BORPH is an operating system designed for FPGA-based hardwares. It is basically a Linux kernel that is able to spawn what is known as hardware processes, thus executing in hardware.
The develoment is done at Berkley, and the name of the OS, BORPH, reads Berkley Operating System for ReProgrammable Hardware. For more information, either visit the project wiki, or the offical website.
via OsNews.
Bunnie has released part 2 of his series on outsourcing production. This time the topic is Design for Manufacturing.
Do you have a need for speed? Or just a need to run a couple of motors? If you combine that need with a TI LaunchPad, the Motor Driver Booster Pack from Longhorn Engineer might be just for you. It is open hardware, so the full Eagle sources can be downloaded.
What you get is a dual H-bridge motor driver, capable of driving 2A per motor at 2.7-10.8V. The logic voltage is 3.3V, so perfect for common ARM boards, but requires a level conversion to be used with the ever so popular Arduino.
via DangerousPrototypes.
Remember the days spent moving drivers into himem. Not something you’d like to relive? If you want to, then FreeDOS is for you. It is DOS, developed as open source, but also adapted to the future.
There is even the OpenGEM GUI for those brave enough to work with a mouse (which tickles my nostalgia even more, being an old ST-fan).
Boingboing leads us to the first path of the great series of Bunnie Huang (who runs a great blog, by the way). This is the start of a four part series on outsourcing manufacturing. More specifically, to outsource to China, but many rules apply everywhere.
In the first installment, he talks about the BOM. This makes it clear to me, as a hobbyist, that there is a lot of ground to cover in this series. I’m already looking forward to part 3 - Industrial design for upstarts: guerrilla engineering on a shoestring budget. Will be fun to read
Via boingboing.
Do you dream of making the ultimate game controller. Then the Esplora board from Arduino is what you need. Basically it is a Leonardo board, but with a range of integrated sensors. Leonardo means onboard USB HID support, so you can use it directly with your PC games. Sensors means all the fun inputs that you’ve dreamed of but never put on a single board:
A couple of days back, we wrote about Kimio Kosaka’s amazing freeform Arduino clone. This artist of electronics is not a one hit wonder. He has done more work around the Arduino. For instance, his one-chip clones are real works of art.
Below, you can see the evolved version of his first incarnation of the concept. It really does look like a cybernetic bug than a simple Arduino circuit.
Taking the concept further, the next incarnation carries a USB-port. If you thought carrying an Arduino around to play with took too much space, this is the way to go.
The classic game of pong has been reimplemented many times in different settings. For the purist, the right way of doing it is to base the replica on the original schematics. This imgur album shows how Pong is built in 74LS. The PCB is beautiful in its symmetry and simplicitly. The simple genius of electronics of the past fully visible.
Via osnews.
Having used the Arduino IDE for a while, it is easy to find oneself limited. I can sympathize with the purpose of the tool – simplicity makes it easier to learn.
For those of us who still enjoy the ease of use of the Arduino, but wants a more complex environment, there is MariaMole.
MariaMole is an open source project creating a more advanced Arduino IDE. It complements the existing Arduino IDE and maintains the good parts of the classic IDE (i.e. Arduino libraries, ease of download, etc). At the same time, it can handle multiple projects at once, multiple simultaneous serial port sessions, etc. You can also tweak the the build process for better control.
The only limitation is that it is tied to the Windows platform for now, so now we only need someone to port it to Qt for portability :-)
Via Hackaday.
Imagine running a course around Arduino. As soon as you start drawing a crowd, the hardware cost will be significant. Enter the Shrimp.
The Shrimp is an ultra-slim, low-cost Arduino clone. Bringing the price down to about £8, almost a third of an Arduino, this makes easy to use programmable logic even easier to reach.
Via hackaday.
