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Category Archives: Software

RasPi with Touchscreen

06 Mar

I’ve wanted to use my RasPi with a touchscreen interface for awhile now, and have finally starting collecting the information I need.  Here’s the first haul:

First, you’ll need a screen to interface with the RasPi. For simplicity, you’ll want to find one with HDMI input and USB interface for the touch layer.  Here are some good examples:

Example 7″ Screen      Example 8″ Screen

Next, you’ll need to be able to interface with the touch drivers. Here‘s a great write-up (including Kernel building and XBMC patches).

Note: In lieu of buying one of the kit screens, you can use an old laptop screens with DVI/VGA with one of these, and then buy a matching size touch overlay.

 
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Posted by on March 6, 2013 in Drivers, Microcontrollers, Video

 

Parallel Port Communication with Peripheral

24 Feb

Use an old computer for a lab bench or just have one sitting around? Chances are good that if it’s more than a few years old, it’ll have a parallel port on it. If you also run Linux and want to play around with I/O you should take a look at this project. It’ll show you how to hook up a standard 16×2 LCD character screen to your parallel port, create drivers for it, and then control it using redirects to /dev/my_lcd.  Very cool!

 

 
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Posted by on February 24, 2012 in Drivers, LCD, PC, Software

 

Wavetable Synthesis

18 Jan

One of my favorite classes in college was a micro-controller course where we had to build an alarm-clock radio.  For extra credit, I wrote a very simple “music” module to allow students to write songs to use as alarms (instead of a boring tone or siren.)  At the time I wondered if there was a way to play real midis or multiple frequencies at once to make more advanced songs.  Sadly, I was a busy student and didn’t have time to look into it.

Now, far too late for class, I’ve come across a project using wavetable synthesis which would have been an excellent jump point for me to implement a more advanced music module.  I’ll have to play around with this concept and see if I can’t slip a new module to my old professor.

 

 
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Posted by on January 18, 2012 in Microcontrollers, Microcontrollers, Music, Programs

 

Digital Picture Frame Hacking

14 Jan

This is a really cool project that I’ve always wanted to try myself.  Some folks hacked a cheap digital picture frame and got it to run Linux.  Add a touchscreen overlay and working bluetooth and you’ve got yourself a really amazing toy to play around with. I may just grab one myself and see if I can’t get this working!

 
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Posted by on January 14, 2012 in LCD, Repurposing, Software

 

Rainmeter Skin

14 Jan

I finally decided to start using Rainmeter to monitor my system resources. I had previously used some
(admittedly very good) windows 7 widgets you can find here, but I’ve always liked the way Rainmeter looked better. When I tried to use it in the past I was turned off by the initial learning curve, specifically in customizing the ‘skins’. For example, I have a 6 core CPU but the Enigma theme only supported monitoring of 2. Today I finally decided to bite the bullet and learn some of the odd meta language used to customize Rainmeter skins and managed to create a 6 CPU system monitor solution:

 

This uses 2 skins…the original system skin supporting 2 CPUs and an additional ‘System2’ skin I created which adds CPUs 3-6. For those who might want to use it, I’ve uploaded the 2 files needed here. They’ll both need to be renamed as ‘.ini’ as I can’t upload ini files. The first will need to go in “…/Rainmeter/Skins/Enigma/Sidebar/System2” (a new folder) as System.ini

System.ini in Enigma/Sidebar/System2

The second will need to go in “…/Rainmeter/Skins/Enigma/Resources/Styles/Enigma Dark” (or you can make a similar new file in light) as SidebarSystem2.inc

SidebarSystem2.inc in Enigma/Resources/Styles/Enigma Dark

 
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Posted by on January 14, 2012 in Customizing, DIY, Programs, Software

 

Interfacing uC with Windows apps over USB

04 Jan

Many microcontrollers have integrated USB meaning you have the ability to hook them up to a PC and interface with them. This is something I’ve had to do before which took me more effort than I would have liked. Here is a great little example page on how to go about doing it a better way.

 
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Posted by on January 4, 2012 in Microcontrollers, Microcontrollers, Programs, Software

 

VGA Generation with Atmega644p

01 Jan

I’ve always wanted to try out video with a microcontroller, and this a great example project.  It will display a flicker free 256×240 256 color image stored in SRAM.  It seems like it would be a small step to take this from a static display to moving images.

 
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Posted by on January 1, 2012 in Microcontrollers, Microcontrollers, Software, Video

 

Programming Arduino using Audio

31 Dec

This is a cool project which sets up your Arduino to accept programming via a mono headphone plug.  This could be very useful for a simple interface to add new data to an existing project or possibly even do a complete reprogramming with no more than a headphone jack on a PC and some simple software.

 
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Posted by on December 31, 2011 in Arduino, Arduino, Microcontrollers, Microcontrollers

 

Big XBMC Update

28 Dec

XBMC is a vital tool in my home media setup. Anyone wanting to build a home theater PC (HTPC) that will really WOW people needs to look into XBMC.  I’ll likely post more about my personal setup on the wiki at some point in the future, but here‘s some info about the newly beta released XBMC 11.0 with a great deal of enhancements.

 
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Posted by on December 28, 2011 in HTPC, PC, Programs, Software