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Linux-Powered Lego-Like Devices Target Developers
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Nov 05, 2007 04:12 PM
from the plug-and-play dept.
from the plug-and-play dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A six-person startup is readying a product resembling nothing so much as a set of electronic Legos for device designers. The idea is to provide a set of snap-together components from which engineers can build 'anything,' the company claims, without having to learn solid state electronics. Both hardware and software (Linux/Java phoneME/OSGi) are open source, so that over time, the Lego box will grow, the company hopes. Initially, there's an ARM11-powered base with built-in wifi, and modules for camera, GPS, motion detector, LCD display, keyboard, touchscreen, and stereo speakers. Ooh, and a mysterious 'teleporter,' too."
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Submission: Linux-powered Legos target device developers by Anonymous Coward
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Do you program them in Logo? (Score:4, Funny)
Right.... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Right.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Re:Right.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sell it as environmentalism. "We take discarded bugs from software around the world, run them through our industrial-grade recycling plant, and turn it into pure, post-consumer recycled BUGS(r)."
Parent
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Cue ASP.NET jokes in 3... 1... 2...
Re:Right.... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
So.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So.. (Score:5, Funny)
They weren't even released until 1998. You either weren't a kid, or I have good reason to feel old.
Parent
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Re:So.. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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Re:So.. (Score:5, Funny)
- Build an adjustable motorized ramp, so your robot can go uphill both ways.
- Find some snow.
Parent
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We used the lego-mindstorms in my grad-level robotics class. We were using a C compiler for them (think it, and the OS we were loading were open source even), and as long as you remembered that you didn't have any floating point... (i.e., 5/2*2 would be 4 not 5...) and that you had very limited stack space with no protection (use more than 1k stack and you were overwriting your heap...) you could do pretty much whatever you wanted. For example we were doing onboard inverse kinematics and path
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Capella (Score:2)
This makes me think of an adult version of that. Just sayin'.
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I was playing with some of those just the other day (got tons of them from various sources). They are some of the coolest toys ever made. It is a shame, though, that the new owner has introduced funky colors. And that it costs a fortune to buy a large enough collection to really have fun.
Yes, but... (Score:3, Funny)
The plural of Lego (Score:4, Informative)
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What's good for legoose is good for le gander?
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Stuff of Nighmares (Score:2)
http://linuxdevices.com/files/misc/buglabs_community_legos-sm.jpg [linuxdevices.com]
"How come I don't hear nothin' when I connect my speakers to my GPS? I tried calling support on the video camera and got no answer!"
TLG Lego(tm) Bricks? Or BugLabs Bricks? (Score:2)
Building blocks need a good foundation (Score:5, Insightful)
Likewise, my coworkers do analog design of IC's, and even though we have a design reuse library for the company, every design they do is basically ab initio because another similar design does something they don't need and as a result uses up vital silicon space, and they can't simply remove just that bit.
A talented designer could use building blocks to build something great. A lousy designer could use those same blocks to build something dangerously unsafe -- they facilitate only design, not quality. Speaking as a lousy designer, I think it's a much better idea to actually do the work in analyzing the problem and coming up with an adequate design, and the good designers, in my experience, already *have* a head full of black boxes, for which they understand the limitations and how they interact.
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Speaking as one of those analog IC designers, you're about half right. There's a good bit of NIH, too.
Connector problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Brick-like things with multi pin connectors are usually a headache. Either one side of the connector has to float, or you need a very rigid mounting system. Military systems tend to be built with boxes that you shove into a slot, and even with military grade components, heavy latching systems, and high insertion forces, those connectors are a trouble spot. That's why you don't often see things like that in consumer products.
Cute idea, though, if they get all the mechanical details right.
Pricing (Score:2)
I'm afraid I'm not going to like what I hear, though.
Home automation: the garage just got cheaper (Score:2)
Currently, the ante is just too high for most home-automation experimentation -- and I speak as one who actually works with the applications department of a semiconductor manufacturer.
Could someone explain (Score:2, Insightful)
Misleading title! (Score:2)
Trapper Keeper (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapper_Keeper_(South_Park_episode) [wikipedia.org]
Re:Without Learning? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this is ideal for prototyping.
Parent
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Re:Without Learning? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with using high-level programming languages, software libraries, and pre-built hardware. Using these pre-built components to build a useful device is no different than combining servers, routers, and wiring to build a network. You do *not* have to be intimately familiar with the low-level details of all the hardware in order to combine it together in a useful way.
These hardware modules looks like they could be very fun and very useful. A great way for a DIY person to put together a fun toy, or an inexpensive solution to a problem, etc. It could also be quite useful for people who want to prototype new device ideas without commissioning expensive custom components.
No one is arguing that the existence of these modular devices will replace the need for dedicated hardware for many applications (and the associated specialized engineers who design that hardware). The idea instead would be to lower the barrier to creating novel devices, so that hobbyists and non-specialists can try out new ideas that would have been prohibitively expensive otherwise.
I know many people bemoan this "Cult of the Amateur [wikipedia.org]" (e.g. Wikipedia, blogs, citizen journalism, high-level programming languages, etc.); but to me the whole "point" of technology in general (and computers in particular) is to reduce the barriers, so that "ordinary people" can do things that previously only a "selected few" were allowed to do. I find that this push towards community-driven work and lower barriers to technological progress and education are very much good things.
Parent
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You do *not* have to be intimately familiar with the low-level details of all the hardware in order to combine it together in a useful way."
OK, I agree, but simply mashing together some technologies does not an engineer make.
Perhaps not, but it's a damned good start. I was just thinking about the world my seven-month-old daughter will be growing up in. Computers are ubiquitous, nearly throwaway, and run extremely complex operating systems that abstract out the hardware as much as possible. Electronics of any complexity require you to use surface-mount components on two or four-layer PCBs, well beyond the breadboard-and-solder level. There's no real analogue to the DOS command line and GW-BASIC I grew up learning to program
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Did anyone say that? No. Nice strawman, though. You knocked it down valiantly.
I, however, can only assume you are, yourself, an engineer. And evidently a rather defensive one...
Re:Without Learning? (Score:5, Funny)
I have mod points today. I was going to mod your post but I couldn't find 'Bitter' or 'Grizzled'.
Parent
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That's right! How dare anyone presume to build something without the proper background? I would never consider a project that didn't allow me to design my own programming language, write a compiler, write and compile my own operating system, and all running on silicon I designed and fabri
There are different levels of organisation (Score:5, Insightful)
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I figured someone would post exactly this comment. I sort of had an urge to mod you down as a killjoy, but you are partially right. I know from experience how much more you learn by building things from scratch than using some sort of kit.
But the benefit this sort of kit can have is to lower the barrier to entry for more people. Maybe this kit will get people excited and show them the potential of what's possible to build; then, if they go on, they can learn the details. People have to start somewhere. Or
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Bad programmers think they're good programmers, think pretty much everyone else is a bad programmer, and thinks that platforms matter more than they do.
Re:Without Learning? (Score:5, Insightful)
I look dread the new crop of programmers and 'engineers' being 'output' by the educational system.
Yeah...
I suppose you layered the LCD screen on your laptop yourself, cast the engine block on your car yourself out of aluminum and oil-sand, burned a DVD with a pencil laser by hand, and fabricated the CPU of your computer with a blow torch on the beach?
Come off your high horse, man. As technology progresses, and gets more complex, the complexity of it is buried in abstracted "boxes" with vastly simplified interfaces that make it easier to use. You don't work out the details of range detection for interpersonal radio communication, you pick up your cell phone and dial a telephone number. If you are a programmer, you *might* write to registers, and you *might* understand memory offsets, but it's unlikely that you actually bother computing an offset with any regularity. And neither is particularly beneficial to getting the job done except in very rare cases.
There's evidence that that's how your mind works - intelligence involves the development of abstract ideas in order to make the cost of computation cheaper. By the time you are conscious of what you are seeing, most of the detail in what you actually see has been stripped out and replaced with vastly simpler, less detailed, abstract ideas.
You don't see the details of a house as you drive by, you see the abstract idea of "house". The lower layers of your brain have stripped away all the minutiae and replaced the image of the house with the idea of house. It's so effective that even as you are looking at it, if somebody asked you what color the house was, you'd have to take a brief moment to figure it out, first.
It's not shameful, it's an ordinary part of legitimate progress!
Parent
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It's a little sad that people have to pay that much when all they really need is a $5 PIC and a few throwaway components.
Some assembly required (Score:2)
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Spark fun sells nice programmer/dev boards for PICs.
This one [sparkfun.com] has a built in programmer for $27.95, or
This one [sparkfun.com] for $15.95 does not.
Of course, you only need one programmer for multiple projects.
Both the above have serial port and power supply built in, and space for putting your own components in. If you don't need a serial port, and are comfortable with voltage regulators or have a good bench supply, you need basically nothing in support hardware (besides
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