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OSHUG 55 — FPGA projects past, planned and possible, Thursday 16th February.
by Andrew Back 05 Feb '17

05 Feb '17

Hello, Registration is now open for the February meeting, details of which can be found below. We also still have space for 1 or 2 more short talks of 10-15 minutes, so if you have an idea for a talk, get in touch! Cheers, Andrew // Event #55 — FPGA projects past, planned and possible On the 16 February 2017, 18:00 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/55 The fifty-fifth meeting will feature a series of shorter talks that explore past, planned and possible projects which use FPGAs. — FPGA Projects - What would I build and why would I want to PLAs have been interesting ever since the 70s when digital logic often became complex, consuming unnecessary space and power. Back then the cost of PLA deployment was high and it has continued to be high until recently. Now that we have powerful, low cost development platforms and relatively cheap FPGAs the cost equation has shifted radically. * Paul Tanner is a consultant, developer and maker in wood, metal, plastic, electronics and software. His day job is IT-based business improvement for SMEs. By night he turns energy nut, creating tools to optimise energy use. Paul graduated in electronics and was responsible for hardware and software product development and customer services in several product and service start-ups, switching to consulting in 2000. — Using FPGAs to solve realtime problems Microcontrollers a great platform to solve basic control problems in electronics, with simple motor drivers and sensors readily avaiable and easy to integrate. However, when the motor control becomes more complex with BLDC and FOC things get much more tricky. When you have to use multiple BLDC motors and more complex sensors with image processing the poor microcontroller quickly becomes to swamped to provide control in realtime. This is where adding FPGA technology makes a great deal of sense particularly in mutli-discipline projects like robotics where many sensors, motors and image processing will need to be managed and controlled concurrently. A robotics platform must therefore contain both concurrent hardware resources, algorithmic control through soft or hard cores along with communication protocols. * 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, inference and image processing for embedded applications using FPGA and multi-cores. 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 and myStorm FPGA development boards. — FPGAs in the Cloud? It is no secret that FPGA based computing machines are great at dealing with certain types of workloads that conventional CPU based machines can not efficiently handle. These machines, alongside their GPU and even custom ASIC based brethren, have been filling up racks in large data centres all over the globe helping speed up systems that have components of machine learning, complex analytics and even video processing. This short talk will have a look at the state of FPGAs in the datacenter and discuss the recent developments around the availability of FPGA equipped computing nodes in commodity cloud providers. * Omer Kilic is an Embedded Systems Engineer who enjoys working with small connected computers of all shapes and sizes. He works at the various intersections of hardware and software engineering practices, product development and manufacturing. — Chip Hack 2017 & EDSAC Challenge This talk will introduce and issue a call for participation for two events that are being hosted as part of the Wuthering Bytes technology festival, that will take place in Hebden Bridge in September, in the week following Open Source Hardware Camp 2017. Chip Hack is a two day hands-on workshop that provides a gentle introduction to programming FPGAs and is aimed at novices with no prior experience of Hardware Description Languages (HDLs) or FPGAs. This will be followed immediately by a challenge event, during which a small team of experts will work to extend a basic functional FPGA model of EDSAC — the pioneering computer designed and constructed at Cambridge University, and which was operational by 1949. * 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. // -- Andrew Back http://abopen.com

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Fwd: 2017 NetFPGA open source design challenge
by Alex Bradbury 01 Feb '17

01 Feb '17

The NetFPGA project are running an open source design challenge, that might be of interest to some people on this list. For more info, see http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netfpga/challenge2017/ Best, Alex ---------- Forwarded message ---------- We are pleased to announce the 2017 NetFPGA Design Challenge! NetFPGA platforms are used by the networked systems community for close to a decade. The platforms enable researchers and instructors to build high-speed, hardware-accelerated networking systems. The platforms can be used by researchers to prototype advanced services for next-generation networked systems. By using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), NetFPGA enables new types of packet routing circuits to be implemented and detailed measurements of network traffic to be obtained. The NetFPGA 2017 contest is a design challenge. The design teams are to produce a working implementation employing any HW and SW design methodology and targeting the NetFPGA SUME platform. The deadline for submissions is April 13th, 2017. The winners will be announced at the NetFPGA Developers Summit (Thursday 20th - Friday, 21st April, 2017 Cambridge, UK). Challenge: Lowest Latency Switch Low latency devices are being increasingly used across a large number of applications. Low latency solutions are few, and are rarely open source. The goal of this challenge is to provide a usable, high performance, open source alternative to use by universities and organizations who need the flexibility of open source. The systems will be evaluated using OSNT, an Open Source Network Tester. Test benches will be available online, for users to experiment and independently evaluate their design. The competition is open to students of all levels (undergraduate and postgraduate), as well as to non students. There is no need to own a NetFPGA SUME platform to take part in the competition although, clearly, development and testing will be made easier if you have access to this platform. Team Prizes: First place: £500 Best students project: £500 The winning projects and runner ups will be invited to present their work at the NetFPGA Developers Summit 2017. All challenge participants are keenly encouraged to attend the NetFPGA Developers Summit and are entitled to a reduced registration rate. The design challenge prizes are generously supported by IMC http://www.imc.nl/ More details can be found at: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netfpga/challenge2017 Good luck! The NetFPGA Team http://www.netfpga.org

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Personal Privacy Online (The Dark Web, Investigatory Powers Act), Thursday 19th January.
by Andrew Back 12 Jan '17

12 Jan '17

Hi All, There are no hardware talks this month, but there will be an excellent series of 3 talks hosted by the BCS OSSG next Thursday, on theme of personal online privacy. Details below. Best, Andrew // Personal Privacy Online (The Dark Web, Investigatory Powers Act) On the 19 January 2017, 18:00 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. Registration: https://events.bcs.org/book/2408/ We explore the theme of personal rights and privacy on the modern Internet, with a talk on The Dark Web, covering insights on one of the larger anonymous marketplaces online and another on the new Investigatory Powers Act. — The Investigatory Powers Act: What is it? The Investigatory Powers Act also known as the Snoopers Charter is now law, find out what that means for you and your company. The Snoopers Charter would require metadata on every email, website visit and social media log to be recorded. It covers hacking and mass hacking performed by Government agencies. Its powers can be enforced across the world. It contains over 270 clauses and dwarfs the computer misuse act in terms of size, so this is going to be a speed run covering some of the high points. * Glyn Wintle is a security evangelist and software engineer. He has given evidence in Parliament, frequently gives technical talks about security and is well know for his work with the Open Rights Group. — The Dark Web Within the last years, governmental bodies have been futilely trying to fight against dark web hosted marketplaces. Shortly after the closing of “The Silk Road” by the FBI and Europol in 2013, new successors have been established. Through the combination of cryptocurrencies and nonstandard communication protocols and tools, agents can anonymously trade in a marketplace for illegal items without leaving any record. This talk will presents a research carried out to gain insights on the products and services sold within one of the larger marketplaces for drugs, fake ids and weapons on the Internet, Agora, and on new developments after the demise of Agora. The team behind the research included Andres Baravalle, Sin Wee Lee, Germans Zaharovs (research intern) and Mauro Lopez Sanchez (final year project). The work has been featured on the front page on The Times and on the Guardian, amongst other media. * Andres Baravalle works in the in the University of East London as Senior Lecturer in Computing. He has been working in academia since 2004 (University of Turin, University of Sheffield, Open University, University of East London), while also working as a contractor in industry. Andres has been developing in LAMP environments since 1999 and managing development teams since shortly after. In the past years he has been combining his expertise in web technologies with an interest on security and data science. “ He once made a student cry - by praising his work. Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt. -- Andrew Back http://abopen.com

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February meeting theme/talks?
by Andrew Back 11 Jan '17

11 Jan '17

Hello, Following the last meeting — and probably in the pub ... — I seem to recall a theme and/or talks being suggested for the meeting on the evening of Thursday 16th February. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Failing which, new suggestions welcome :o) Cheers, Andrew -- Andrew Back http://abopen.com

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Residencies in Shenzhen for UK makers
by marc barto 03 Jan '17

03 Jan '17

Happy new year all This call for makers might interest some OSHUG members: It a residency programme for UK makers to go to Shenzhen (arguably the electronics manufacturing capital of the world). All info here: http://creativeconomy.britishcouncil.org/blog/16/12/16 /calling-all-uk-makers-opportunity-travel-shenzhen/ One of the residency is with Makeblock to prototype a kit with their team. I have visited their office in Shenzhen, it's pretty much a mini-Legoland for hardware makers. Other residencies are around maker education, sustainability, 3D Printing etc. And generally this city is worth a trip to source components or discover how the Shanzhai <http://www.vam.ac.uk/shekou/from-shenzhen-shanzhai-and-the-maker-movement/> ecosystem works, that said don't go there if you can't stand air pollution! cheers -- Marc @marc_in_london <https://twitter.com/marc_in_london>

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OSHUG #53 — Getting started with FPGAs & Verilog using IceStorm & myStorm (workshop), Thursday 1st December.
by Andrew Back 30 Nov '16

30 Nov '16

Hello, Excited to announce that in a little over a month we will be jointly hosting with BCS OSSG, a 1-day workshop that will serve as an introduction to FPGAs and Verilog, via the most excellent project IceStorm/Yosys/Arachne-pnr open source toolchain and myStorm iCE40 FPGA board. You can find details below and note that at the time of writing there is a mistake on the BCS event page and the timing is 09:00-17:00, as on the OSHUG page. Place are limited, FPGA workshops have proven highly popular in the past and so if you would like to take part, I'd suggest registering sooner rather than later. However, please only register if you are confident that you can make it, as the workshop will likely sell out fairly quickly and we'd prefer to avoid having a waiting list and then empty seats on the day. Note that the venue for this is the RSA and not the BCS. There will also be a regular meeting in the evening, but at a different venue and further details will be provided in due course. Cheers, Andrew // On the 1 December 2016, 09:00 - 17:00 at Prince Philip Room, The Royal Society of Arts, 8 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6EZ. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/53 A full day, hands-on FPGA programming workshop that is free to attend. The regular monthly meeting will then follow in the evening, but at a different venue and for details see the OSHUG No. 54 event page (to be added soon!). Please note that if you intend to attend both the workshop and evening meeting, you must register separately for each of these! — Workshop details In this workshop we will build some basic Verilog blocks and modules targeting low power, low cost FPGAs from the Lattice iCE40 series. The workshop will operate using a complete open source Verilog toolchain based around Yosys and Arachne-PNR, which can be run on Linux and OS X. We will cover basic sequential and combinational logic blocks. In addition we will show you how you can combine simple ARM microcontroller code running alongside and communicating with Verilog peripherals synthesised on a Lattice iCE40 FPGA, all running together on myStorm. This workshop will give participants a real taste of FPGA development in an open source software environment, using open source hardware. * 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. — What to bring Participants must bring a laptop computer and ideally one that is running either Linux or OS X. If your laptop is running Windows, you should also bring along a Raspberry Pi or similar Linux SBC, that you can use to build the toolchain and program myStorm over USB. Note: Please aim to arrive by 08:45 as the workshop will start at 09:00 prompt.

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Another RISC-V project
by Jeremy Bennett 29 Nov '16

29 Nov '16

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hot on the heels OnChip and Open-V of comes https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive1 I note they have already met their target on the first day (it wasn't a very hard target). 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 iEYEARECAAYFAlg9qmQACgkQvvWBcvtHVOFH5QCfYP3W6aBQOYoHVH70YLhqiAhG q4kAn3JesS6OfLDaHMg30DJuU6+xR34e =yaiL -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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grand unification theory of modular units
by Matt Maier 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

I'm trying to reach a conclusion regarding one system of measurements we can use for modular designs that will work everywhere. https://www.atthatmatt.com/research/grand-unification- theory-of-modular-units/ What I've got so far is that the Open Structures 40mm grid is the way to go because most of the world uses metric and the most commonly available imperial parts can be shimmed to fit.

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Fwd: Call for Participation in FOSDEM 2017 EDA devroom
by Kaspar Emanuel 26 Nov '16

26 Nov '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Javier Serrano <Javier.Serrano(a)cern.ch> Date: 14 October 2016 at 16:14 Subject: Call for Participation in FOSDEM 2017 EDA devroom To: eda-devroom(a)lists.fosdem.org Dear all, I just published the call for participation: http://www.ohwr.org/projects/ohr-meta/wiki/FOSDEM2017 As you can see, it's basically copy/paste from last year's, with the addition of the possibility of having tutorials. Please help spread the word around you, and of course feel free to submit suggestions here regarding the devroom itself. Thanks, Javier _______________________________________________ eda-devroom mailing list eda-devroom(a)lists.fosdem.org https://lists.fosdem.org/listinfo/eda-devroom

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32-bit RISC-V microcontroller crowdfunding.
by Andrew Back 22 Nov '16

22 Nov '16

Hello, The fully open source RISC-V based 32-bit microcontroller, Open-V, is now crowdfunding on Crowd Supply: https://www.crowdsupply.com/onchip/open-v Best, Andrew

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MFS Meeting. Tue, 15 Nov. Talk: "Talos Secure Workstation" + Campaigning: "MFS CETA letter"
by Michael Dorrington 09 Nov '16

09 Nov '16

Please feel free to forward this to those that would welcome it. * Event: Manchester Free Software's November Meeting * Talk: Talos Secure Workstation * Speaker: Michael Dorrington * Campaigning: MFS CETA letter * Date: Tuesday, 15th November 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 schedule is: 19:00-19:45 Talk: "Talos Secure Workstation" 19:45-20:30 Campaigning: "MFS CETA letter" === Talk === There are now several free hardware computer designs, many having used Crowd Supply to seek backers to get all the way to being manufactured. The Talos Secure Workstation is now on Crowd Supply hoping to become a tangible reality. What differentiates Talos from other free hardware is that it's very powerful. Most free hardware is low power consuming but also has lower computing power, however Talos competes with high end workstation/server non-free hardware. Another differentiation is that Talos uses a Power Architecture, an alternative to x86 and ARM. Talos has some in particularly interesting features: * Power Architecture using POWER8 * No Intel Management Engine or similar * Hardware virtualisation support including IO * Promised "open-toolchain FPGAs" * Lots of PCIe slots * Other I/O capability including GPIO pins In the talk we will discuss the Talos specification, history, Crowd Supply and future. Discussion will be had on possible shared purchase. More information: * https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-secure-workstati… * https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/power8-cpus * https://www.crowdsupply.com/about * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Architecture If you have experience of free hardware, Power Architecture or similar then please consider giving a lightning talk at the meeting. === Campaigning === The "Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement" (CETA), an agreement between the EU and Canada, was signed on 30th October. This agreement has anti-free software measures which Manchester Free Software oppose. This campaigning section of the meeting aims to get a good start on a letter detailing these measures, the negative effect they'll have on free software, why people should value software freedom and the work that Manchester Free Software does. More information: * https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/the-many-headed-monster-of-internationa… * https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/trading-freedom * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CETA == 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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Re: [oshug] oshug Digest, Vol 77, Issue 2
by Mark.itto 04 Nov '16

04 Nov '16

BOOM! Excellent news. looking forward to this. See you there. Also now that I got you here I was wondering if anyone can have a look at my https://forum.mystorm.uk/ account it's maco1717 i created it with a typo on the email address never got the activation link Thanks. On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 12:00 PM, <oshug-request(a)oshug.org> wrote: > Send oshug mailing list submissions to > oshug(a)oshug.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > oshug-request(a)oshug.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > oshug-owner(a)oshug.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of oshug digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. event#53 (Mark.itto) > 2. Re: event#53 (Alan Wood) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2016 16:21:14 +0000 > From: "Mark.itto" <maco1717(a)gmail.com> > To: oshug(a)oshug.org > Subject: [oshug] event#53 > Message-ID: > <CADB-D=Nr5OYNNpukHy49+uqr1O-GVwoV=oXYcivZMofpf3ij0w@mail. > gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Hi, > > I was wondering I we going to be using the mystorm boards? > > Are they available to purchase yet? if so where can I find them I would > like to bring my own to take it home. also if there anything to go with it > required or recomended? > > Looking forward to this. > > Kind regards and thanks. > Marco. >

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event#53
by Mark.itto 03 Nov '16

03 Nov '16

Hi, I was wondering I we going to be using the mystorm boards? Are they available to purchase yet? if so where can I find them I would like to bring my own to take it home. also if there anything to go with it required or recomended? Looking forward to this. Kind regards and thanks. Marco.

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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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Open Source Hardware Camp sponsorship!
by Andrew Back 03 Aug '16

03 Aug '16

Hi All, I'm looking for sponsors for this year's open source hardware camp. In return for their support sponsors get their logo on: * oshug.org * printed materials at OSHCamp itself * post-event HD video which goes up on YouTube Should they wish, they can also have flyers or pens etc. put in the packs that delegates receive upon registration. It's a pretty good deal, if I say so myself, and helps to make the event possible, of course. Any offers or suggestions gratefully received and please drop me a line! Cheers, Andrew

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Making laser light synths talk at OSHCamp.
by Andrew Back 28 Jul '16

28 Jul '16

Hi All, Just occurred to me that I'd failed to forward details of a 12th talk which has been added to the programme for OSHCamp, which will be from Seb Lee-Delisle and on making laser light synths, no less! "Making the Laser Light Synths The Laser Light Synths are LED emblazoned musical instruments that anyone can play. Along with high power lasers, they form part of a large outdoor installation that switch the traditional roles of audience and performer. As an artist, Seb Lee-Delisle likes to make interesting things from code that encourage interaction and playfulness from the public. Notable projects include Lunar Trails, featuring a 3m wide drawing machine, and PixelPyros, the Arts Council funded digital fireworks display that toured nationwide." Looking forward to this one :o) Cheers, Andrew

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