Issues with your account? Bug us in the Discord!

Biggles, slap a B5 logo an some kanji on it...

bobobobo (A monkey)
in Zocalo v2.0
...and [URL=http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS2142584362.html]this project[/URL] covers most of your expressed interests.

I keep hearing "flight of the valkyries" in the background.:)

Comments

  • JackNJackN <font color=#99FF99>Lightwave Alien</font>
    Love to get my hands on one of those "gumstix"... ;)
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    I saw that on slashdot yesterday, and spent the next hour dreaming about the cool things I could do with it, most of them involving terrified undergrads. :D
  • FreejackFreejack Jake the Not-so-Wise
    Maybe it doesn't work this way, but I wonder how many craft can be removed before the cluster looses enough computing power that it can no longer maintain the autonomous nature of the group...

    Jake
  • sleepy_shadowsleepy_shadow Ranger
    Hoping already for a while to build a similar contraption... I was impressed upon reading this article.

    For their indoors version, they seem to have used the airframe of ProxFlyer -- and somehow managed to fit everything necessary onto a Gumstix with only 4 MB of Flash.

    I personally... dare not set such ambitious goals. My project revolves around acquiring a Kontron X-Board 861 with 128 MB of Flash (already ordered from dealcomp.fi, but they picked the wrong product code and are currently swapping it around)...

    ...and scaling down Debian 3.1 (or if nothing helps, then an older version, since EmDebian is having trouble picking up pace) to run on this.

    P.S.

    This reminds me: if anyone among you needed to obtain 200-contact DDR-SODIMM sockets (the interface socket for X-Board)... which stores would you look from?

    I found 144-contact sockets at DPIE. Correct ones might be available via Tri-M (which I've bought from) or DealComp (which as mentioned, I hope to buy from)... but for something like sockets, I would prefer a somewhat more "retail-flavoured" source. Unfortunately ELFA does not seem to carry suitable ones.

    P.P.S

    It would be even better... if I found a flavour of socket suitable for experimentation (i.e. connecting to a breadboard, as opposed to soldering with concerningly high precision).

    P.P.P.S (my editing habits are getting silly :p )

    I just discovered that if handled correctly, the X-Board *can* fly -- at least some people in Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne have [url=http://asl.epfl.ch/index.html?content=research/projects/VtolIndoorFlying/indoorFlying.php]reached quite far with it[/url].

    I wonder how they made their baseboard.
  • JackNJackN <font color=#99FF99>Lightwave Alien</font>
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by sleepy_shadow [/i]
    [B]For their indoors version, they seem to have used the airframe of ProxFlyer -- and somehow managed to fit everything necessary onto a Gumstix with only 4 MB of Flash.

    I personally... dare not set such ambitious goals. My project revolves around acquiring a Kontron X-Board 861 with 128 MB of Flash (already ordered from dealcomp.fi, but they picked the wrong product code and are currently swapping it around)...

    ...and scaling down Debian 3.1 (or if nothing helps, then an older version, since EmDebian is having trouble picking up pace) to run on this.
    [/B][/QUOTE]

    Well you know...

    :)

    Those Gumstix have USB 1.1 interfaces, and FLASH memory drives are a dime a dozen anymore...

    Jeeze I just saw one at Best Buy for around $39.99 USD (with mail in rebate of course) that was a 1 Gig drive! ;)

    Could be they program at liesure outside of the system for a 4 meg sized system, and just transfer it over via USB from the flash drive.

    guessing of course, but...

    :)
  • sleepy_shadowsleepy_shadow Ranger
    You are probably right... but I (the problematic bottleneck in the system) haven't succeeded in tweaking the Debian kernel below 4 MB (and I haven't looked at the module tree -- it is probably at least equally much)... :)

    ...and I doubt if Gumstix can boot directly from USB. I know that in worst case, the X-Board can... but Gumstix seems to use somewhat older components.

    Besides, I even suspect that Gumstix has an USB *device* port... as opposed to X-Boards array of three host ports.

    Of course, I could drop Debian from the formula, and try using something smaller (like White Dwarf)... but last time I tried White Dwarf, even fairly standard webcam drivers refused to compile on it.
  • bobobobo (A monkey)
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Freejack [/i]
    [B]Maybe it doesn't work this way, but I wonder how many craft can be removed before the cluster looses enough computing power that it can no longer maintain the autonomous nature of the group...

    Jake [/B][/QUOTE]
    Flocking algorithms are simple enough that a cluster is not required; rather, each server performs its own calculations based on observations of its neighbors.

    The group is not a Group, it's a sum of its parts (if thats not too zen for you)
  • FreejackFreejack Jake the Not-so-Wise
    OK I get it, it's only a group in so far as the craft maintain a certain formation and move in that formation, but each unit is autonomous enough to operate on its own. That said, with the computing power linked in a group, are the tasks that the only the group could perform that a single unit could not?

    Jake
  • sleepy_shadowsleepy_shadow Ranger
    Except the apalling lack of USB host ports... I hereby retract my comments about this "Gumstix" thingy. I read more about them... and they ain't as bad as I first thought (I first learned about them when they were still forming a company, back in 2004).

    They are making a various plugins for connecting them to various useful things -- including a ComplactFlash card.

    I am henceforth seriously considerig Gumstix as a backup solution, in case the X-Board solution should not succeed.

    Or actually... make it a *parallel solution*. Damn me if I ain't going to support this company by buying one. (I just need to take a minute for careful consideration regardng which model and plugins I most need).

    The very fact of them making such things... is highly commendable.
  • JackNJackN <font color=#99FF99>Lightwave Alien</font>
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by sleepy_shadow [/i]
    [B]Except the apalling lack of USB host ports... I hereby retract my comments about this "Gumstix" thingy. I read more about them... and they ain't as bad as I first thought (I first learned about them when they were still forming a company, back in 2004).

    They are making a various plugins for connecting them to various useful things -- including a ComplactFlash card.

    I am henceforth seriously considerig Gumstix as a backup solution, in case the X-Board solution should not succeed.

    Or actually... make it a *parallel solution*. Damn me if I ain't going to support this company by buying one. (I just need to take a minute for careful consideration regardng which model and plugins I most need).

    The very fact of them making such things... is highly commendable. [/B][/QUOTE]

    Buy me one too? :) :D
Sign In or Register to comment.