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OSHUG #54 — Educating the Next Generation, Thursday 1st December.
by Andrew Back 01 Nov '16

01 Nov '16

Hello, Details below of the final OSHUG meeting of 2016, which will take place on the evening of Thursday 1st December, following on from the workshop earlier that day. Please note once again that we are not at the BCS offices in Covent Garden, and a big thanks to Chris Swan for kindly arranging for us to be hosted at the CSC offices in the City. Don't forget that if you plan to take part in the workshop and attend the evening meeting, that you need to register for both separately. Cheers, Andrew // On the 1 December 2016, 18:00 - 20:00 at CSC, 3rd Floor, The Wallbrook Building, 25 Wallbrook, London, EC4N 8AQ. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/54 At the fifty-fourth meeting there will be three talks on the theme of educating the next generation. — myStorm update myStorm is an open hardware and software FPGA development platform that is based around a Lattice iCE40 FPGA, which uses the fully open source IceStorm/Yosys/Arache-pnr toolchain for development. It is low cost and aims to provide a gentle on-ramp for those who are new to RTL development and working with FPGAs. In this talk we will hear a report from the workshop which took place earlier in the day, together with a status update on the myStorm project. * Ken Boak started his professional career at BBC Research Department in 1986 working on digital signal processing systems for HDTV and subsequently over 30 years, a mix of 10 other technology companies, both UK and US based, in the fields of instrumentation, automation, telemetry telecomms. Ken has been interested in energy monitoring since the early 1990s, when he constructed a 4 seater electric car, and provided rudimentary energy analysis of the battery charge and discharge cycles. In 1998 he joined a South London company and designed a low power wireless, monitor device for automatic, remote gas and electricity meter reading. In 2009 Ken worked on the Onzo Energy Monitoring Kit, a commercial device that was ultimately distributed to Southern Electric customers. Then in 2010 he produced a series of educational devices to teach engineering undergraduates the principles of photovoltaic energy systems. Ken has continued his interests in energy monitoring, working collaboratively with Megni on the OpenEnergyMonitor project, the open Inverter Project and also for All Power Labs in Berkeley, California, where he was involved in power monitoring of wood gasifier generator sets. He tries to live a low impact lifestyle in a modest Edwardian house in Surrey, with a little help from modern electronics. * Alan Wood has been working with parallel distributed programming for several decades. His recent work includes smart grids, 3D printers, robotics, automation and biotec diagnostics. His current research is focused on machine learning for embedded applications using Motes on FPGA and emerging Asics. He is a long term advocate and moderator (aka Folknology) for xCORE and other opensource communities, as well as a founder of Surrey and Hampshire Makerspace. — micro:bit first impressions The BBC micro:bit is an ARM Microcontroller based development board that has been handed out to all year 7 (first year secondary) school kids. The BBC's aim is to get kids coding, along the same lines as with the BBC Micro that became ubiquitous in schools in the 80s. This presentation will look at what it can (and can't) do, and how accessible it is. * Chris Swan has been tinkering with electronics since he was a small child, and got into software when he realised that it was necessary to make hardware do interesting things. In his day job as CTO for Global Infrastructure Services for CSC he's bringing a large services company and its customers into a world of DevOps and Infrastructure as Code. On evenings and weekends he can often be found making some sort of project around a dev board, with a particular fondness for Raspberry Pis. — Encouraging the next generation: How a 16-year old got to present his silicon chip design at CERN In 2014 a local Year 10 student, Dan Gorringe, approached Embecosm to ask it he could do a 2-week work experience with us. We agreed and asked him to take our existing hobbyist weekend course on introductory FPGA design with Verilog and rework it for use by students of his age. We forgot to tell him teenagers aren't supposed to be able to write Verilog, and the result was the Embecosm Application Note, Silicon Chip Design for Teenagers. In 2015, Dan asked to work for us over the summer. We had recently designed an instruction set architecture, AAP, which is a 16-bit mixed byte/word addressed Harvard architecture to test compiler technology, and which worked in simulation. We realized that a physical implementation would be very useful, so we asked Dan to create this over the summer. We forgot to tell him that teenagers aren't supposed to be able to design processors and the result was an implementation of AAP which runs on a DE0-Nano FPGA board. As a result Dan was asked to present his work at ORCONF 2015, which happened to be held at CERN. Probably one of the better excuses for a day off school. Dan also subsequently won the BCS OSSG School Student competition for his work, which he spoke about at the BCS AGM in October 2016. Dan came to work for us this summer, and since we are currently working on energy efficient compilation for high performance computing we asked him to build us a system out of single board computers. We again forgot to tell him that teenagers aren't supposed to be able to design supercomputers. We demonstrated his system at the BCS OSSG AGM, and it is reported in the HiPEAC newsletter of November 2016 for academic researchers in high performance and energy efficient computing in Europe. Dan is taking his 'A' levels next summer and is hoping to attend university next year to study engineering mathematics. In this talk we'll look at the factors that made such a series of projects both possible and successful. * Dr Jeremy Bennett is founder and Chief Executive of Embecosm, a consultancy implementing open source compilers and chip simulators for major corporations around the world. He is a author of the standard textbook "Introduction to Compiling Techniques" (McGraw-Hill 1990, 1995, 2003). Contact him at: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com. Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

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MFS Meeting. Tue, 18 Oct. Talk: "BeagleBoard-X15: First look"
by Michael Dorrington 18 Oct '16

18 Oct '16

Please feel free to forward this to those that would welcome it. * Event: Manchester Free Software's October Meeting * Talk: BeagleBoard-X15: First look * Speaker: Michael Dorrington * Date: Tuesday, 18th October 2016 (3rd Tuesday of the month) * Start time: 19:00 * Finish time: 20:30 (and then on for social) * Location: Madlab. (Manchester Digital Laboratory). - http://madlab.org.uk/ * Address: 36-40 Edge Street, Manchester. M4 1HN. - Opposite "Common" on Edge Street, Northern Quarter. - http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/53.48413/-2.23639 == Details == The purpose of Manchester Free Software is to promote the Free Software philosophy. Every meeting we start with an opportunity for informal key signing. For an explanation of what this is about see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party The meeting will be a talk and then discussion on the talk. After this we will discuss event work. === Talk === The BeagleBoard.org Foundation have designed a series of ARM based Free Hardware computers that are Free Software friendly. Manchester Free Software have previously demonstrated one model, the BeagleBone Black, running a Wi-Fi mesh network and FreedomBone. The designs up to and including the BeagleBone Black are similar to the Raspberry Pi, but for people who care about freedom. BeagleBoard.org have now designed ARM based Free Hardware computer that is more like a desktop computer and about the size of a NUC. The BeagleBoard-X15 has some in particularly interesting features: * 2 real Gigabit Ethernet ports * 2G RAM * USB 3.0 * eSATA * Lots of other I/O capability. Mass production of hardware has been delayed but we have an early low volume revision to demonstrate. In the talk we will explore the BeagleBoard-X15 including live demos and use cases. More information: * http://beagleboard.org/about * http://beagleboard.org/x15 * http://www.elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoard-X15 If you have experience of Beagleboard.org hardware, other Free Hardware, ARM devices, U-Boot or similar then please consider giving a lightning talk at the meeting. === Event work === Discuss the GNOME 3.22 release party that happened on 23rd September and MFS organising a Debian 9 (Stretch) release party when it is released sometime next year. == After-meeting == The meeting will be followed by informal discussion and socialising in the Terrace (which is next door to Madlab). There are soft drinks available and there is no pressure to consume alcohol. == Location == The meeting will take place at the usual venue of Madlab, details above. == Transport == === Parking === Around the venue there are parking meter bays that become zero cost after 8pm on Tuesday so you will have to pay up until then and the maximum stay is 2 hours BUT MAKE SURE YOU VERIFY ALL THIS on parking. There are paid parking lots around the venue, they are marked by a blue P in this OpenStreetMap centred on Madlab <http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/53.4843/-2.2365>. Most of those parking lots are owned by NCP <http://www.ncp.co.uk/>. If you can’t decide otherwise then park in Manchester Arndale <http://www.manchesterarndale.com/directions.aspx>. === Public Transport === Manchester Victoria (MCV) train station, Shudehill tram and bus station, and Manchester Piccadilly bus station are all fairly close to Madlab, see OpenStreetMap centred on Madlab <http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/53.4843/-2.2365>. Manchester Piccadilly (MAN) train station and Manchester Central Coach Station are not too far away either. == More Information == Information about Manchester Free Software can be found on the Manchester Free Software pages on LibrePlanet <https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Manchester>. Regards, Mike. MFS Chair. -- FSF member #9429 http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=9429 http://www.fsf.org/about "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users."

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BCS OSSG/OSHUG meeting 6pm 20 Oct: Extra Talk
by Jeremy Bennett 17 Oct '16

17 Oct '16

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi all, In addition to our four talks on the Light Theremin, Silicon Chip Design for the Masses, The Algorithm Visualizer and the MyStorm FPGA board, we have an extra talk this coming Thursday. Nick Pelling (who older members will remember as Orlando M Pilchard) will give a lightning talk on "Open Source Research" linked to his recently announced KickStarter project. Abstract: Nick Pelling is programmer by day. By night he conducts open source research on his blog http://ciphermysteries.com/. He uses the blog to summarize what he finds, to post transcriptions and translations of sources, and to actively invite comments and corrections from readers (the blog has just passed 2 million hits and 19000 comments). He recently launch a KickStarter project to fund a documentary about his open source research into pirate treasure on Mauritius (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nickpelling/gold-beyond-your-dreams). In this lightning talk he'll introduce the concept of open source research and how it drives his KickStarter project. Bio: Nick Pelling is a British-born computer programmer and inventor, best known for a series of 1980s video games for the BBC Micro and Commodore 64 programmed under the pen name Orlando M. Pilchard or simply Orlando, and released under the company title Aardvark Software. Nick has a degree in Maths and Philosophy from Manchester University and an MBA with Distinction from Kingston University. Registration is free as always, but sign up soon, so I order the right amount of food and drink! https://events.bcs.org/book/2241/ See you there. Jeremy - -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Twitter: @jeremypbennett Email: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com PGP key: 1024D/BEF58172FB4754E1 2009-03-20 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iGMEARECACMFAlgE6h0cHGplcmVteS5iZW5uZXR0QGVtYmVjb3NtLmNvbQAKCRC+ 9YFy+0dU4dcVAJ9xH/UJbyMYlPldzVa2OhNVqX75KwCeOF7btTNZKR5NgJEWg8DW yKZtPpY= =S6G+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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BCS OSSG/OSHUG meeting, 6pm 20 Oct. The future of open source
by Jeremy Bennett 06 Oct '16

06 Oct '16

Our new season starts with four talks on Thursday 20 October. We'll be hearing from the three winners of the BCS OSSG student competion. - Dan Gorringe on the AAP FPGA implementation and his new supercomputer - Chelsea Back on her open source Light Theremin - Luke A Roberts on visualizing algorithms Dan has promised to bring his supercomputer with him! The evening will round off with a talk by Ken Boak & Alan Wood on the MyStorm project, an ultra low cost (£20) FPGA board. We'll be running a full day workshop to allow you to get your hands on the first of these boards on 1 December. This project is particularly dear to our hearts, because it arose from discussion in the pub following our May meeting. Hear how they went from pub discussion to production in 100 days. The meeting will be preceded by our AGM, to select the new BCS OSSG committee. More volunteers are welcome and you don't have to be a BCS member! Full details of all the talks here: http://ossg.bcs.org/blog/2016/10/06/the-future-of-open-source-silicon-chip-… And free registration here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conEvent/10589 I look forward to seeing you there. Best wishes, Jeremy -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Twitter: @jeremypbennett Email: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com PGP key: 1024D/BEF58172FB4754E1 2009-03-20

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VDSL2 / ADSL2+ Annex M modem recommendations
by J. R. Haigh 15 Sep '16

15 Sep '16

Hi, . A lightning strike near my parents' house frazzled their phone and Internet connection, yesterday. It has damaged and disabled their ISP-provided router, as well as disabled the phone service, which indicates that at least one other piece of equipment – possibly the faceplate or equipment at the exchange – has also been damaged by the electromagnetic pulse from the strike. . While that other damage is diagnosed and fixed, I could do with getting a VDSL2 modem that, together with an existing OpenWrt, non-DSL router, will replace the nonlibre, ISP-provided, VDSL2 router. . As always, I'd prefer it to be OSH and run libre firmware. If possible, it would ideally be able to analyse the frequency spectrum of SNR or attenuation on the line, and show something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ADSL_spectrum_Fritz_Box_Fon_WLAN.png That, and any other diagnostics, would be really useful to quickly determine the quality of their long rural line which has several outages and degradations per year. . Seeing as this is the 3rd occasion in about a decade and a half that an EMP has frazzled their modem / modem router, and seeing as I'm planning to get an ADSL2+ Annex M landline myself in my flat, if there's an OSH VDSL2/ADSL2+ modem that can show diagnostics then I'd gladly get 3 of them! . Otherwise, please advise me on recommendations of the freeëst such modem(s) available. Best regards, James R. Haigh. -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail.

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OSH SSDs
by J. R. Haigh 14 Sep '16

14 Sep '16

Hi, . Does anyone know whether any OSH solid-state drive project has come to fruition? I'd like to get a 512GiB or 1TiB, 2.5in SSD, but I like to support OSH projects where possible and I don't like that modern drives have processors more powerful than my X60 Tablet, with nonlibre firmware, and perform tasks that should be the responsibility of the filesystem, such as deduplication, compression, encryption, and wear-levelling. . If there isn't, then at least I'm expressing the interest such that someone thinking of making OSH SSDs knows that there's a market for them. I currently have an old SSD of about 117GiB (iirc.), so the minimum capacity that I'd upgrade to is 256GiB, but I'd much prefer 512GiB or more. I'd hope for a price, including shipping within/to Britain and tax, that is not more than 1.5× more than nonOSH of equivalent storage capacity. Best regards, James R. Haigh. -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail.

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ESP3212 released
by Graham Whaley 07 Sep '16

07 Sep '16

As the ESP8266 is so popular with makers, and I didn't hear mention of this at the talks last Saturday, I thought I would post ... that the successor looks like it is now available - the ESP3212: https://www.seeedstudio.com/ESP3212-Wifi-Bluetooth-Combo-Module-p-2706.html Graham

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ORCONF 2016 update
by Julius Baxter 06 Sep '16

06 Sep '16

Hi all, This is a brief email giving an update on ORCONF 2016. First of all, a big thank you to everyone who has registered to attend ORCONF 2016 so far and particularly to those who have submitted presentation proposals. We've got another great line up of talks and demos this year. See the ORCONF site for all of the abstracts and presenter bios: http://orconf.org/#presentations It's now a little over a month to this year's ORCONF in Italy. We're beginning to finalise arrangements for the weekend and would like to ask that anyone who is intending on coming to please register as soon as possible so we have an accurate indication of numbers: http://goo.gl/forms/u6V54ay8P4i3wtXG2 If you're planning to present and haven't submitted a proposal, we'd ask that you prepare and submit your abstract by the middle of September, so within the next 10 days or so. We will try to accommodate those who submit later than that, but we'd like to finalise the presentation schedule at least a couple of weeks in advance, so talk slot preferences might not be able to be met. The submission form is here: http://goo.gl/forms/Nah5LH7cJWK1uQ6L2 We'd like to thank the generous sponsors who have offered to help cover the costs of this year's event: http://orconf.org/#sponsors As mentioned, we're yet to finalise the schedule but will be doing so over the coming fortnight and we will make another announcement when that is posted. We're also still researching options for the group dinner on Saturday and will be in touch with those have have expressed interest when we have that arranged. Feel free to contact us at orconf(a)fossi-foundation.org if you have any questions or queries about the event or logistics in Bologna. As usual, the conference site will have all of the latest information: http://orconf.org We're looking forward to another great event and a couple of glasses of wine with you all in Bologna very soon! Cheers, The ORCONF team

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Final call for OSHCamp tickets.
by Andrew Back 30 Aug '16

30 Aug '16

Hello, Just to say that if anyone is planning on coming along this weekend, but has not got tickets yet, if you could please arrange these ASAP — order about to go in to the caterers :o) Also, with Wuthering Bytes Festival Day being the day before this year, those not attending FD but getting into town on the Friday evening, may wish to head along to the social at the Town Hall, which should finish up around 10PM. No need for a ticket to just attend this part of the day. The OSHCamp social on the evening of Saturday 3rd will once again be hosted at the White Lion in Heptonstall (not the one in Hebden Bridge!), from 7PM or so and with food available. Finally, not to forget that we're back at the Birchcliffe Centre this year and not the Town Hall. Cheers, Andrew

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Legs
by Andy Bennett 26 Aug '16

26 Aug '16

Hi! Does anyone have any legs (3D printed or otherwise) that can be borrowed for a demo of some Physiotherapy wearable technology for a day in London on the 6th September? It's quite a strange request but it'll really make a difference if anyone has anything to offer. Thanks so much for any pointers or offers! Regards, @ndy -- andyjpb(a)ashurst.eu.org http://www.ashurst.eu.org/ 0290 DA75 E982 7D99 A51F E46A 387A 7695 7EBA 75FF

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