Slashdot Mirror

Lotsa links here...

First of all, the 2002 Burning Man project I did that involved a couple hundred RGB LEDs spinning in a persistence-of-vision-based nighttime animated display. Here is the best picture of it. This is the page about the development details.

The LEDs I used were manufactured by Kingbright. The model I used, the LF819EMBGMBC, is big (10mm) and relatively bright for an RGB LED. I couldn't find any U.S. retailers that actually told the truth about whether they stocked them, so I ended up buying 400 directly from Kingbright for I think a little more than $2.50 each. I still have a few left.

Atmel AVR microcontrollers are just a few bucks each, easily programmable with the STK-500 programmer, also cheap at around $80. I used the ATMega8, which was more than sufficient for my needs. I imagine the original Slashdotter could use one of the ATTiny MCUs, since it really needs only 3 or 4 I/O lines (fewer depending on how many helper circuits you decide to use).

The boards were manufactured by PCBExpress and I was very happy with them. The CAD/CAM software was Eagle, which except for some crashing/redrawing bugs was really amazing. The version I used was free. I tried to buy it but CadSoft has (had?) a fairly crazy pricing scheme that actually left you worse off in terms of acceptable usage if you paid them money than if you used the free version.

The best part of using the Atmel MCU was that GCC can cross-compile for it. So you're basically writing regular old C code but it runs on a little tiny piece of silicon. You'll want to subscribe to the quite active avr-gcc mailing list. Save every message from Marek Michalkiewicz; in my opinion he's the god of GCC-for-AVR development.

Lotsa links here...

First of all, the 2002 Burning Man project I did that involved a couple hundred RGB LEDs spinning in a persistence-of-vision-based nighttime animated display. Here is the best picture of it. This is the page about the development details.

The LEDs I used were manufactured by Kingbright. The model I used, the LF819EMBGMBC, is big (10mm) and relatively bright for an RGB LED. I couldn't find any U.S. retailers that actually told the truth about whether they stocked them, so I ended up buying 400 directly from Kingbright for I think a little more than $2.50 each. I still have a few left.

Atmel AVR microcontrollers are just a few bucks each, easily programmable with the STK-500 programmer, also cheap at around $80. I used the ATMega8, which was more than sufficient for my needs. I imagine the original Slashdotter could use one of the ATTiny MCUs, since it really needs only 3 or 4 I/O lines (fewer depending on how many helper circuits you decide to use).

The boards were manufactured by PCBExpress and I was very happy with them. The CAD/CAM software was Eagle, which except for some crashing/redrawing bugs was really amazing. The version I used was free. I tried to buy it but CadSoft has (had?) a fairly crazy pricing scheme that actually left you worse off in terms of acceptable usage if you paid them money than if you used the free version.

The best part of using the Atmel MCU was that GCC can cross-compile for it. So you're basically writing regular old C code but it runs on a little tiny piece of silicon. You'll want to subscribe to the quite active avr-gcc mailing list. Save every message from Marek Michalkiewicz; in my opinion he's the god of GCC-for-AVR development.

Then, hack it:

• http://www.audreyhacking.com
• http://www.canoma.com/audrey
• http://www.sowbug.com/audrey/hack_index.html
• http://www.linux-hacker.net BBS

We've already got various customization hacks worked out. It's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to:

• Add a hard drive
• Add 802.11b
• Get Linux running on it

Supplies are dwindling. You may want to go ahead and by one (or four) now.

I have it on good authority that Hotmail is actually running on a cluster of hacked -up Audreys.

Beans beans the magical fruit the more you eat the more you 'pute.

Didn't *anybody* follow the first link? This page describes how he actually did it. The reason that it looks like it's running in an Audrey window is because IT IS. He got a shell, all right, NOT by porting Linux to Audrey, but by updating Audrey's flash so to add a QNX shell application on the flash card. He then booted the Audrey and ran the shell. That's what the screenshot is of.

Once again, not a fake.

here is how he said he did it... Before we complain about borders not lining up, someone who understands this should give us a fair evaluation of his methodology