Slashdot Mirror
VNC Server for Toasters and Light-Switches
An anonymous reader submits: "How about using VNC to configure your toaster, microwave oven, or even your light-switches? Thanks to Adam Dunkels' micro-VNC server it is now possible to run a VNC server even on really small embedded 8-bit microcontrollers commonly found in such devices. The idea is that even low-cost devices that don't have a screen or graphics hardware could have a GUI, accessible over the network. To show that the server can run with very small amounts of memory, there is a demo server running on a Commodore 64. But the real question is: how would want to 'configure' their toasters using a GUI?"
Yeah, back in the day we used to say "Lets install Linux on a toaster!" and it was a joke.
But now someone actually took it seriously, and look whatcha dun!! You should be ashamed!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
So, when your toast is done, will there be a "pop-up" window telling you that? Sorry. Couldn't help it.
MadDad32
Quoth the page:
The pages you are currently watching are served by a web server running on a an Ethernet equipped 6510-based system with 64k RAM running at 1 MHz (a Commodore 64 with a TFE cartridge). The same system also exports two displays using VNC and the small uVNC server software.
Other servers have come down like they were Commodore 64's, but this one actually is one!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but VNC is a screen-sharing or remote-control system, ne? On a small device where memory, processing time, and complexity is at a premium, why would you waste effort rasterizing a screen image so that VNC can ship it over.
Wouldn't it be a lot easier to have a tiny HTTP server which sends out an HTML file and processes the results? This seems akin to someone scanning in a print-out of their email as an attachment instead of sending an email directly... =/
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
oops, that's the CLI. I don't know about the GUI version.
The most popular 8-bit chips today are the 8051 (multi-source), AVR (atmel), PIC (microchip), and HC08/HC11 (motorola). Cost is usually the primary consideration, and projects with volumes of 20k/year and up, it makes a lot of sense to do some or all of the project in assembly language so you can get the code into a smaller chip that costs $1 less. Multiply that $1 by 20k (or whatever production volume is expected) per year over the life of the product.
At the beginning of many projects, there's usually a list of "got to have" features, and "would be nice to have" features (as long as they don't add cost or significantly delay the product release). A good designer (and there are many) will ask a lot of questions about the actual application and make changes to the feature set that still meet the customer's needs (often times an improvement) but allow the code to be smaller, run at a slower speed (increase battery life or reduce the cost of the power supply circuitry), and use less RAM.
It's a very different world from PC software. The 8051, PIC, AVR and HC08/11 are available in many different flavors with different mixes of built-in peripherals and different amounts of code and ram memory.... and an amazing amount of work goes into making VERY efficient code so it can fit in a less expensive chip. On top of that, most products that ship with those 8-bit chips ARE UNDER WARRANTY for years, and a bad bug in the firmware usually means replacing the product for everyone who's effected.
I just can't see a VNC server on that "got to have" feature list, and I can't see it not increasing the cost enough to get quickly axe'd from the "nice to have" list. Even using an additional 128 or 256 bytes (yes, bytes, not Mbytes, not kbytes, but individual bytes) will almost certainly push a "normal" 8-bit microcontroller project up to a chip that costs $1 to $2 more. That's a lot of money when you go into production and start shipping thousands every month!!
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools