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Posted by Padu on July 21, 2006, 12:38 pm
"Clifford Heath"
> Or better yet, get an IDE->CompactFlash adapter. Most CF cards
> run in one of three modes, including "TrueIDE", which is just
> an IDE interface. I made my own without using a PCB, but that
> was out of my sheer bloody-mindedness - it took about 3 hours
> under the 3x goggles to strip all 40 wires on an IDE cable and
> solder it to a CF socket, before encasing all those fragile
> joints in hot-melt glue. I was pretty pleased when it worked!
> There are places in the US where you can buy these, but the $30
> cost plus postage to Australia wasn't my cup of tea :-). The
> advantage then is you won't need +12V, because neither MB's nor
> CF use it.
> Clifford Heath.
Not a good idea if you plan to use regular windows. CF cards have a limited
write life, and windows read/write a lot without you even noticing. You're
gonna render the CF useless in no time.
For a robot though, CF is the best choice (no moving parts, low power
consumption, very resistant to shocks). I use it in my small robot with a
mini-itx board, but I use windows XP embedded. See, winXPe has this special
feature called EWF (enhanced writing filter, or something similar), which is
nothing more than a memory buffer. It uses part of your RAM as if it was
your hard drive, any writes to the hard drives are interrupted and
redirected to memory. It comes with an API, and it is possible to commit the
changes to the hard drive at a certain point under your command.
Cheers
Padu
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Posted by Clifford Heath on July 21, 2006, 8:53 pm
Padu wrote:
> Not a good idea if you plan to use regular windows. CF cards have a limited
> write life,
Why on earth would you run Windows in a robot?
But you're right, I should have said that this
is used to boot Linux to a ramdisk.
Clifford Heath.
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Posted by Gordon McComb on July 22, 2006, 12:14 pm
Clifford Heath wrote:
> Why on earth would you run Windows in a robot?
> But you're right, I should have said that this
> is used to boot Linux to a ramdisk.
This is no longer an issue of suitability of an OS, but availability of
tested and working libraries and examples. The "you can do anything in
Linux" attitude is remarkable, but not realistic for the average person
who doesn't know, or doesn't want to learn, coding requirements for
altering Linux. OTOH, with Windows someone with only general Visual
Basic programming knowledge can put together a fully functional system
with a free copy of Visual Basic Express 2005 and mostly off-the-shelf
open source libraries, such as DirectShowNet for vision work. Realizing
potential here, Microsoft recently announced an (overdue) SDK for
robotics, and there are ad hoc groups within the company doing their own
development in robotics, specializing in unique formats of the OS.
There's a guy in the Mobile group using Windows-based smart phones to
control small robot bases, for example.
No OS flame wars needed here...this is just an observation that Linux
does not "own" the embedded space by some open source right, and even
Windows -- with its closed, bloated, and commercial nature -- could end
up with enough momentum to trivialize Linux for robotics applications.
So, the answer to your question is: "Because you can, and there are
people publishing their Windows-based robotics code and examples on the
Internet."
-- Gordon
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Posted by D. Jay Newman on July 22, 2006, 6:32 pm
Clifford Heath wrote:
> Padu wrote:
>
>> Not a good idea if you plan to use regular windows. CF cards have a
>> limited write life,
>
>
> Why on earth would you run Windows in a robot?
> But you're right, I should have said that this
> is used to boot Linux to a ramdisk.
>
> Clifford Heath.
I'm thinking about going Windows because I'm building a Leaf
robot (http://www.leafproject.org/ ). They have an impressive
software infrastructure that is difficult to beat.
Once I get it going I will convert the sucker to Linux, of
course. :)
I can use CLISP for the Lisp once I write a few libraries
(or for that matter Armed Bear Common Lisp which is cross-
platform). I can use Windows emulators to run the other
software until I can write patches for Linux.
--
D. Jay Newman ! Author of:
jay@sprucegrove.com ! _Linux Robotics: Programming Smarter Robots_
http://enerd.ws/robots/ ! "Heros aren't born, they're cornered."
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Posted by D. Jay Newman on July 21, 2006, 5:31 pm
rohitsden@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello there,
>
> I have an old Pentium PC Motherboard from which I would like to build a
> Mobile Robot. The reason I would like to do this is to use the serial
> port, parallel port, hard disk, RAM, USB,etc and build a platform where
> I could try out different AI algorithms.
>
> I would like to know how to run a Pentium PC motherboard using
> batteries ?
Hmmm. *Very* large sealed lead acid batteries might get you a few
minutes of run-time.
Seriously, I would get either a VIA Epia motherboard or a
Pentium M motherboard.
A Pentium M motherboard can take up to 100 watts depending on
the specifics. At 12 volts that is around 8 amps.
The old Pentiums used a *lot* more power.
I would suggest looking at the Leaf Project for inspiration:
http://www.leafproject.org/
--
D. Jay Newman ! Author of:
jay@sprucegrove.com ! _Linux Robotics: Programming Smarter Robots_
http://enerd.ws/robots/ ! "Heros aren't born, they're cornered."
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> run in one of three modes, including "TrueIDE", which is just
> an IDE interface. I made my own without using a PCB, but that
> was out of my sheer bloody-mindedness - it took about 3 hours
> under the 3x goggles to strip all 40 wires on an IDE cable and
> solder it to a CF socket, before encasing all those fragile
> joints in hot-melt glue. I was pretty pleased when it worked!
> There are places in the US where you can buy these, but the $30
> cost plus postage to Australia wasn't my cup of tea :-). The
> advantage then is you won't need +12V, because neither MB's nor
> CF use it.
> Clifford Heath.