Interfaces that talk across multiple computers, how?

[01micko]

Crap, forgot about that. LOL. My brain is in perpetual need of a memory upgrade!

800*480 it is.

Let's go with the BSD 3-Clause license. I'm not sure how actually necessary that third clause is here but it'll help me sleep

Here is a teaser - the GUI is somewhat complete however does basically NOTHING! (attached - MUST be compiled as it is source only)

The hlm prog has a start from your file a few posts ago but sysmon and pwr are just dummies, using the old 'a, b, c' I posted earlier. I am aware you are reworking the GUI(s) but the grunt work is done. Can move fwd from here quite easily.

Once compiled, run ./pwr -h (or sysmon, hlm) to see a brief help screen with licence info. It also has a useful entry where you can run it in fullscreen mode or 'scaled' mode. Take note.

LMAO. [ ]

[starhawk]

I have bad luck, at best, when compiling from source needless to say I'm a little skittish about it.

I've got the three helm panel screens laid out. Do you want the paper copy, or should I post colored versions from Corel? (Corel is my graphics software.) Corel will take longer, but be more plain...

[01micko]

Does your keyboard have 'm', 'a', 'k' & 'e' ???

If you have the devx and you can type make then you can compile this!

Scanned drawings are ok, but of course correl would be better, your choice.

Made an animated splash too (not available yet). Need to find the licence for the code as it is copyrighted.

[starhawk]

Alright, I'll try it tomorrow. Getting late here...

Corel it is. Let me get the pencils all done for all stations and then I'll start redrawing in Corel. Might take a while, I'm incredibly distractible. Better to get it all done, though, so I don't have to repost anything...

[starhawk]

01micko -- I think I owe you an apology -- I've been having an interest incompatibility with this project. I think I burnt myself out on it again...

Regardless, when I get going again (soon, I hope!) can I ask a favor? When you get the code worked out for this thing -- can you provide me the source, super heavily commented? I'd like to learn C at some point... I can read it a little bit, but not enough to learn what does what where without lots and lots of commenting.

[01micko]

Ha!

I've been cold on slacko for a year now! No apologies necessary.

Anyway, I have already a couple of spin offs from this project..

One interesting project is that I have decided to code a desktop independent of ROX, so a JWM desktop theoretically could support icons with this. (JWM by itself already supports wallpaper.)

What does it have to do with this? Well, much of the plotting code is similar.

Stay cool.

[starhawk]

Been playing with the helm display a bit... still haven't got the computerized ver even started yet but I do have a pencil copy of it that is I think final.

Can you do up something vaguely similar to the Apollo "8 Ball" (FD/AI)? Colors TBD (NO BLUE FFS, everything else is red and blue+red=bad fo yo eyes), and the linear scales for pitch/yaw/roll (in that order) should be all vertical and off to the right side of the "8 Ball" part.

[01micko]

Can you do up something vaguely similar to the Apollo "8 Ball" (FD/AI)? Colors TBD (NO BLUE FFS, everything else is red and blue+red=bad fo yo eyes), and the linear scales for pitch/yaw/roll (in that order) should be all vertical and off to the right side of the "8 Ball" part.

Probably.

It depends on how sensitive you want the thing as to how well it will work on crap hardware. I've coded a clock in cairo/xlib and that is only sensitive to the 1 second, and it only has to redraw the hands each second (but it only has 1 millisecond to do it). Works ok on crap hardware.

The 8 ball has to redraw the whole thing because any slight variation *could* affect all 3 axes. That might bog down a clunker - especially if you want 1° resolution in less than a second!

Alternatively, we could pre-draw a whole bunch of bitmap images and render those. (Think .xbm, not .bmp!). Mtpaints handles them well. They produce text files in C code, which are very easy to include in a program. It might be faster to just swap them around. X has the ability to mask it with colour, but be aware only 1 colour works, so it can be black and whatever else; that's it.

Here is one I prepared earlier.

[starhawk]

The 8-ball in this case is a bit simpler than the Apollo one... no numbers, first of all. Second, the only lines on it are the horizontal and vertical "equators" -- one line east to west, one north to south. The little arrow for roll indication follows the n-s "equator", and the gimbal-lock "poles" are east and west. The little -u- indicator in the middle stays tho... but it stays put, it doesn't move.

I'm thinking light grey for the 'sky' (above the horizontal "equator") dark grey for the 'ground' (below the horizontal "equator") red for the "equator" lines and the gimbal-lock zones ("poles"), with the roll arrow and -u- indicator being the golden sort of yellow we've been using in the screens.

While I want it to update basically continuously, it's not going to see too much movement -- it only goes outside of level and straight ahead when in manual helm mode -- and even then, only when someone is fiddling with the pitch/yaw/roll buttons. The resolution doesn't have to be a single degree, five would be fine. On my pencil drawing it's about an inch and three-quarters in diameter, so it's not exactly taking up the whole screen or anything...

I'm toying with the idea of adding numbers to the three scales on the side, but I haven't made a decision yet.

Hmm... maybe make it stay level/centered and not update at all, unless in manual helm mode? Maybe that would help things some.

As for 'crap hardware' -- plan for each screen to be driven by one of these. I can put 2gb of RAM in each and probably will. Assume 1-2gb of "flash" (SSD) -- I'm not going to stand for anything less myself

[starhawk]

Hey micko -- got a stupid idea. Turns out I can get a RasPi B+ for $25 on fleaBay, with "from US" shipping (Arlington TX in fact).

I don't have a B+ on hand, but I have an old B non-plus... same RAM and CPU spec, just fewer GPIOs.

I know it's ARM rather than x86 (and I know that is a world of difference, to put it mildly), and it doesn't really run Puppy since there's not even a Beta-quality version of PupPi out there but if you tell me how to compile this stuff for Raspbian I'll give it a shot.

My chief problem with './configure' 'make' 'make install' etc is that when they give me errors I have no idea what the errors mean, let alone how to correct them. 'make' is especially cryptic.

[Ted Dog]

Yes starhawk RaspberryPi2B has been an eye opener on differences between puppylinux and non puppylinux.. found opening a terminal and typing

sudo su

gets me into the mode where those normal linux stuff compile and config commands would work like I do in puppy. Also the dev tools are a mess and how to get them worse. But once eventhing is in place google is your friend.
But RaspberryPi2B has some impressive hardware to offload software. Like video playback with Alpha blend allows merging a desktop screen into a video. Like we used to do on simulators that costs quarter of a million. HUD displays and planel overlays are SO easy with this little box, I did it by accident. Freaked me out! have not seen true alpha blend since I stopped working for the Airforce, everything else has been layers and fake like how chroma key and cut out works. And you can play two videos at same time with alpha blend between them.

[Ted Dog]

oh somewhat relate I am using a photo Raytracing software and its very quick for a ARM machine I have been photo rendering and alpha blending it ( havent got it annimated yet ) by sending the hardware the images as a mp4 video. You only need 360 x24 frames should compress well for a photo like clockface. U would tell it to skip forward once every minute etc. ( next frame ) etc.

[starhawk]

I was actually thinking about the original Pi B+, not the 2B

[starhawk]

Hey micko -- got a stupid idea. Turns out I can get a RasPi B+ for $25 on fleaBay, with "from US" shipping (Arlington TX in fact).

I don't have a B+ on hand, but I have an old B non-plus... same RAM and CPU spec, just fewer GPIOs.

I know it's ARM rather than x86 (and I know that is a world of difference, to put it mildly), and it doesn't really run Puppy since there's not even a Beta-quality version of PupPi out there but if you tell me how to compile this stuff for Raspbian I'll give it a shot.

My chief problem with './configure' 'make' 'make install' etc is that when they give me errors I have no idea what the errors mean, let alone how to correct them. 'make' is especially cryptic.

'ey micko, did you see this...? Sorry if I'm being repetitive.

[01micko]

Hey micko -- got a stupid idea. Turns out I can get a RasPi B+ for $25 on fleaBay, with "from US" shipping (Arlington TX in fact).

I don't have a B+ on hand, but I have an old B non-plus... same RAM and CPU spec, just fewer GPIOs.

I know it's ARM rather than x86 (and I know that is a world of difference, to put it mildly), and it doesn't really run Puppy since there's not even a Beta-quality version of PupPi out there but if you tell me how to compile this stuff for Raspbian I'll give it a shot.

My chief problem with './configure' 'make' 'make install' etc is that when they give me errors I have no idea what the errors mean, let alone how to correct them. 'make' is especially cryptic.

'ey micko, did you see this...? Sorry if I'm being repetitive.

Yes.

Your biggest problem with Pi is that monitors can only be TV's unless you find something that will work with the pins.

Hardware (video graphics) wise, they should be ok with my code.

[starhawk]

Crap, I forgot about that... no VGA

And 7" HDMI screens are hella expensive...

Never freakin' mind...