OpenEuphoria

2. Re: interfacing Euphoria to the 'real' world

• Posted by m_sabal Dec 28, 2013
• 2824 views

I'm sure this isn't the answer you want to hear, but "it depends". Anything you plug into your computer is going to be registered at the O/S level first. If you want to use Euphoria to create a driver for your device, I would suggest that perhaps Euphoria isn't the best tool for the job, though I'm sure it's doable, and that whatever library you're looking for probably doesn't exist.

Let's look for a moment at the many different types of devices that currently plug into a computer via USB. Some will present themselves as a mapped device port with a corresponding file handle, such as "COM3:". If the O/S treats your device like a serial port, there are a number of very good libraries for working with them, though I'm sure many have not been updated in a number of years. If the O/S treats it like a HID, sound card, or disk drive; you can use the standard win32lib (or whatever GUI lib) routines for that device as if it were hardwired into your computer.

Many devices are wireless ethernet enabled, so you can create your own TCP or UDP protocol and use the sockets library to communicate with the device over the existing network infrastructure. Some devices already have a built in web browser, so it would be even simpler, just needing to interact with the existing pages over TCP port 80.

The last thing to look at would be either an Arduino or RaspPi that is connected via USB. I don't know much about the RaspPi other than it is a standalone computer running Linux. The Arduino presents itself as a serial port to the computer, so you can read and write data to it via the various serial port libraries. The only thing lacking is direct pin control, so you would have to install a program on the Arduino itself (typically using their "Processing" language) that interprets the serial commands and controls the pins that way.

I know this is a complicated answer to a simple question, and I hope I've answered it to some extent.

Mike Sabal

4. Re: interfacing Euphoria to the 'real' world

• Posted by ghaberek (admin) Dec 30, 2013
• 2694 views

FTDI is also how one programs an Arduino.

-Greg

6. Re: interfacing Euphoria to the 'real' world

• Posted by useless_ Jan 07, 2014
• 2508 views

Yeas, and i am currently cutting the shelf boards which will hover over my new desk for resuming Vic20/C64 stuff.

Not going to limit myself on what the Commodores can connect to, except as far as i can tell there won't be anything PC/wintel/nix compatable.

I went to http://www.vellemanusa.com/products/view/?id=500349 and followed all the links to their retail sellers, and none stocked Velleman stuff. Shame. It's going to be difficult to transfer data from the wintel boxes to the Commodores, just so i can make use of that data while connected to the real world. I saw the k8055 on ebay, spec say 20ms per command, figuring two 4bit inputs to make a byte, the transfer rate is 25 bytes per second. At that rate it will take 418 years to transfer a 330 Gbyte drive.
I am considering a virtual dual-ported pata drive, so the pc can read/write "files" on one port, and the non-PCs can read/write the other port. It's wierd Euphoria can connect to the internet across the world so well, and cannot connect to anything on my physical desktop right in front of me.

useless

8. Re: interfacing Euphoria to the 'real' world

• Posted by fizzpopsoft Jan 08, 2014
• 2419 views

I see that the C64's USR port has 8 programmable ports, PB0-PB7 labelled as C through L.
See http://www.commodore.ca/manuals/pdfs/commodore_pet_vic-20_c64_port_pinouts.pdf
With a highspeed Schmitt trigger in between this and the PIC chip, should be doable with your
hardware experience. Don't think the Commodore could interface with any faster method than the USR port without internal soldering.

10. Re: interfacing Euphoria to the 'real' world

• Posted by ryanj Jan 08, 2014
• 2332 views

What exactly do you mean by the "real world"? What do you want the usb port to connect to?

For me, i connect to Propeller chips, which, in turn, connect to other hardware. But, i have to write custom firmware for my custom devices. As time goes by, i am getting better and better bits of source code and pcb design files to copy and paste into new applications, so it's getting easier.

Pretty soon, i hope to add FTDI USB serial communication, network, and multi-process communication to FluidAE with a common protocol/data packet format. I think once the communication protocol's message format is defined, any type of computer or micro-controller could be programmed to talk to a FluidAE program. I haven't quite figured out the design yet, but, i do have bits and pieces of working code that will help me with this.

12. Re: interfacing Euphoria to the 'real' world

• Posted by Lnettnay Jan 10, 2014
• 2267 views

That sounds like fun. Did you ever see this book http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eudaemonic_Pie?

14. Re: interfacing Euphoria to the 'real' world

• Posted by useless_ Jan 12, 2014
• 2169 views

Whatever i want it to connect to. Anything functioning as a big PIO chip would be a great start. On the olde VIC20/C64, or a new lowly AVR, i can set a pin as output and write to it to turn something on, or set it as input to recieve a bit of data. Same goes for bytes. Many olde PIO chips have decent speed, many AVR could function as PIO chips. Many have buffers, can generate interrupts, handshake with other computers, generate parity bits, and make PWM signals. There were/are PIO chips made for most cpu families, and built into the modern microcontrollers.

But i have no wintel platform that can do that, and apparently i cannot buy one.

useless

16. Re: interfacing Euphoria to the 'real' world

• Posted by useless_ Jan 15, 2014
• 2108 views

I tried to talk to Ryan on irc about this, but he ignored me, i got no responce at all.

I can't wrap my head around windose programming, even tho i have done multitasking on the C64, and written a threaded http server in mirc. I need some help on making Euphoria talk to the real hardware world outside the box.

Sparkfun sells several USB to whatever "breakout" pcbs like https://www.sparkfun.com/products/199 , which apparently there is software for providing access to. I would be very happy to buy the hardware for anyone who can provide a working Euphoria install package to use any of these high performance "breakout" boards on winxp (which i think will be identical to all win32 OSs). Other financial compensations we can discuss in private.

What i will do with it is add a software layer (on top of the Eu code you provide) to make use of other hardware which i plug into the "breakout" board, basically making the wintel platform, running Euphoria, look like the biggest fastest AVR in the world, with all the peripheral input-output pins and ports anyone can imagine.

I am suggesting USB for this only because it seems to exist on all wintel/nix platforms and box/laptops/Pi/etc forms, but if there is a big speed or cost advantage to it, i am completely open to ethernet interfaces too.

useless

18. Re: interfacing Euphoria to the 'real' world

• Posted by ryanj Jan 15, 2014
• 2093 views

Kat, would this work? https://www.sparkfun.com/products/7841 8 I/O pins for parallel reading and writing. I think the data transfer rate is up to 1 MB/s. I believe it works the same way as the serial chip (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/718), it just splits the bits into 8 parallel I/O pins.

I have only tried the USB to serial chip, but I think most of the FTDI chips use the same dll library, so they should work with my code. I'll try to release my FTDI library soon.