kevin.fonner.net
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)

These insightful words are those of Arthur C. Clarke. They simply mean that any technology that is far enough beyond a persons understanding, then that person might perceive that technology as magical or supernatural in nature. If a man from the 15th century were shown something as common as a television, then he might believe it to be a magical window capable of showing the past, present, and even possible future of anywhere in the world and beyond. To that 15th century man, magic is real!

Why can't magic be real? How do you define magic? Is it something that is amazing and unexplainable? If that is the case then magic is all around us created by the engineers, scientist, and makers of our time.

Remote Control and Gumstix

March 2nd, 2009


This is my new blackberry storm. For a while I was going to build a hardware based remote control for project-E… but as the design became a little clearer to me; the remote control became a little too complicated for a hardware based system. I thought the touch based interface on the storm would make a nice remote control. The entire remote can then be implemented in software which makes a lot of neat possibilities easier to do.

So far the storm has been pretty fun to develop for. It’s completely java based and very well documented. I know it’s not the geekiest phone out there right now but it was the best one for my purposes. My first choice would have been the G1 but unfortunately it’s only on a network that doesn’t have anywhere near the coverage that Verizon has. I don’t always like all of Verizon’s policies but it’s hard to beat their network coverage. I absolutely love the design of Apple’s phone, but they don’t seem to be very friendly towards developers and I find it difficult to understand how so many developers get excited over a phone that its company is so restrictive about.



Here is a look at my current work. Most of my work has been concentrated on gumstix development for the last couple weeks. I have the custom code written and communication up and running between the gumstix and the roboaudiostix via i2c. I’ll start posting my code soon… I just have to figure how I want to start posting the code to the blog.

I also have bluetooth communication working between my blackberry storm and my gumstix although the code has to be finished on the gumstix. The custom code is working on the blackberry but I simply used minicom running on the gumstix to verify my data coming across so far. My next step will to write the custom c code that runs on the gumstix to handle the incoming messages from the storm.



Here is a closeup of my new gumstix board. I now have a verdex pro XM4-bt to use as the main computer for the parade. I changed to a new board for two reasons. One is that I needed enough memory to store the wav file for the parade and the new verdex pro boards have an on-board SD card slot on them, and the other is the control system is now a blackberry storm. The best way way to control project-E with the blackberry is via bluetooth so it just made sense to have a board with built in bluetooth.

Some Additional Details About My Halloween 2008 Project

January 20th, 2009


Here is an overview of the entire design of the pumkins.


Here is the schematic for the candles. I doubt if it is that good… It’s the first real schematic that I have ever put together. I created it in eagle CAD.?


This is just the simple power supply for both the converter and each candle. I put a power supply on each candle so I could increase the voltage on the lines running to the candles to compensate for the longer runs if necessary.?


Here is the schematic for the RS232 to RS485 Converter. I used this to connect the “Pumpkin Network” to my computer. I would send commands out the RS232 port on my computer into this thing. The commands would then get converted to RS485 signals and broadcast to all the pumpkins. This version currently does not support two way communication. I only needed to tell the pumpkins what to do.?

Getting Started with Xbee

January 7th, 2009


To get started with Xbee I am flashing all the firmware on the chips and making sure my newly built kits from Adafruit Industries are working correctly. In the picture I am using an arduino board without the chip as a USB to TTL-232 converter to talk to the Xbee Chip. I later ordered a couple of cables from Adafruit Industries that do this for you. They come in real handy!?


If you couldn’t tell already why I had the helping hands in the previous picture… here is a closer look. It’s holding one of the wires connected to the Xbee directly to a point on the Arduino board that wasn’t exposed on one of the connectors. Hence why I found it a little nicer to order the USB-TTL232 cables. It worked just fine… but those USB-TTL232 Cables come in handy for so many things. I often use to debug my microcontrollers by hooking a max232 chip up to the microcontroller. I would then use a USB to RS232 cable to hook my computer to the MAX232 chip. Now I just plug the USB-TTL232 into my computer and hook it up directly to my chip. Works great.?