[Klug-general] [Klug-General] Saturday 30th May Dover Meeting

[Fish]

2009/5/12 dan <danattwood at googlemail.com>:
>
>> That sounds  like as intresting,  topic, Things seam to have got
>> easier but there is still that odd bit of hardware that is not linux
>> compatiable or easy to use..... Maybe some ideas on getting wireless
>> network access to work......
>>
> i think fish is talking about arduino, gum sticks and the like
>
> and i'm for one interested in hearing about them. it would be nice if it
> could be reasonably practical though.

I'd rather not do a talk on hacking wireless chipset firmwares to make
them work, since it doesn't really come under the field of open source
hardware.  That's closed source hardware being used by open source
code.

Whilst this isn't specifically Linux, and not everyone will be
interested in electronics in particular, I think it is good to see how
the same open source philosophies that are used in our beloved OS can
be used by other fields to great effect, and maybe see some of the
parallels to arguments in software development practices.


"Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on
flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for
artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating
interactive objects or environments."


Arduino is a great starting point and "case study", since they are
entirely open source (you can get the schematic and design your own,
you can even breadboard your own if you like), and the development
environment is build on top of open source code and is itself open.

My society at UKC is a great example of people making good use of the
advantages of the Open Source nature of the hardware.  I show  from
the concept production to a real piece of hardware following it every
step of the way.

I've been thinking of bringing a Boarduino to demo with, possibly with
the SIDuino software loaded onto it and a speaker attached, maybe some
other tricks.  I could also show off some of the tools people use to
design the hardware, in particular KiCAD, and the tools required to
develop code for them.

At the end of it, I can show how you can try it yourself and start
developing for the Arduino platform, and start making your own
projects using it.  It's superbly simple to get started (the hardware
is a matter of plug it in and go), and you can make some pretty
sophisticated stuff with it once you've got used to it.

I can pretty much guarantee that by the end of it, you'll be able to
buy an Arduino and start developing code for it on your Linux machine,
if you wanted to.


Maybe not practical if you're not into electronics, but still shows an
example of using familiar ideas in unfamiliar contexts.