[Cialug] ROS (Robot Operating System)

[Dan Hockey]

Parallax is working on a wireless module that will allow serial data transfer and remote programing for stamps and anything base on the prop chip.
I think they said it was using an avr chip. They should at least used the prop or the freescale IMX233 the Chumby uses  
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?128414-Parallax-WiFi-Module

Some one did a wireless using xbees with the S2 but he didn't give any details on how when I asked about it.
http://forums.parallax.com/blog.php?46831-W9GFO/page2

ATM the only non-windows software I know of is brads spin tool for linux and mac os.
The only problem with that is Brad hasn't release the source code for BST,only binaries
http://www.fnarfbargle.com/bst.html

And parallax hasn't released any of their code either, something to do with them still using Delphi.

--- On Tue, 4/26/11, Todd Pierce <toddcpierce at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Todd Pierce <toddcpierce at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Cialug] ROS (Robot Operating System)
To: "Central Iowa Linux Users Group" <cialug at cialug.org>
Date: Tuesday, April 26, 2011, 9:08 AM

Dan, 
 
As far as controlling the S2 with the Chumby goes, I already mentioned that I'd be tempted to just use serial port communications.
 
They do have code available for this purpose:
 
Simple serial:
http://obex.parallax.com/objects/183/
 
and Full Duplex Serial:
http://obex.parallax.com/objects/54/
 
It would then be a matter of using one of those libraries to make a (rather short) program to handshake between the two devices.
 
Does your S2 really have WiFi?  If it does, well, it's a tough call whether or not WiFi is the way to go.  I'm just throwing out options.
 
However you do it, I'd probably keep things simple by having the Chumby accept a huge 'status word' which describes everything going on with all of the S2 devices at any time, and then a 'command word' which the Chumby could yell at the S2 which would tell it what to do with any of its devices at any time.  That's just a personal preference on how I'd design it.

 

I guess that GUI tool for installing the code on the propeller only works on Windows, but someone (as usual) is developing an IDE for Linux: 
http://propeller.wikispaces.com/Linux+Development

I didn't know about that one, I'll have a closer look at it.

 
Getting serial communications to function on the Chumby will probably be less involved; it actually is a real computer with an OS.
 
Also, you mentioned that you installed gcc on the Chumby.  Did you test it by trying to compile anything yet?

I used the latest source code release of pure-ftpd, it compiled just like on any regular linux box. It was cool to have an ftp server running right on the chumby.
I tried to compile minicom but gcc complained about a mess of errors and quite.

But now I need to reinstall everything again after fixing a weird partitioning problem caused by how chumby does things. Now I can use all of the 8gb card I'm now using  
 -dan
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