. The tests were fundamental in gaining a bit of trust in the quality of the code I have written. They triggered one bug after another... that was already in the code that I based mine on (the original code had no Unittesting or anything in the style). I only can shake my head about people not realizing how important that is.

Apropos that some days ago I told someone about Unittesting his response was really ridiculous: "writing that tests is real bloat I really do not have time to run the tests after changing one line code". Read the article then you will understand why you will _take_ the time to run the tests! ;)

Witam moich Rodzicow, (Ich heisse meine Eltern Wilkommen)

Esden — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Soo ausnahmsweise mal auf polnisch weil ich meine Eltern begruessen muss ;)

Czesc Wam ... jak obiecalem pisze Wam. Witajcie na mojej stronie internetowej ;) Oczywiscie takze mojego kochanego brata Alka.

Oraz buziak dla Cioci i Przemka.

No i Roncie.

Caluje Piotrus

D&D Online

Esden — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Wie die Leute die mich kennen wissen habe ich fuer eine "Weile" World of Warcraft gespielt. Irgendwann habe ich aber aufgehoert weil die Veraenderungen die von Blizzard gemacht wurden das spiel unangenehm zum spielen gemacht haben. Aber das ist eine andere Geschichte.

Das was ich eigentlich erzaehlen will ist das vorraussichtlich ende diesen Jahres Dungeons and Dragons Online rauskommen soll. Es basiert auf dem Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper Spiel von Wizards of the Coast. Es sieht sehr vielversprechend aus. Dazu gibt es paar sehr interessante Videos.

Ich werde hoffentlich in der naechsten Zeit die moeglichkeit finden mich besser in die regeln von D&D einzuarbeiten und mal in unserer Rollenspielgruppe austesten. Eine nette Beschreibung (leider noch nicht komplett) der Rassen und Klassen von D&D wurde von einem Kumpel aus WOW erstellt und in unserem ehmaligen Gilden Forum gepostet. Ist interessant zu lesen. Ich hoffe mal das er es fertig schreibt, gell Sin? ;)

Misfile

Esden — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Wenn es noch jemand von euch nicht kennt. Misfile ist ein super online Comic mit einer interessanten Story.

Es geht naemlich darum das ein Engel (saeufer und kiffer) zwei kleinichkeiten im Himmel verbockt hat und aus dem himmel geschmissen wurde. Die Faehler fuehrten dazu das ein Kerl der totaler Dragrace fanatiker war zu einem Maedchen geworden ist. Und das ein Maedchen zwei Jahre ihres Lebens verloren hat.

Auf dieser Basis entwickelt sich eine totkomische Geschichte ueber die beiden und den Engel. Nun ich kann es nur empfehlen.

Objective C

Esden — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Da ich endlich mal was in XCode fuer Cocoa coden will habe ich heute angefangen bisschen auf der Developer Seite von Apple zu lesen. Da gibt es eine ganz nette Einfuehrung ins Objective C.

Diese Sprache ist C mit Zusatz von Smalltalk so das es objektorientiert wird. Ich finde es ganz nett.

Ich bin gespannt wie es sich dann anfuehlt wenn man es dann letztenendes programmiert. Ich habe schon das entsprechende Projekt dafuer naemlich ein Blog Schreibprogramm ala ecto. ;)

IPod Wood Mod

Esden — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Ich bin gestern durch Slashdot auf einen super geilen iPod mod gestossen. Der Wood mod. Das tollste daran ist das es mit der Hand gemacht wurde. Eine tolle Arbeit muss ich sagen.

Es gibt aber trotzdem paar Sachen anzustreichen. Ich finde dadurch das es so dick lackiert ist sieht es zumindest auf den Photos wie aus Plastik aus. Obwohl wenn ich mir vorstelle wie es in Wirklichkeit aussehen kann denke ich das es schon in Ordnung ist.

Zweitens ist die Verdeckung vom Clickwheel so ausgebaeult. ich finde da haette man die Teile so anpassen sollen das es eine glatte Ebene ergibt so wie es bei dem Orginal iPod der fall ist. Denn so verleiht es einen klobigen Look und bricht mit der Sauberkeit des Orginaldesigns. Finde es aber ok das das Clickwheel aus einem anderen Holz ist als das Frontpannel. Das sieht ganz gut aus.

Alles im ganzen eine ueberwaeltigende Arbeit wie man es an den unzaehligen "Wow" und "Wooot" Kommentaren erkennen kann.

Da kommen schon gleich weitere Ideen wie man THC vielleicht Designen koennte ;)

Statistiken

Esden — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Ich habe gerade ein Statistik Tool fuer diese Webseite eingerichtet namens awstats. Es ist unheimlich maechtig auch wenn man keine Plugins installiert. Ausser den standard Statistiken ueber, wer welche url am meisten geklickt hat und wann die meisten leute drauf waren, kann man sehen welchen Browser und Betriebsystem die Besucher nutzten um die Seite aufzurufen.

Da war ich sehr erstaunt zu sehen das es nur 0.4% gab die IE benutzt haben um draufzugehen. Ok es kann daran liegen das es unter meinen Bekannten fast keine IE Benutzer gibt und das der Inhalt nur fuer die von Interesse ist. Ausserdem sind die Logs noch nicht sehr alt.

Mal sehen wie es sich weiter entwickelt.

Ausserdem habe ich ein Plugin fuer WordPress gefunden mit dem man aus awstats Informationen rausholen kann die fuer den Blog von interesse sind. Auf der Rechten Sind jetzt paar zusaetzliche faelder die das ausnutzen.

Dabei musste ich feststellen das ich Permlinks nicht an hatte, Schande ueber mein Haupt. ;) Wenn jemand von euch dieses Plugin benutzen moechte sollte diese unbedingt einschalten sonnst erscheint nichts unter "Popular".

www.esden.net

Esden — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Seit irgendwann heute morgen wurde der Nameserver umgestellt und somit zeigt www.esden.net auf pallas (diese Seite). Wenn Probleme auftreten sollten bitte melden ;)

Blog Theme

Esden — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Da der Tobi zum Beispiel den gleichen Theme fuer sein Blog benutzte wie ich, habe ich mir gedacht das ich mir einen anderen aussuchen sollte.

Es ist keine einfache Sache. Es gibt eine sehr grosse Sammlung an Themes fuer WordPress in der man sich verlieren kann. Ich habe letztenendes ein Theme gefunden das "White as Milk" heisst. Wie ihr vielleicht sehen koennt ist die seite garnicht weiss. Das liegt daran das ich mich mit dem css File angelegt habe. ;)

Mir gefaellt die Seite jetzt sehr gut. Ihr seid gerne aufgefordert dieses zu kommentieren. Ja ich weiss jeder ist zu beschaeftigt und zu desinteressiert um irgendwas zu kommentieren aber wuenschen kann ich mir es trotzdem.

Edit: Hier gibt es das Orginal zu sehen.

Buzzwords

Esden — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Da ich es am Montag wieder nicht geschafft habe Essen einkaufen zu gehen war ich wieder gezwungen irgendwo essen zu gehen.

Erstmal habe ich sehr lange ausgehalten ohne aus dem haus zu gehen weil ein Gewitter mich ziemlich demotiviert hat. Leider irgendwann hat der Hunger Oberhand gewonnen und ich habe mich doch entschieden schnell zum Auto zu rennen.

Ich habe letztens von meiner lieben Mutter ein Regenschirm geschenkt bekommen aber da ich ein sehr kluger Mensch bin habe ich den im Auto liegen lassen. Deshalb schnell zum Auto gerannt und garnicht so sehr nass geworden. Als ich da angekommen bin bin ich zu dem Schluss gekommen das ich gleich da bleiben kann um zur Pizzeria zu fahren die zwar nur zwei Blocks entfernt ist aber der Dach hier ist ein besserer Regenschutz als der Regenschirm.

An der Pizzeria musste ich leider feststellen das sie zu hat da es Montag ist und die immer Montags zu haben. Warum vergesse ich es immer. Mir blieb nichts anderes uebrig als zu Mac Do weiterzufahren da ich keine lust hatte mir einen Parkplatz in der Innenstadt zu suchen.

Nachdem ich mir einen Big Tasty und Wedges und Mozarella Roellchen bestellt hatte bin ich zum Tisch gegangen und nichts ahnend angefangen zu Essen. Irgendwann von dem essen gelangweilt habe ich angefangen die Werbung auf meinem Tablett zu lesen was sich als grosser faehler herausgestellt hat.

Die Werbung galt fuer so kleine Lautsprecher die irgendwelche Musik gedudelt haben. Von lauter gecasteten Musikern die sich kein normaler und im Gehirn gesunder Mensch anhoeren wuerde weil man sonnst einen Hoehrsturz kriegt. Da stand wirklich bei der beschreibung von Destiny's Child musik das die "Hammer Tracks" produzieren. Ich denke mir "WAS?!?" also ok ... erstmal durchatmen. Nochmal gelesen "Hammer Tracks" und nochmal "WAS?"

Nun also nach meinem verstaendniss wird in der Deutschen Sprache der Denglische begriff "Track" dazu benutzt Lieder zu beschreiben die kein Gesang enthalten. Weil Lied impliziert ja das Gesungen wird. Oder? Also wenn man den Umkehrschluss macht dann singen Destiny's Child garnicht. Was fuer eine Erkenntniss ;) Die Musikindustrie outet sich selbst das die Musiker promiert die nicht singen. Den rest koennt ihr euch selbst zusammendichten. Ich freue mich das ich kein Fernseher und kein Radio daheim habe. Sonnst wuerde ich mich noch selber mit diesen "Tracks" zududeln.

Elektronische Musik

Esden — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Daniel hat heute in seinem blog einen Eintrag in dem es um ein Blog namens DE:BUG POD handelt zu dem ich auch gerne was sagen wuerde. Aber bevor ich das mache muss ich noch etwas dazu sagen wie der Daniel die Musikrichtung die da gespielt wird sagen.

Daniel hat den Begriff "Techno" benutzt. Nun meiner Meinung nach sollte man sich dem heutigen Trend anschliessen und es "Electronica" nennen. Ich finde der begriff "Techno" hat einen ziemlich schlechten Nachgeschmack mittelerweile denn alle verbinden es mit dem Bum Bum der 90er. Electronica ist sehr vielfaeltiger wie man es im DE:BUG POD leicht erkennt. Ich weiss das man theoretisch bei dem begriff bleiben koennte aber leider ist die Welt so konzipiert das Menschen Begriffe so wie Sachen und Menschen in Schubladen schieben und sich dann mit dem was denen nicht gefallen hat nicht mehr auseinandersetzen.

Deshalb muss man als Altruist wie ich es bin versuchen den Menschen unter die Arme zu greifen indem man einen neuen Begriff benutzt damit sie ihre Vorurteile leichter absetzen koennen.

Nun jetzt zu DE:BUG. Jedem der sich fuer Electronica oder Musik im allgemeinen interessiert muss ich den Blog sehr empfehlen. Jeden tag werden mehrere Tracks Behandelt. Mit einer mehr oder manchmal Weniger ausfuehrlichen Beschreibung von wem es ist und paar Kommentaren dazu. Meistens ist noch Cover Art dabei. Da stoesst man bestimmt auf etwas was einem taugt und vielleicht sogar zum kauf von einem Vinyl fuehrt ;)

Gallery

Esden — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Ich habe alles was in meinem alten www Verzeichnis war endlich mal aufgeraeumt. Sehr vieles habe ich in den Muell geworfen und einieges wiedergefunden. Wie zum Beispiel ein log vom rebooten des Universums (siehe voriger Blog Eintrag) oder wie Rotkaepchen von Informatikern gesehen wird. Dazu noch ein Skript mit dem man anhand von den Parametern seines Rechners die dazugehoerende "Schwanzlaenge" berechnen kann und ein gkrellm Theme das ich mal gemacht hatte. Was man alles so findet wenn man mal aufraeumt ;)

Da ich auch noch unheimlich viele Bilder da hatte habe ich mich kurzerhand entschlossen eine Gallery dafuer zu machen. Die braucht noch bischen massieren bis die huebsch wird und sich mit meinem Blog zusammenfuegt aber zumindest sind schon alle Bilder drinnen. Es war schoen mal wieder die ganz alten sich anzuschauen.

Das war fast so wie einen ganz alten Schrank auszuraeumen und wieder in Ordnung zu bringen. Da kommen so richtig Erinnerungen wieder hoch.

Rebooting the Universe

Esden — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Da ich momentan mein komplettes Webseiten Verzeichnis umraeume und neu strukturier bin ich auf was etwas was ich mal geschriben habe geschrieben habe.

Ein Vorschlag wie es aussehen koennte wenn man das Universum rebooten wuerde. Ihr koennt es euch hier durchlesen.

Wenn jemand von euch Verbesserungsvorschlaege hat darf sie logischerweise mitteilen. ;)

Coden ohne Diagnostics

Esden — Mon, 04 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Soo ... ich bin jetzt total am ende. Es ist verdammt spaet ich sollte Schlafen da in drei Stunden ist wieder Uni.

Ich habe mir dieses ecto geholt wie ihr vorhin lesen konntet. Nun ein ganz nettes ding wenn es funktionieren wuerde. Ich habe einen bug wie schon geschrieben behoben der es nicht erlaubte ueberhaupt was zu machen. Das ding schafft es aber immer noch nicht kategorien von den Posts richtig zu setzen.

Da kommen wir direkt zu dem was ich hier ansprechen wollte. Ich habe viele Stunden damit verbracht Serendipity so hinzukriegen das es mit ecto sprechen kann. Es ist einmal ecto das nicht richtig das XMLRPC Protokoll implementiert und Serendipity das es auch nicht richtig tut. Aber das ist nicht das schlimmste. Ich wuerde alles ziemlich schnell zum laufen bringen wenn man Serendipity vernuemftig debuggen koennte. Es faehlt vernuemftiges logging. Ich kann keine richtigen debug Ausgaben produzieren. Alles muss man per hand irgendwo in eine Datei machen.

Es gibt noch ein Problem. Das ding ist nicht richtig getestet. Warum machen die leute keine TESTCASES? Verdammtnochmal! Warum testen die ihre software nicht! Wie zum kuckuck kann man software entwickeln ohne richtiges logging und testing? Kann mir das jemand erklaeren?

Jetzt habe ich lust wirklich mein eigenes Blog System zu schreiben mit einem vernuemftigen Mac OS X, Windows und Linux Client. Das kann doch nicht eingehen das jeder macht was er will. Testet die software mit einem Blog system und meint das alles in bester ordnung ist. Genauso umgekehrt. Leute schreiben Blog Systeme und testen die mit einem Client und meinen das alles in ordnung ist. Dann halten sich alle nicht richtig an die Standards die wunderbar in RFC's geschrieben sind. Wobei die RFC auch wieder nicht alles richtig definieren. Wie zum beispiel sollen die kategorien verworfen werden wenn man zu editPost Funktionsaufruf keine kategorien mitgibt?

TESTET euren scheiss!!! Schreibt TESTCASES!!! Macht multilevel LOGGING!!! Ihr macht euch selbst und anderen ein gefallen damit.

Durch diese geschichte wurde ich wieder davon ueberzeugt das OpenSource Software von Kiddies die keine ahnung haben geschrieben wird. Von Anfaengern die meinen das wenn man drauf los coded alles gut wird! GNAAARF!

Ich habe mommentan echt lust eine Kettensaege zu nehmen und auf irgendeine PHP Con zu gehen!

Soo es reicht von dem Rumgeschreihe.

Schoenen guten Tag wuensche ich euch allen!

Probleme mit ecto und serendipity

Esden — Mon, 04 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Nun ... durch das ganze Rumgespiele mit ecto und XML-RPC von Serendipity habe ich diesen schrei Post vorhin Geloescht.

Edit: Nun wie man sieht habe ich den post wiedergefunden ... naja ;-)

Ich schreibe jetzt deshalb alles neu bissel ueberarbeitet und nicht mehr so frustriert. ;-)

Ich habe ziemlich lange nach einem guten Programm gesucht mit dem ich offline Blog Eintraege bearbeiten kann um sie dann hochzuladen. Ich habe MacJurnal ausprobiert das einfach zu viel bietet an Sachen die ich nicht brauche. Ausserdem war es von der Bedienung nicht richtig angenehm weil es uhrspruenglich dazu gedacht war private Tagebuecher zu schreiben und nicht als Blog Editor.

Ich habe auch iBlog ausprobiert. Es ist zwar frei aber dafuer kann es nur zu blogger hochladen und es gibt keine moeglichkeit einen anderen Server auszuwaehlen.

Als letztes bin ich dann bei ecto steckengeblieben. Es hat ein super Benutzerinterface, kann mehrere Server verwalten und mehrere Blogs. Es unterstuetzt auch mehrere Blog Protokolle zum hochladen und bearbeiten der Posts. Leider Implementiert es die Protokolle meiner meinung nach nicht richtig. Nachdem ich Serendipity gepatcht hatte war ich in der lage ueberhaupt hochzuladen und auch Posts zu synchronisieren.

Leider war ich bis jetzt nicht in der lage es hinzukriegen das wenn ich einen neuen Post mache das er keinen Draft zusaetzlich noch dazu erstellt und das er die Kategorie nicht setzt. Es liegt hier wohl nicht an ecto sondern an serendipity. Ich muss jetzt immer nachdem ich einen post hochgeladen habe nochmal den Post bearbeiten die Kategorie nochmal setzen und dann updaten. Wie gesagt ich bin mir hier in dem fall nicht sicher wer falsch arbeitet weil in dem RFC ueber metaWeblog Protokoll ist nicht genau spezifiziert was passieren sollte wenn man editPost sendet ohne Kategorien fuer den Post mitzuschicken. ecto geht davon aus das die Kategorien nicht angeruehrt werden und Serendipity meint die Loeschen zu muessen. :-(

Nun ich wuerde gerne jetzt mein eigenes Blog System und einen Blog Client schreiben. Aber wenn ich bedenke wieviel Zeit es mich kosten wuerde es richtig zu machen vergeht mir auch wieder die Lust.

Noch eine weitere frage draengt sich dann noch auf. Wenn ich mir den code von Serendipity anschaue. Warum gibt es da kein Logging? Und warum keine Testcases? Man sollte doch seine Software testen und debuggen koennen!? Es ist echt schwer mit dem ding umzugehen und drinnen Faehler zu suchen wenn sowas nicht drinnen existiert

Und ich wiederhole noch eine aussage aus meinem vorrigen und leider geloeschten Post:

Leute TESTET euren scheiss! Schreibt TESTCASES! Benutzt multilevel LOGGING! Ihr macht euch und den anderen einen riesen gefallen!

Wenn ihr meint das es zu viel zeit kosstet dann lasst es ganz oder schliesst euch einem anderen Projekt an und fuehrt es bei denen ein! Und wenn die anderen meinen das es nur stress ist oder aehnliches FORKT deren Projekte! Die qualitaet wird letztenendes ueber Featurism eh gewinnen!!!

Nun ... ich werde mir jetzt ein Blog System aussuchen und versuchen es zumindest bisschen auf vordermann zu bringen. Oder ich rede noch mit paar Freunden von mir und wir fangen wirklich ein eigenes Blog System zu bauen ;-)

Umstellungen ohne ende

Esden — Mon, 04 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Jetzt habe ich aufgegeben. Ich habe keine Zeit und keine Lust mehr mich mit dem ganzen hier auseinanderzusetzen.

Ich habe Serendipity tschuess gesagt und dafuer WordPress installiert. Auf anhieb wollte auch ecto die Artikel abholen. Ob das posten geht weiss ich noch nicht weil das hier gerade mein erster Post ist mit ecto nach WordPress.

Hoffen wir das beste ;)

Edit: stellt euch das vor. Alles ging auf anhieb richtig!!! Waaaahrnsinn!

Jetzt kann ich mich in ruhe zum Essen begeben und bissel die Nase in Buecher reinklemmen ;)

Blog System

Esden — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Nun ich habe zwar behauptet das ich ein Blog System erst dann installiere wenn meine Domain umgezogen ist aber ich habe mich doch entschieden es vorher zu machen.

Das Blog ist schon auf dem Rechner wo meine Domain letztenendes landen wird deshalb wird es nicht schwierig sein es in meine Seite nachtraeglich wie es sich gehoert zu integrieren.

Viel spass mit dem was ich so zu sagen habe. ;-)

ecto

Esden — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Nun ... endlich habe ich einen offline Blog Client. Der nennt sich ecto und scheint ganz gut zu funktionieren.

Da es auf anhieb nicht funktioniert hat musste ich serendipity Patchen da das xml-rpc eine Funktion Gefaehlt hat. Ich habe die Datei hier hingestellt. Vielleicht hilft es jemandem.

Soo und jetzt gehe ich ins Bett.

Gute nacht allerseits

Fertig umgestellt.

Esden — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Endlich bin ich fertig mit der umstellung.

Ich habe auf meiner Alten seite ueberall wo es wichtig war Redirects eingetragen die dazu fuehren das man auf der "neuen" seite landet. Es muesste letztenendes dazu fuehren das wenn esden.net umgezogen ist sich alles gut zusammenfuegt.

Das letzte was mir noch uebrig geblieben ist waehre ein Programm zu finden mit dem ich auf meinem Rechner daheim Blog Eintraege schreiben kann und das die dann hochlaedt. Denn der Editor im System ist ziemlich schlecht und hat keine moeglichkeit zur korrektur. Ich meine hier das eingebaute Apple woerterbuch korrektur System.

Ich begebe mich dann auf die suche.

Zufaelle?

Esden — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Es ist schon komisch ... aber irgendwie wenn ich aus dem Haus gehe oder gehen will treffe ich heutzutage nur Leute die ich kenne. Jetzt ist es wieder mal passiert. Ich habe mir gedacht ich gehe kurz noch ein Bierchen sueppeln ins Sinnlos (es ist eine Kneipe die bei mir hier um die ecke ist im Studentenwohnheim) und bevor ich mein Fuss vor die Tuer setzen kann kommt mir schon Jemand entgegen. Es ist schon ganz nett aber dann dauert es meistens laenger bis ich wieder Daheim bin. Heute war es noch OK aber naja.

Diff Algorithmus und C++ lernerei

Esden — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Ok jetzt weiter zum angenehmeren. Die letzte Zeit habe ich viel programmiert fuer ein Nachfolgeprojekt von Syneight naemlich Diagnostics. Fuer dieses ding habe ich eine klasse geschrieben die diff implementiert. Es war sehr interessant vorallem weil ich mich dann durch mehrere Paper durchwuehlen musste bis ich den richtigen Algorithmus gefunden habe. Letztenendes bin ich bei LCS(Largest Common Subsequence) basierenden Algorithmus geblieben da er ziemlich gut dokumentiert war und mit Codebeispielen versehen. Er hat zwar eine Komplexitaet von O(n) aber es geht schon. Es gibt noch andere Algorithmen wie zum beispiel einen der auf Shortest Path basiert und eine Komplexitaet von O(log(n)) hat. Vielleicht werde ich irgendwann den austauschen.

Nun was ich eigentlich sagen wollte. Ich habe diese Klasse implementiert und an den Projektleiter geschickt. Ich habe kurze zeit danach eine E-Mail zurueckgekriegt mit einer ewigen liste was ich falsch gemacht habe. Ich war positiv ueberrascht denn ich bin davon ausgegangen das ich eine kurze E-Mail bekomme wo drinnen steht "Dass ist scheisse, mache es nochmal. Und ersetze mit und lese dir Folgendes Buch durch " oder aehnliches. Nein ich habe eine ausfuehrliche Erklaerung bekommen was und wieso ich falsch gemacht hatte. Ihr glaubt kaum wie sehr ich mich darueber gefreut habe. Vielleicht werde ich in spaeteren Blogs auf die Sachen die ich Falsch gemacht habe eingehen damit ihr auch davon was habt. Nun nachdem ich die entsprechenden Korrekturen eingebaut habe habe ich wieder ne lange mail gekriegt was man besser machen kann. Es ging so bis jetzt mehrmals hin und her. Mommentan bin ich am umbauen auf Iteratoren (hier muss ich anmerken das ich im uhrspruenglichen Code keine Iteratoren benutzt habe weil ich mit denen nicht per du war und wollte mir nicht eine weitere Faehlerquelle hinzufuegen.) Ich hoffe das bald der Code so weit ist das man den so stehen lassen kann ;-) (ja ich weiss Traeumen ist schoen)

Doch endlich entschieden und freude an KK Antraegen

Esden — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Hallo allerseits. Nun ich habe mich endlich entschieden ein Blog zu machen.

Ich habe einfach viel zu viel zu erzaehlen und alle meine Kumpels haben schon sowas in der art. Ich habe zwar momentan noch nicht ein richtiges Blog System installiert aber das wird noch nachgetragen sobald ich meine Domain endlich von I-Team zu Hetzner umgezogen habe.

Apropos meine Domain. Es ist echt eine schlimme Sache. Vor ungefaehr zwei Wochen habe ich bei Hetzner den KK Antrag gemacht und auch gleichzeitig I-Team davon in Kenntnis gesetzt das ich meine Domain gerne umziehen moechte. Nach einer weile kriege ich dann eine E-Mail von Hetzner das der KK Antrag von meinem Provider (I-Team oder die Firma wo die dann die Domains drinnen haben ich weiss nicht genau wie die das handhaben) abgelehnt wurde. Dieses hat mich sehr verwundert denn ich habe von I-Team eine Bestaetigung bekommen das die meine Domain zum Umzug freigeschalten haben. Jetzt muss ich nochmal den KK Antrag bezahlen. Meine Vermutung ist das I-Team dadurch das die esden.net nicht sofort, nach empfang meiner Anfrage, zum Umzug freigeschalten haben, die Ablehnung von deren Firma abgelehnt wurde. Ich werde wohl von denen Entschaedigung fordern. Ich hoffe das es zumindest beim zweiten Anlauf klappt. Nicht das mir sowas passiert wie einem Bekannten dessen Domain dann ploetzlich in Luft hing. Die hat niemandem gehoert aber trotzdem war die gesperrt zum kauf. Krank sowas sage ich nur...

Homebrew Game Console

Esden — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Soo gehen wir ueber zum naechsten Thema. Ich habe mir gestern vor dem schlafen gehen paar Gedanken gemacht. Da ist mir eingefallen das ich mal schauen koennte ob es jetzt doch endlich ein THC aehnliches Projekt gibt. (Zur erklaerung THC bedeutet "The Handheld Circuit" und ist ein Projekt von mir eine Open source Spiele Console zu bauen) Nun stellt euch vor ich wurde fuendig.

In dem Forum von Game Park 32 Extreme. Da gab es einen Thread wo jemand vorgeschlagen hat die Game Park 32 in Eigenregie nachzubauen mit einem schnelleren Prozessor. Da haben die leute sehr positiv drauf angesprochen und jetzt gibt es eine Webseite dazu http://ninja.gp32x.de/. Nun ich habe mir deren erste Layouts angeschaut und war nicht sehr begeistert muss ich sagen. Die Leitungen gehen total durcheinander und haben verschiedene Laengen. Das ist ein Problem, vorallem wenn die Leitungen eine Verbindung zwischen dem Prozessor und dem Ram sind der mit 133MHz angesteuert wird. Aber vielleicht haben die Glueck und es wird funktionieren. Ich wuensche es denen. Es gab noch paar weitere Faehler im Layout wie zum Beispiel waren die Vias zu nah an Loetpunkten (man hat dann Probleme mit der Hitzeverteilung und es ist schwer das zeug maschinell zu loeten) und die Leitungen sind teilweise so alsob jemand die per hand gezeichniett hette. Da freut sich kein Platinen Hersteller darueber ;-)

Naechstes problem ist das die sich fuer Chips mit FBGA(Ball Grid Array) Gehaeusen entschieden haben. Das problem dabei ist das man nicht die Chips per Hand loeten kann (OK mit viel Glueck und viel zeit kann man mit einer Heizpistole es vielleicht schaffen aber das ist mit wenig spass verbunden und man kann leicht den Chip dabei vernichten) das ist ein wirkliches Problem wenn mann die Hardware noch entwickelt. Ein weiteres noch Groesseres Problem ist das man nicht an die anschluesse des Chips drannkommt wenn man noch am debuggen ist. (Ein Oszi ist bei Hardware Debugging ein muss! Glaubt mir!) Ok genug geschimpft.

Ich wuensche den Jungs trotzdem viel erfolg. Die haben ein halbes Jahr zeit. Wenn die bis dahin was cooles auf die beine gestellt haben dann schliesse ich mich denen vielleicht an ansonnsten bin ich da vorraussichtlich wieder bei meiner Firma wo ich mein letztes Praktikum gemacht habe und THC wird fertig auf die beine gestellt. (Zumindest ein Prototyp aber ich glaube das ist in einem halben Jahr machbar ;-)

Soo ... ich glaube das reicht fuers erste. Ich werde vielleicht noch was nachtragen. Aber jetzt gehe ich weiter die Unterlagen fuer Englisch Pruefung lesen ;-)

THC Design

Esden — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Ich habe heute noch eine Zeichnung gemacht von dem wie ich mir vorstelle das THC mal aussehen koennte mit einem Gehaeuse. Nun ich weiss Gehaeuse ist eigentlich das letzte worueber man sich bei so etwas Gedanken machen sollte. Trotzdem habe ich bisschen Getraeumt und gleichzeitig ueberlegt wo die ganzen Anschluesse gehen sollten.

Gleich nachdem ich das fertig hatte wusste ich das ich einen Scanner brauche. Ich muss mal schauen wie ich billig an einen USB Scanner komme. Bis dahin muss ich mich wohl mit meiner Digitalkamera und und Handykamera zufriedenstellen. ;-)

Ich schaue mal gleich ob ich ein Photo von dem Bild hinkriege. Ok sehr gut ... auf dem letzten Saeufzer der Batterie in meinem Photoapparat habe ich ein Bild hingekriegt. (Ich muss mal neue Batterien besorgen.) Ich stelle es hier mal rein in der Orginalaufloesung weil sonnst kann man nichts davon erkennen.

Ich habe mir gedacht ich lehne mich an das Design von I-Pod an (ich finde es sieht super aus ich liebe naemlich designs die unkompliziert sind von der Linie was Ergonomie angeht ... nun das ist nicht mein ding :-P ) Wenn jemand von euch einen besseren Vorschlag hat darf mir natuerlich was schicken. Die E-Mail Adresse ist einfach esden at dieser Domainname ;-)

Unten will ich ein Erweiterungsport machen auf dem USB und paar weitere Leitungen rausgefuehrt sind die vom Prozessor noch frei sind. Deshalb werde ich wahrscheinlich den USB Port noch wegtun.

Soo ich glaube das reicht erstmal. Ich schreibe vielleicht morgen noch weiter ;-)