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424 discussions

Looking for OSH blogger
by Rupert Goodwins 16 May '11

16 May '11

Hi, all I'm looking for someone who can blog regularly (2-ish times a week) on ZDNet UK on the subject of open source hardware. The idea is to report on developments, projects, what you're up to... anything that may be of interest to our general (geeky, IT-focussed, hack-minded) readership. I hope to spread the word about OSH, really, and to be a starting point for those who are so minded. Also, it's just cool. There's a bit of money involved, after a trial period, which should keep you in solder and 555 timers. Drop me a note if you fancy it, or if you could suggest someone I should talk to. Thanks! Rupert, ed, ZDNet UK

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Re: [oshug] [OT] Question
by Edward Rogers 03 May '11

03 May '11

> Subject: [oshug] [OT] Question > Hello friends: > I need help for buying a new laptop or net book with Linux or at > least with hardware that Linux can recognize without problems. I don't > mind if it is slow, I just want a cheap laptop that I can use for many > years. I hope you can give me a way to discriminate those machines built > for big corporations who only care about selling and not giving a nice > product to people. Cheers, > LAMG I'd second the suggestion of a Think-pad. I think the X40's are about GBP100 on ebay, X60 closer to GBP150 (if you shop about). Getting it from a reputable local dealer (such as, in Bristol, Compuwave. I saw those exact two models in their window this morning) would add about GBP60 to that. --------- Ed Rogers +44(0)7908 569 214 Bristol Braille Technology www.bristolbrailletechnology.com ---------

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OSHUG #10 - Open for Change, Thursday 19th May.
by Andrew Back 28 Apr '11

28 Apr '11

Hello, For those who couldn't make it along to OSHUG #9, Skills Matter kindly recorded the event and the videos can be found at: http://skillsmatter.com/podcast/ajax-ria/a-brief-introduction-to-programmab… And registration for OSHUG #10 is now live. --- OSHUG Event #10 — Open for Change (Radiation Monitoring in Japan, 40 Fires, Bristol Braille Technology) On the 19th May 2011, 18:00 - 20:00 at Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WV1X 9NG. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/10 A great deal of open source hardware is built by engineers for engineers, and comprises mostly electronics and/or computing technology. Which is not at all surprising given the origins of the movement and where we are on the adoption curve. However, a growing number of projects are seeking to tackle ever more challenging problems and working with an increasingly broader selection of technologies. At the tenth OSHUG meeting we will be hearing about the efforts of hackers in Japan to build their own open source radiation monitoring infrastructure. We will learn about the work of 40 Fires, a foundation that is building an open source hydrogen fuel cell electric car. And we will hear from Bristol Braille Technology about the need for an affordable refreshable Braille display, and the potential open source hardware opportunity. - Open Source Radiation Monitoring in Japan Hackers in Japan responded to recent nuclear plant radiation leaks by setting up their own monitoring infrastructure. In this talk we will take a look at some of the radiation monitoring devices they built, the technology they used to share and make sense of the data and the work that continues to be done. Nick Weldin initiated the first public Arduino course in the UK in 2005, because he didn't want to program PIC chips on the accounts computer at work after everyone else had gone home any more, and he couldn't get his boss to send him to the Arduino course that was running in Spain. When Tinker London started up he joined them and ran courses teaching Arduino wherever anyone was interested. He continues to run a course on Arduino, and is co-author of the recently released Arduino Cookbook. - An open source approach to developing energy-efficient technology Two years ago start-up company Riversimple unveiled a ground-breaking vehicle that has the potential to transform the auto industry. The Riversimple urban vehicle, due to be in production in 2014, is lightweight, powered by hydrogen and capable of 300 mpg (energy equivalent). As part of its strategy, Riversimple announced the establishment of an independent open source foundation, 40 Fires, that would make available the designs for the car on-line under an open source license. Two years on, the 40 Fires team report on the joys, trials and tribulations of working on a potentially game-changing project in one of the world's biggest industries. Patrick Andrews is project leader of the 40 Fires Foundation and a board member of eco-car company Riversimple. A former corporate lawyer with Kingfisher and Pratt & Whitney, he now spends his time pursuing an interest in social innovation, with a particular focus on alternative business models and governance structures. - Developing a revolutionary, affordable Braille Cell Display Braille usage has been shown to have a strong correlation with employment—and by extension independence—amongst the blind. However Braille usage is stagnating under a lack of technical innovation which has left it hugely expensive and uncommon. Bristol Braille Technology was founded on the 6th of January, 2011, when the first meeting of interested professionals met to discuss the need for more affordable refreshable Braille. We are currently designing our first prototype cell display. Our aim is to make a Braille cell display;that is a tactile 'screen' which connects to a computing device—which, unlike the current models, is affordable to the majority of blind individuals in the UK and, eventually, anywhere around the world. Ed Rogers is a Bristolian and recent graduate from the University of the West of England where he studied Animation and Interactive Design. During this course he first began to consider the issue of digital Braille. After leaving university he continued to pursue the goal of an affordable Braille cell display, eventually founding the not-for-profit Community Interest Company, Bristol Braille Technology. Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:20 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/10

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Introduction to Open Source Hardware article.
by Andrew Back 26 Apr '11

26 Apr '11

Hello, Not that many subscribers to this list would need such a thing for themselves, but I wrote a brief OSHW intro for the April edition of RS Components eTech magazine: http://is.gd/M0gAqK (Note: it's a 5.5M PDF!) Though, this may come in useful if someone asks what OSHW is, and some of you may recognise the photographs from OSHUG meetings. Cheers, Andrew

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OSHUG #9 - Chips, Thursday 21st April 2011.
by Andrew Back 24 Mar '11

24 Mar '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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Open Source 5 axis CNC Router & Plasma Machine Plans 5'x10'
by Andrew Back 15 Mar '11

15 Mar '11

A nice find by Sebastien of the MilkyMist project... Cheers, Andrew -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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OSHUG #7 - BBC Radio 5 Live.
by Andrew Back 15 Feb '11

15 Feb '11

I asked the speakers at last week's OSHUG meeting a few questions for Outriders on BBC Radio 5 Live. This was broadcast in the early hours of this morning and is now up as a podcast. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/outriders/2011/02/histories_stories_and_current.… Cheers, Andrew -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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Why the Arduino Won and Why It’s Here to Stay.
by Andrew Back 14 Feb '11

14 Feb '11

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/02/why-the-arduino-won-and-why-its-he… -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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OSHUG #7, Thursday 10th February.
by Andrew Back 10 Feb '11

10 Feb '11

Hello, Just a quick note to say that if you haven't yet registered for the next OSHUG meeting you would be advised to do so soon, as we are almost at capacity. Also, bearing this in mind, if you have registered and find yourself now unable to attend please can you cancel your booking so that someone else may register. http://oshuglearning.eventbrite.com/ Cheers, Andrew -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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Open Source Hardware Definition 1.0 released.
by Andrew Back 10 Feb '11

10 Feb '11

http://freedomdefined.org/OSHW Regards, Andrew -- Andrew Back mailto:andrew@osmosoft.com http://carrierdetect.com

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