For a very long time I've been looking around and seeing those devices like print boxes, ATM's and all kind of devices that are in public and you can use them touchscreen for example. a device at bus station to see BUS stops etc.
I've got an idea lately and since I got no experience with this kind of stuff yet, I would need some help.
Where to design and make a custom "tablet"? Would I even need to? (This device would be used in public attached to wall, guess needs some kind of protection?)
Which operating system should it be using? (That would handle a program for users to search database and return results).
In which programming language could this be coded?
Thanks for all answers in advance! I guess this could get me started.
Related
I have an arcade stick for my PS3 that I used for fighting games. I rarely play them anymore so I figured I'd plug the stick into my Mac and see if I could get some arcade gaming going on my computer. I have tried this on Windows too and it seems like there are no drivers for either OS.
Now, I'm not one to be disappointed and just give up like that. I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to attempt to write a driver. How hard can it be? All I need is a plan.
The Plan
I want a driver that supports every function of the arcade stick. This includes:
Eight face buttons
Analog stick
Lock/direction switches (the latter is three steps and the former is two steps)
Home/Turbo buttons
Two side buttons
I was searching around for stuff that could help me accomplish this but I don't really know where to start. I want a tool that can scan a USB port for signals coming from a connected device and from those signals decipher what input it corresponds to. I then want to map that input programmatically to an OS X API for game controllers, put it all in a package and voilá: driver!
Maybe this only works in my head. For starters I can't find this magic USB tool that I'm looking for. I tried USB Prober and it detects my arcade stick but I can't get any log entries when I press buttons on the stick. (Yes, I installed the log kext)
Most of the search results were regarding scanning USB network interfaces. I don't think it's what I'm after.
I also got this idea that maybe USB devices behave like old school Unix devices and I'd be able to do something like cat /dev/usb/port3 and get some good data but I have not found anything like that.
I just don't know where to start. I found some Apple documentation on USB devices but I don't even know if the stick is HID compliant.
Right now I'm mostly looking at libusb and skimming through documentation.
I haven't really dealt with this kind of project before so any ideas and tips are welcome.
Thanks!
Most PS3 controllers are just HID devices, so you should be able to work from that direction.
A much simpler route, and less personally satisfying I suppose, would be to just grab one of the USB->Mac game controller applications and run with that.
I've used USB Overdrive for years and it always seems to work well.
I'm looking to create a driver for a game controller I have (a cobalt flux www.cobaltflux.com ). The physical controller itself has nine face buttons and two control-box buttons (start/select). The control box has a usb port, but as far as I can tell no one has ever written drivers for it before. The end result I want is to be able to plug in the cobalt flux via the usb port and have windows recognize it as a game controller.
I have some programming experience. I'm a senior undergraduate student in computer science at UC Davis and an intern at a large embedded systems company, however this project involves several aspects I have no experience in: interfacing hardware and software via a USB port, investigating feedback from hardware I didn't build (which bits light up when I press a button?), and creating drivers and indeed programs in general for windows.
Since I don't personally know anyone who would be able to set me on the right track for a workflow to solve this problem, I'm asking here. I imagine the approach going something like:
I connect the device via a usb
I open up a program to poll what the effects of pushing buttons are on the USB channel
I write a program that interfaces those signals from the USB port to the game controller drivers that windows has
It may be worthwhile to note that I need to have joyPAD support and not joySTICK support for the buttons since play will involve pressing down any number of buttons at once and joysticks generally only register one direction of input at any given time.
Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. I am having trouble figuring out where to start.
I have exactly the same problem for more than a year now and I did not found the right solution yet.
When you plug in the pad via USB it announces with a device ID and a vendor ID which device it is. Windows Plug-and-Play starts searching for a driver. This mechanism spots it is a pointing device (in my case one or 2 mice) and makes sure that it is treated as a raw data input device. Input from these devices is converted to messages handled by the OS. The solution seems to be to pass the messages of such a raw input device to the right handler. In my case the two mice are both recognised as mice and the messages are used by the same handler as the ones coming from the 3rd mouse that is really my pointing device. I am not experienced enough in C++ coding in order to dig into the rawinput API. I just received an interesting link as answer on my question: http://www.icculus.org/manymouse/ at least this gives an answer on my problem. May be it will give you ideas for writing your driver! Good luck !!! Stefan
I'm currently working on a Backup Application, and I have received a lot of requests for features to be added recently, and the top one of them is adding a checkbox like "Back Up when on Battery Power" like Time Machine has.
So, is there a way I can get the status of the Power Adapter (plugged in and plugged in)? I assume that if one had a Desktop Mac, like iMac, etc, I would probably just get Plugged In all the time. Therefore, I need means of detecting if the computer is a portable or not.
I assume IOKit would be a library to look at, but I simply could not find anything in the docs, that are barely existent anyways on that Framework. Then, since it is an older Carbon Framework, is there a way to register a callback that gets called when that power state changes? That way I can properly implement this checkbox's functionality.
I'd appreciate help in clarifying this subject.
IOPowerSources.h has the functions you need. Start with IOPSNotificationCreateRunLoopSource() to create a run loop source and in your callback interrogate the power source info starting with IOPSCopyPowerSourcesInfo() and working your way down. There may be better examples, but this file appears to be a reasonable demonstration of how it's done; enough to get you started.
For my university I (and three others), are searching for a project that utilizes at least one embedded device, web services or other web technology, and a Graphical User Interface.
Currently we are looking at developing a unified remote, that is an extendable application on a cell phone through which you can control your media center. Any ideas, or advice on this will be appreciated, though it is not the focus of this question.
We are having a hard time finding interesting (or funny) projects on which we can work a complete semester. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated. The software will be released as free software. (GPL or BSD license).
We all have a Bsc in Software Engineering.
EDIT: I am very pleased with the suggestions so far. Thanks to everyone, and keep it coming.
How about follower: carry a device, as you move from room to room in your house devices configure themselves to your preference - lights, music etc. If two people are in the room some precedence rules.
Is that possible just on the presence of a mobile phone?
Another idea (from the top of my head):
A work environment ensurance thing. We programmers like to develop in nice and quiet environments. Unfortunately some people tends to annoy us with their disturbing behaviour (or just by being loud).
So the project could be to create devices wich tracks the stress level (sweat levels, pulse etc.) of the individual and their impact onto others.
An example: One individual is very loud (the device should measure this), and others around him becomes stressed and/or unfocused because of this. The serverside sw, should then detect and warn him to quit down a bit to improve the work environment.
Comments?
What do you peeps like doing? Build an app for it.
So, if you like drinking coffee build a application which will find the nearest frothy coffee shoppe (or if you're particular, the nearest Peets/Starbucks/Whatever-ocino). This idea works for beer too.
If you buy stuff off e-Bay build a sniper app.
If you enjoy playing frisbee build an app which locates your nearest friends and sends them a text asking whether they want to goof off lectures and go to the park.
Heck, you could even build an app which monitors your SO questions and alerts you when you get an answer (although I don't know whether the data services SO currently offer will be up to the job).
The standout companies that have made great universal (programmable) remotes are : logitech, and philips.
One of the big problems with these types of devices is the ability of the general consumer to actually program all of their various devices. Logitech has done an outstanding job of providing a fairly simple Web based user setup experience that then implements a very usable universal control.
I would definitely look at what they have done for some ideas on universal remote controls.
How about an app and hardware that will tell me when my wife's plants need watering? (It's somehow my fault if they don't get watered.)
OK then: the recipe generating fridge. Rfid tags on the contents know what's available and the expiry dates. The database knows the recipes. The fridge emails/texts you to say "buy some mushrooms and you can have a delicous ham and mushroom omelette while the eggs are still fresh."
Benjamin and all those aspiring to do embedded projects ...
When you start a project, especially in embedded systems, you need to understand that the hardware is not your PC but some special device. And every sensor will be a transducer in itself. The only thing that would matter to students is that everything costs and are costly
So, it will be good to make sure that the idea is such that,
It can be completed by the
project members within the given timeframe
All the required development
tools like hardware etc can be
really bought
Of all, it good to ensure that the
project enables you to learn
something useful for your career ...
To do all this it is better set some achievable goals
Develop a system in which you can program the lighting system of your house. You can set up their schedule one time and everything should work automatically.
I really love working witht the Atmel ststk1000/stk1006/stk1002 development boards for tht AVR32. ATSTK1000
2x Ethernet
QVGA lcd
USB 2.0
SD/MMC
Conpact flash
Supported embedded linux
IR
Audio
ps2 interfaces
uarts
++
familiy atmel page:
AVR 32 family home
online forums
Forums for CPU
Image the following situation:
You're on Windows XP (even though the dialog shown below is a Vista screenshot).
You have two physical USB game controllers, let's call them A and B.
You have a piece of software that apparently accesses joysticks in a legacy way, only recognizing and allowing use of one single joystick.
When using this software, you want to use both controllers together, for instance:
use the left thumbstick from A and the right thumbstick from B
use buttons #1, #2 and #6 from A and buttons #2 and #8 from B
I guess this problem must have already popped up in hardcore gaming somewhere, and a kind of "virtual game controller driver" or other piece of software for this is available. This would ideally show up as a game controller in Windows and allow a virtual setup as described above using any inputs available on physically connected controllers to create a compound virtual one.
If this is the case, I'd love to hear where to get my hands on this. And if not, any pointers on trying to get this going are welcome. I guess I'd have to read up on DirectInput and dust off my next to non-existent C++ skills then?
Like Runeborg answered, it now looks like I might have to get cracking at trying to write my own "virtual game controller device driver" if I want this to happen. :-(
Quick update: have asked same question on smartgamer in the hope another crowd there might come up with an existing answer.
If you want to make it generic to all windows applications I would imagine you have to write your own virtual game controller device driver. This gamedev.net thread seems to hold a few clues. It may also be interesting to have a look at Johnny Chung Lee's Wiimote magic or the Wiimote project. Johnny Chung also links to Managed Library for Nintendo's Wiimote.
The Wii projects should contain enough information if you dig a bit to get you going. I can't really think of any other way, other than perhaps plugging in as a middleware between the application and windows somehow by intercepting messages.
Will have to look into Total Game Control to see if it could do what I would like.