Archive for August, 2008

Xilinx ISE and Ubuntu 08.04 x86_64

Tags: ,
Submitted by braiden on August 29th, 2008 in Category Software

In my previous post I mentioned I didn’t have any trouble installing ISE on my Ubuntu 08.04 PC. I lied. Actually, I installed it on my laptop with no problem. Today, I tried to install on my desktop. It took a lot of tweaking to get the software running well on x86_64. Here are some tips for getting ISE working. (more…)

Fun with FPGA’s (Spartan 3E, BAYSYS, and Linux)

Tags:
Submitted by braiden on August 26th, 2008 in Category Hardware

Now that my A/C works, I’m trying to find a new projects. I’ve been looking into plastics (ABS and Plexiglas), thinking about how to get revenge on bots spamming my blog, and reading about FPGA’s. Plastics are useful for building cases, but I’ve done OK hacking crappy enclosure together. It might be fun to mess with the bots, but I’m afraid of upsetting the Russian mafia who runs them. With no choices left, I decided to pick up an FPGA dev kit. (more…)

Connecting an AVR to the internet (internet ac pt.8 of 8)

Tags: ,
Submitted by braiden on August 14th, 2008 in Category Software

I’m almost done with my A/C project. The last part is pushing the service out onto the wild internet. It would be a terrible idea to connect the AVR directly to the internet. It would probably be possible to deploy it securely using apache, ssl, vpn’s and proxies, but I chose a much more conservative approach. (more…)

rest-to-a/c bridge (Internet AC Pt.7)

Tags: , ,
Submitted by braiden on August 10th, 2008 in Category Hardware, Software

I finished merging the IR code (and hardware) with the tux graphics project. My air-conditioner now has a REST webserver. Getting hot? Just type “AC” in firefox and the air-conditioner turns on! The next step is finding a secure way to activate the device from my cellphone. The latest code is in SVN. (more…)

AVR webserver (Internet AC Pt.6)

Tags: , ,
Submitted by braiden on August 9th, 2008 in Category Hardware, Software

It works! I’m actually quite surprised. Outlook was pretty gloomy for a while, but I’ve got a simple HTTP server running on my atmega168. Here’s my experience with Tuxgraphics and AVRlib. (I haven’t given up on writing my own driver and tcp/ip stack, but I really wanted to prove the hardware worked first. Too many unknowns makes debugging really hard.) (more…)

Wiring the ENC28J60 (Internet AC Pt.5)

Tags: , ,
Submitted by braiden on August 3rd, 2008 in Category Hardware

Yesterday afternoon I finished wiring up the ENC28J60. Everything looks good so far. Both the hub and my dev board see the ethernet link-beat. I’m taking some time off to figure out what’s next. I can either copy the AVR project I linked in my previous post, or write my own driver and tcp/ip stack. Doing it myself could be interesting, but I’m concerned it will take too long. (more…)