[Discuss] Hardware Hacking

[markw at mohawksoft.com (Mark Woodward)]

On 06/27/2011 07:30 PM, Derek Martin wrote:
>>> If anyone is curious/interested, I'd love to start a thread or two
>>> talking about how to do some stuff with Linux and I/O cards that may be
>>> a gateway drug to more interesting hardware hacking.
> Do we really need a separate list for this?  It's relevant to Linux
> (so it's on topic) and I don't think the traffic on this list is so
> high as to justify an entirely separate mailing list...   Discussions
> about things such as X10, and other hardware-related topics,
> traditionally have happened here, and I for one like it that way. :)
There is a balance in any list. If it is too busy, it feels like spam. 
You want enough messages to flow to keep people interested, but not so 
many that you ignore them. Hardware hacking? The older guys, like 
myself, who actually own oscilloscopes and soldering irons may be all 
over it. The GenX'ers who grew up after ISA proto cards may not be so 
inclined, but, who knows?

Anyway, as for hardware hacking, My Arduino UNO should be arriving on 
tuesday.

Having done embedded work, I'm looking forward to experimenting with 
this thing. The arduino project really shows the power of the open 
source methodology. Embedded systems are typically so arcane and usually 
require a huge learning curve just to get started. Conversely, the 
arduino firmware is compiled with gcc, the loader and manager is in 
java, and the programming environment is a limited c++. I'm thinking of 
using it in the LinuxPCRobot to replace the K8055 I/O card and the PS/2 
mouse encoder.