Google Wave
I finally got a Google Wave account and I decided to do something for the community. More precisely, the hacker/tinkerer/DIY community.
I think it would be rather interesting to have a place where to share, showcase and discuss projects and hacks with local people (from Montreal).
If you want to join the wave you can find it here.
I hope this will result in a stronger more connected Montreal Hacker community.
Cheers, and see you on the wave!
I have a few Wave invites left so if any geeky Montrealer would like one, please leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do.
Xilinx Spartan
I spent countless hours trying to install the free version of the Xilinx software on may windoze Virtual machine and I have finally succeed.
I must say that although I have never used Xilinx ISE Webpack, I already hate it. It come in a huge installation archive (2.7 GB) and an equally huge update archive (2.4 GB). The option to use the “slim” installer (88 MB) is worthless since there is no ways of saving the required files for an eventual reinstallation (which was needed twice in my case).
Anyway, after installing/uninstalling/installing many times I finally got it to work. And this very lengthy and painful process reminded me why the Open Source world is so much more convenient. Installing a full linux distribution with tons of extra programs takes half the required storage and a third of the time. Too bad FPGA programming tools are ruled by the chip manufacturers.
All this painful process was required in order to get my new NanoBoard 3000 running. Hopefully I wont have to use Xilinx ISE anytime soon. Altium Designer was much easier to install and requires less storage.
A few weeks ago, I received a very pleasant message: Altium, an FPGA development board manufacturer and IDE developer, contacted me asking If I wanted to try the (excessively cool) brand new development board (the NanoBoard 3000) for free. Of course, I immediately (and quite emphatically) said YES.
The Altium NanoBoard 3000
Now that I got it, I’m dying to have some spear time in order to try out their awesome board with their quite intriguing IDE.
About the Hardware
The NanoBoard 3000 is a beautiful piece of equipment. It boasts lots of cool peripherals and is built and packed as a luxury electronics product. It is a very good looking piece of equipment while remaining perfectly functional, it beats by far all the other development boards I am familiar with (i.e. the Altera DE2 board and the Lattice Mico32 development board) while remaining much cheaper (around 50% of their price).
NanoBoard 3000 Unboxing
Features
Here is a selection of the NanoBoard’s features from Altium’s Wiki I find most prominent:
- A Xilinx Spartan-3AN device (XC3S1400AN-4FGG676C)
Nanoboard 3000 Front
- 4 Serial SPI Flash memory devices
- Programmable clock 6 to 200 MHz, accessible by Altium Designer or by an FPGA design
- SPI Real-Time Clock with 3V battery backup
- Adjustable voltage regulators set to generate 1.2V, 1.8V, 2.5V and 3.3V power
- 256K x 32-bit common-bus SRAM (1MB)
- 16M x 32-bit common-bus SDRAM (64MB)
- 8M x 16-bit common-bus 3.0V Page Mode Flash memory (16MB)
- Dual 256K x 16-bit independent SRAM (512KB each)
- 256K x 16-bit independent SRAM (512KB)
- 8 RGB LEDS
- 5 generic push-button switches
- 4-channel 8-bit ADC, SPI-compatible
- 4-channel 8-bit DAC, SPI-compatible
- 4x isolated IM Relay channels
- 4x PWM power drivers
- Screw terminal headers for ADC/DAC/Relay/PWM interfaces
- SD (Secure Digital) card readers:
- One for use by the Host Controller FPGA
- One for use by the User FPGA
- SVGA interface (24-bit, 80MHz)
NanoBoard 3000 Back
- 10/100 Fast Ethernet interface
- USB 2.0 High-Speed interface
- RS-232 Serial Port – DB9M
- RS-485 Serial Port – ‘RJ45′
- 240 x 320 TFT LCD with touch screen
- 8-way DIP-switch
- Stereo 2W audio power amplifier with 3.5mm test input jack and DC volume control
- 24-bit Stereo Audio CODEC with I2S-compatible interface
- Stereo audio jacks (3.5mm):
- Line In / Line Out
- Headphones
- Speakers on a separate (attached) board
- MIDI interface
- Diagnostics interface – PCI Express (PCIe) edge connector for connection of automated test equipment (ATE)
- 1.8″ ATA/IDE connector providing access to user LED and generic switch I/O
- Remote Control and IR interface.
I should post some further details and perhaps even a simple test project soon (as soon as I get Altium Designer and Xilinx ISE installed and running)
Following some serious problems with my Eee PC, I acquired a new laptop, a real one. I was planning to use the Eee as may main and only computer but some very serious problems with its SDD (that I will describe in another post soon) prevented me form doing so.
I opted for a Dell Vostro 1320 and must say it is a beautiful machine. It is small, powerful, light, and most importantly shiny.
Vostro 1320
Some Specs:
- Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz
- nVidia Corporation GeForce 9300M GS
- 4GB RAM
- 320 GB HDD
- 13.3″ screen matte (I can’t stand glossy displays)
- Intel wireless adaptor draft n
- 12 cell battery
- Mono integrated speaker (this is its only weakness)
I am running Kubuntu 9.04 with KDE 4.3.1 and it is absolutely marvelous. Everything works perfectly (except for the microphone). As a matter of fact, KDE is so absolutely mind blowing I’ll make a post exclusively about it soon (hopefully).
I know I am running late with my posts and answering messages but I’ll post some new projects very soon.
RobotShop.com
The robotics parts retailer RobotShop will be sponsoring robotics projects at Carlitos’ Contraptions. As a result I’ll be rolling out robotics projects for the next weeks/months.
I’ll try to make simple projects at the beginning and build up the difficulty level as I go. The idea is that, if you completed the the first projects, you will be able to reuse the skills/parts/code to build the future projects.
Of course, all articles are going to be published under the usual Creative Commons license and the code is going to be published under the GPL license.
I am planning to use Python for any program running on a computer and Arduino as a micro-controller platform. These choices aim at making the projects as open and as accessible as possible. Also, they ensure that they are perfectly cross-platform.
As always, I am open to any suggestions or wishes regarding the projects.
Note: the RobotShop logo above is not published under the CC license.
