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OSHUG #9 - Chips, Thursday 21st April.
by Andrew Back 13 Apr '11

13 Apr '11

OSHUG #9 — Chips (Programmable Logic, Computer Conservation with FPGAs, OpenCores & OpenRISC 1000) On the 21st April 2011, 18:00 - 20:00 at Skills Matter, 116-120 Goswell Road, London, EC1V 7DP, UK (51.525335, -0.099056) Registration: http://oshug.org/event/9 Programmable logic, and in particular field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), is a topic that has frequently come up at OSHUG meetings, both in informal discussion and in presentations (see use of FPGAs in projects covered at OSHUG #5 & OSHUG #8). This is a particularly exciting technology in the context of open source hardware, as it presents an opportunity to realise performance gains approaching those that are associated with custom silicon – an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) - albeit without the enormous foundry start-up costs which make this largely the reserve of major industry. Furthermore, the design artefacts lend themselves to collaborative development and can be handled in a manner similar to that employed with the source code to computer software. At the ninth OSHUG meeting we will be given an introduction to programmable logic and the associated development cycle, we'll hear about applications in computer conservation, and we will learn about open source chip design, the OpenCores community and the MIPS-like OpenRISC 1000 CPU. // A Brief Introduction to Programmable Logic Programmable Logic Devices - mainly FPGAs – are frequently utilised in high speed and computationally intensive applications, and with modern devices containing several million transistors and many gigabits/second of connectivity they are becoming increasingly popular in the race to achieve exascale computing power. But what does this all mean and how can FPGAs achieve this processing power? How do they differ from the good old CPUs we have in our everyday computers? In essence, an FPGA is a device that contains configurable blocks of logic along with flexible interconnect between these blocks. They can be configured to contain exactly and only those operations that appear in the algorithms employed in a particular application, which can potentially give them quite a bit of an advantage in terms of throughput and efficiency when compared to static instruction set processors such as a traditional x86 CPU. In this short introductory talk we will cover the basics of programmable logic devices and talk about the design, synthesis, simulation, implementation and programming cycles associated with FPGA projects. Omer Kilic is a research student at the University of Kent working on dynamically reconfigurable architectures and embedded systems. When he is not busy working on his PhD project (a reconfigurable heterogeneous computing framework) or running lab classes, he enjoys tinkering and drinking good beer. // Computer Conservation with FPGAs Having acquired an IBM System/360 Model 30 mainframe whilst he was at university, Lawrence Wilkinson brought it back to life, then abandoned it when the rent and power costs became a drain, and has since felt very guilty. As they became obsolete in the early 1970s, very few IBM System/360s now exist in running order. To make amends he embarked on a project of re-creating the Model 30 as a gate-level simulation, using the original circuits and microcode. While the software-based Hercules emulator is available to run all 360 and 370 software, Lawrence's programmable logic-based solution faithfully replicates the Model 30 with its limited storage and I/O capability, and provides a front panel interface. The basic CPU is implemented in a Xilinx S3 FPGA and the VHDL is available for download under the GPL. Development of the project continues with the further addition of storage and I/O devices. Lawrence Wilkinson started out as an Electrical and Electronic Engineer in Auckland in the 1980s, transmogrified into an IT and Accounting support person in the late 80s, then went back to hardware and low-level software upon moving to England in the mid 90s. Eventually ending up with the new BAR Formula 1 team, he spent a few years writing and supporting on-car control software, won the World Championship with Brawn Grand Prix in 2009, and currently supports various factory test systems for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix in Northamptonshire. // OpenCores, Chip Design and the OpenRISC 1000 Opencores dates back to 1999 as a forum for open source chip designs, primarily intended for FPGA, but also used in ASIC. It now hosts several hundred designs, and has over 100,000 registered users world wide. This talk will look at what is involved in putting together an open source chip design. In particular the licensing issues represent a challenge, with standard F/OSS licenses having serious weaknesses when it comes to licensing hardware. It will finish with an overview of OpenCores' flagship project, the OpenRISC 1000. This is a 32-bit MIPS-like RISC processor, with a full reference SoC design. It comes with a GNU development tool chain, a number of RTOS ports and an up to date uClibc Linux kernel/BusyBox implementation. In recent years the entire front-end design flow has become open source, as open source electronic design automation (EDA) tools have become available. It has now reached the stage of maturity where some of its development is by commercially funded engineers, as well as a large community of volunteers. Dr Jeremy Bennett is Chief Executive of Embecosm Limited. Embecosmi provides open source services, tools and models to facilitate embedded software development with complex systems-on chip. He spends two days a month working as the Embedded Systems Champion for the Electronics, Sensors and Photonics KTN, which seeks to improve the flow of knowledge between academia and industry. He can be contacted via jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com. Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:20 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/9

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OSHUG #8 - Performance (MilkyMist), Thurs 10th March.
by Andrew Back 15 Feb '11

15 Feb '11

Hello, Firstly, we would like to thank everyone who came along to OSHUG #7 last week, and to also thank BBC Learning Development for very kindly hosting us and for arranging two of the speakers. Those who would have liked to make it along but for whatever reason couldn't may be interested to know that all three speakers were interviewed for Outriders on Radio 5: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/outriders/2011/02/histories_stories_and_current.… There are also now a few photographs posted Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/oshug%3Aevent%3D7/ -- Event #8 — Performance (MilkyMist) On the 10th March 2011, 18:00 - 19:30 at Osmosoft, 1a Broadway Street, London, SW1H 0AY, UK. http://oshug.org/event/8 It stands to reason that hardware which is open to being studied, modified and improved would be well suited to performance environments, and just as F/OSS has proved popular in support of creative practices so is OSHW similarly gaining favour. With designs ranging from simple electronic instruments that make for an ideal first electronics project to vastly more complex processing and synthesis devices. At the eighth OSHUG meeting we'll be hearing about the Milkymist™ project which "develops a comprehensive open source solution for the live synthesis of interactive visual effects for VJs (video performance artists)". MilkyMist - An FPGA-based open-hardware video synthesis platform The MilkyMist project develops a stand-alone device in a small form factor that is capable of rendering MilkDrop-esque visuals effects in real time, with a high level of interaction with many sensors and using live audio and video streams as a base. The flexibility of the FPGA used as a central component enables advanced users to modify the design, and also permits compact integration of many interfaces (Ethernet, OSC, MIDI, DMX512, video inputs, GPIO, VGA output, USB, Irda ...), making Milkymist™ a platform of choice for the mobile VJ. But Milkymist™ is more than a visual synthesizer - it is also one of the leading open source system-on-chip designs. It is today the fastest open source system-on-chip capable of running Linux, and it comes with an extensive set of features and graphics accelerators. The IP cores that make up the system-on-chip are entirely written in open source synthesizable Verilog HDL and come with test benches and documentation, which makes Milkymist™ a great library of re-usable logic cores to serve as a base for other open source hardware. Yann Sionneau is a twenty two year old Frenchman and soon to be graduated from the telecommunication and networking engineering school Télécom SudParis. His current interests in the main are low level software development, FPGA design, embedded systems and networks. He read his first C language book when he was 12 and fell in love with the language. He met Sebastien Bourdeauducq (aka lekernel), leader of the Milkymist project, in 2008 while doing whilst an intern at a startup co-founded by Sebastien. He ported RTEMS to Milkymist as part of the Google Summer of Code 2010 program and has been following the project for some time. Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt. http://oshug.org/event/8 -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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OSHUG #7 - Learning (BBC, Tinker London), Thursday 10th February.
by Andrew Back 09 Jan '11

09 Jan '11

Hello, Registration is now live for OSHUG #7: http://oshug.org/event/7 Details below. Regards, Andrew -- OSHUG #7 — Learning (BBC, Tinker London) On the 10th Feb 2011, 18:00 - 20:30 at BBC White City Media Centre, 201 Wood Lane, London, W12 7TQ, UK (51.513359, -0.227874) The ability to study and improve the design of open source hardware is a core principle and it follows therefore that as a methodology it is well suited to learning environments. Community, collaboration and ecosystem are also central open source hardware, however, ambitious projects that embraced these principles existed long before its advent. At the seventh OSHUG meeting we'll be hearing from ex-BBC employees that were intimately involved in the BBC's Computer Literacy Project, the creation of the BBC Micro and the Domesday project. First hand experiences from that heady time during the 1980s when the UK was at the forefront of microcomputer development will frame the opportunity that faces us once again. Whereas lessons learnt will help us to build on these experiences and to strive to ensure that pitfalls are avoided. We will also be hearing from Tinker London about experiences of teaching open source technologies and how this differs from more traditional approaches to learning. Kindly hosted by BBC Learning Development. // The BBC Computer Literacy Project Why did the BBC embark on one of its most ambitious projects - the Computer Literacy Project - in 1982? What was the scene like then and how successful was the enterprise. What technical issues were involved? 85% of schools used BBC Micros and millions were sold, along with best selling books and software, including 'telesoftware'. What is the legacy - if at all? How did the work then benefit BBC technology now? After being Head of Science at Beaumont and Stonyhurst Colleges, David Allen joined the BBC in 1969 as an Assistant producer/director. He became producer and then executive producer of a range of programmes. As a programme maker, he was series editor of the BBC Computer Literacy Project 1982-1986 and intimately connected with the creation of the BBC Microcomputer. He received seven awards (including the New York Film Festival, Sony Innovation awards, RTS Judges Award and Times Technology Programme of the Year two years running. With BBC R&D helped evolve radio cameras and virtual studio production. When David retired he was executive producer in Production Modernisation. He is currently making documentaries for BBC R&D and for Historic Royal Palaces. // The BBC Domesday Project - If I could Do it All Over Again The BBC Domesday Project was an interactive media production made as part of celebrations of the 900th anniversary of William the Conqueror's Domesday Book of 1086. It was a technical triumph, combining digital data with analogue pictures, video and sound with an innovative user interface running on an 8-bit BBC Microcomputer controlling a state-of-the-art laser videodisc. 25 years later it has still not been possible to republish something that over a million people helped to make, and despite sometime heroic reclamation and preservation, it is still virtually impossible to access the original software. Andy Finney was one of the project founders and he produced some of the material in the project. He will explain the origins and technical background to the Domesday discs in the context of both it 1980s origins and how much of what it pioneered has since become commonplace. Andy Finney started in radio and moved into television, video and interactive video within the BBC over a 21 year career. Since leaving he has concentrated on web-based technologies including databases, these days with a lean towards digital television reception. He worked with the then Public Record Office and the BBC to help preserve the audio-visual content of the Domesday discs and still keeps a fatherly eye out for re-publication. // Standing on the Shoulders of Hackers Learning is an intrinsic aspect of open source projects. Practices such as documenting and sharing work, following one’s own interests, and ad hoc organizing open up - and complicate - opportunities for learning and teaching, especially in informal and semi-formal contexts. Drawing on his experiences teaching Arduino workshops, Daniel will talk about how both the hardware and open-source aspects of OSH affect processes and tools for learning and teaching. Daniel Soltis is an interaction designer specializing in physical interfaces, play and games, and the rough edges where engineering, design, art, and learning meet. He has been working with Tinker London since 2008, studied physical computing and game design at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, and in prior life had various adventures in math and physics, teaching, editing, and medical writing. He has taught Arduino, Processing, and rapid prototyping for events and institutions including Thinking Digital, CIID, the V&A, and dConstruct, and has spoken about games and hardware at events including SXSW, the SIGGRAPH Video Game Symposium, Playful, and Open Hardware Camp. Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt. Note also that the venue is the Media Centre at White City and not the main White City building itself! On arrival please report to reception. -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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OSHUG #6, Thursday 18th November @ London Hackspace.
by Andrew Back 31 Oct '10

31 Oct '10

/////// OSHUG #6, At Home //////// (Tacticalendar, Denkimono Clock) 18th Nov 2010, 18:00 - 20:00 at London Hackspace, Unit 24, Cremer Business Centre, 37 Cremer Street, London, E2 8HD, UK (51.530746, -0.076218) http://oshug.org/event/6 Open source hardware is not just about catering for niche applications and marginal use cases and many projects are concerned with creating devices for everyday use. For the sixth OSHUG meeting we'll have presentations on two projects targeted at the home and one that doesn't even involve electricity. ! Please note that this meeting will be hosted at the London Hackspace ! ** Tacticalendar Tacticalendar is an open design project for a timeless 4-week-ahead rolling planner. New versions are managed through a github issue-tracker, laser cut from plywood and acrylic, articulated with duct tape, offered at a discount to release candidate testers and finally shared with premium customers. A continually evolving product, it is the first to market from the Enigmaker.org open prototyping experiment - a two-month project to prototype an invention every week in the public domain. Patent protection has been rejected in favour of a share-alike design and an open innovation community. Near-term feature testing includes Google Calendar synchronization using machine-vision and augmented-reality techniques. Cefn Hoile sculpts open source hardware and software, and supports others doing the same. Drawing on ten years of experience in R&D for a multinational technology company, he works as a public domain inventor through Enigmaker.org, and an innovation catalyst and architect of bespoke digital installations and prototypes, working most recently with Tinker.it, BT, the BBC, EDF, Nokia. Cefn is a founder-member of the CuriosityCollective.org digital arts group, and a regular contributor to open source projects and not-for-profits. ** Denkimono Clock TheDenkimono Clock is a kit to build a countdown timer, fully functional alarm clock and stopwatch, that is not only fun to build but that also provides a practical device for everyday use. This talk will cover the initial design and build as a personal hobby project, to its redesign as a commercial kit and the associated sales, marketing and after-sales service. Initial concerns over open sourcing and how these turned out to be unfounded will also be covered. Mark Longstaff-Tyrrell trained as an electronics engineer and was seduced by the money and glamour of software and began his career writing code for fruit machines in a shed in Wolverhampton. He subsequently progressed to developing for mobile handsets with extendible aerials in the late 90s, and then for stylus driven PDAs and currently develops software for Android devices. ** Lightning Talks Take the stage for five minutes and tell us all about your open hardware home hacks! For links to more information and to register: http://oshug.org/event/6 -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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OSHUG #5 - Radio (HPSDR), Thurs 21st October.
by Andrew Back 12 Oct '10

12 Oct '10

Event #5 — Radio (HPSDR) On the 21st Oct 2010, 18:00 - 20:00 at Osmosoft, 1a Broadway Street, London, SW1H 0AY, UK (51.498325, -0.134347) Registration: http://oshugradio.eventbrite.com/ Event page: http://oshug.org/event/5 Radio spectrum is a finite resource and it should therefore come as no surprise that radio systems are a particularly hot area of research. Whilst ever more advanced schemes for modulation, digital encoding and spectrum access promise increased efficiency, step upgrades more often than not require new hardware. As has been evidenced in the evolution of mobile telephony from analogue to GSM and 2.5G (GPRS) to 3G, and similarly in the evolution of wireless computer networks. A disruptive development in radio technology promises to change this and to bring an unprecedented flexibility to radio systems, and one similar to that which programming brought to the task of machine computation. Despite, or perhaps due to being at the cutting edge there are a number of open source hardware projects concerned with developing software-defined radio (SDR) technology. As with the earliest developments in radio systems radio amateurs are once again at the forefront, and at this month's meeting we will have a presentation on the comprehensive HPSDR platform. // HPSDR - High Performance Software Defined Radio // HPSDR is an open source (GNU type) hardware and software project intended as the "next generation" software-defined radio for radio amateurs and shortwave listeners. It is being developed by a group of software-defined radio enthusiasts around the world, and in a modular hardware fashion to help promote experimentation by both hardware and software developers. John Melton has held an amateur radio license since 1984 when he was first licensed as N6LYT while living and working in California, and he was assigned the UK callsign of G0ORX on moving back to the UK. He became interested in developing open source software in 1990 with the launch of AMSAT Oscar 16, an amateur radio satellite with a store and forward messaging payload. He developed an open source software package to communicate with the satellite that ran on Linux (pre 1.0) and subsequently wrote an open source fully automated satellite ground station software package in Java. John has been a software engineer since 1970 when he was employed by Burroughs Corporation, and for the last 14 years he has worked for Sun Microsystems who were acquired by Oracle this year. // Open Discussion - Ideas for Future Meetings // Themes, speakers, venues - it's all up for grabs! Have your say and help shape future OSHUG meetings. Offer to present, suggest a speaker or sit quietly until it's time to cross the road to the pub... Registration: http://oshugradio.eventbrite.com/ Regards, Andrew -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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OSHUG #4 - Community. 23/09/10.
by Andrew Back 04 Sep '10

04 Sep '10

Hello, The theme for the fourth OSHUG meeting is community and we will be treated to presentations on mbed, DesignSpark and London Hackspace. As with previous events this will be hosted at the Osmosoft offices in Victoria. For more information and to register: http://oshug.org/event/4 For photos and video from OSHUG meeting #3 that was held on 1st July: http://oshug.org/event/3 Cheers, Andrew -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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Event #3 — Arduino: An Open Hardware Success Story.
by Andrew Back 13 Jun '10

13 Jun '10

Hello, For the third meeting we'll be asking the question "what factors contribute to the success of an open source hardware project?", and using Arduino and derivatives LilyPad Arduino and the concurrency.cc board as the basis for an informal case study. We are hoping to confirm a third presentation on running an Arduino based business (offers to present are, as always, most welcome). Date: Thursday 1st July 2010 Time: 18:00 - 20:00 Location: Osmosoft, SW1 For further info see below, or visit: http://oshug.org/event/3 To register: http://oshugsuccess.eventbrite.com/ Regards, Andrew -- * Concurrency.cc - parallel programming for makers and artists The concurrency.cc project describes itself as "a group of educators and researchers exploring the development of tools that make parallel programming more accessible to more people. Our hope is that concurrency.cc will serve the community of developers surrounding parallel and concurrent languages on the Arduino and other low-cost embedded platforms." Adam Sampson is a research associate in the field of concurrent programming and complex systems simulation at the University of Kent. He has enjoyed electronics as a hobby ever since being told off for dismantling the family vacuum cleaner as a small child. Omer Kilic (twitter) is a research student at the University of Kent working on dynamically reconfigurable architectures and embedded systems. He is passionate about the open-source hardware movement and likes tinkering, so much so that he founded TinkerSoc, The University of Kent Tinkering Society. * LilyPad - an Arduino based platform for wearables and e-textiles The LilyPad Arduino is a microcontroller, plus a set of sewable electronic components designed so they can be put together to create interactive wearables or textiles based artworks. There is quite a range of components such as LEDS, sensors, buzzer, accelerometer and more that can be connected with conductive thread. The board is based on the ATmega168V/328Vand was designed and developed by Leah Buechley and SparkFun Electronics. Rain Ashford (twitter) is Senior Producer at BBC Learning where she is presently across the BBC's Media Literacy supertopic portal. During her 10 years at the BBC she has developed and produced many of the BBC's high priority sites and online activities. Passionate about technology, she recently started a Women in Technology network for her colleagues to discuss careers, training, raising their profile and encouraging women to look at careers in tech. She previously worked for BBC R&D as a Technologist where she worked on the groundbreaking R&DTV project and the BBC's developer network, BBC Backstage, she's a hardware hacker, coder, artist, gamer and blogger. -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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Open Hardware Licensing and Models for Sustainability, 27th May.
by Andrew Back 09 May '10

09 May '10

Hello, For our second meeting we've presentations from Andrew Katz on licensing Open Source Hardware projects and a representative from Pay It Forward on Altruistic 3D printing using RepRap. - Free and open source software is mainstream. Free and open hardware isn't. Andrew is increasingly involved in open hardware, and considers what, if anything, is different about hardware which makes open projects a challenge, and whether it is possible to construct a licence, like the GPL, which has a copyleft element applicable to hardware. Andrew Katz is a partner at Moorcrofts LLP, a boutique law firm in England's Thames Valley and advises a wide range of businesses on free and open source related issues. He has lectured and published widely on the subject and is a founder editor of the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review. Before becoming a solicitor, he trained as a barrister, and moonlighted as a programmer during his studies at Bar School, programming in Turbo Pascal. He has released software under the GPL. - Pay It Forward — Alturistic 3D Printing Pay It Forward is a movement to bootstrap the thingiverse using RepStrap machines to print parts to help other people get started with RepRap machines. Please register to attend via http://oshugsust.eventbrite.com and share via http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/5849274/ . And thanks to Paul for further updates to http://oshug.org, including a shiny new logo! Cheers, Andrew -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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Test.
by Andrew Back 29 Mar '10

29 Mar '10

A test to the new oshug-announce list -- ignore. Cheers, Andrew -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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