31.10.08
Greetings
This is my first blog post to this, or any other blog... so please bear with me as I gather up steam and learn the new format.
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Brandon. Hello! I know there isn't much listed on my current project, so here is generally the gist... we got an old upright Lexington-brand piano free from some nice people who were cleaning their basement. The guys here were interested in getting a piano for the foyer, but didn't want to spend a lot [read "any"] money. As such, the piano is what you expect from a free piano. The word "totaled" comes to mind [and that of the piano tuner I had take a look at it].
To make a long story short, being the group full of steam-punk, tinkering, tech heads that only the readers of this blog might enjoy, we decided to turn this 1940's upright piano into an electric keyboard. Perfect! Keeps a tune forever and maybe does other nice nifty things as well.
Having never messed with embedded systems [or electronics even], it made process somewhat scary. However, it still had to be easier [and cheaper] than rebuilding normally. I got together with Sam [who is Fantastic in only ways Dr. Who can describe] and plotted the course. We purchased the following items:
* 100 x Small Raised Tactile Switches
* 3 x Atmega16 Microcontrollers
* 3 x 5 Volt VRMs
* 1 x JTAG-ICE-MKI programmer for said Atmegas
* 1 x "magical" breakout board from Sparkfun [SKU: BOB-00718 ] to turn signals into computer based serial.
* 1 x Jumperkit, including Capacitors, resistors, and some breadboards... various other sundry electronic components [Total cost so far, < $150 US].
The general goal is to have the microcontroller interpret the incoming signals from the various buttons, encode them into a long byte stream, send it over to a laptop running ALSA hidden in the piano cabinent and PRESTO! Electronic piano!
As to installing the AVR Toolkit, I know that Sam mentioned how frustrating some things were. I am running Mandriva Linux 2008 on my devel-machine and installed the following packages to get everything working AOK:
avrdude
avr-libc-1.6.2
binutils-2.19.50
ddd [graphical gdb front-end, kinda nice since I'm not used to gdb]
gcc-4.3.2 for the AVR [you'll use --target=avr]
gdb-6.8 [for handyness]
gmp-4.2.2
mpfr-2.3.0
simulavr-0.1.2.5
Those are all of the packages that you truly need [plus their sub-dependencies, such as a YACC or a BISON... also a neat one called "m4" for gcc.
With those installed, you should be good to go. However, I do want to draw this post to a close as otherwise it will be so long you might loose interest.
I will post my Makefile and other "piano-warez" on my website or this blog for those who are interested. The Makefile is very basic, so remember, just because you graduate with a BS in CS does not make you a programmer.
I will also post on some of my other projects as they happen.
Regards,
Brandon Bagwell
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Brandon. Hello! I know there isn't much listed on my current project, so here is generally the gist... we got an old upright Lexington-brand piano free from some nice people who were cleaning their basement. The guys here were interested in getting a piano for the foyer, but didn't want to spend a lot [read "any"] money. As such, the piano is what you expect from a free piano. The word "totaled" comes to mind [and that of the piano tuner I had take a look at it].
To make a long story short, being the group full of steam-punk, tinkering, tech heads that only the readers of this blog might enjoy, we decided to turn this 1940's upright piano into an electric keyboard. Perfect! Keeps a tune forever and maybe does other nice nifty things as well.
Having never messed with embedded systems [or electronics even], it made process somewhat scary. However, it still had to be easier [and cheaper] than rebuilding normally. I got together with Sam [who is Fantastic in only ways Dr. Who can describe] and plotted the course. We purchased the following items:
* 100 x Small Raised Tactile Switches
* 3 x Atmega16 Microcontrollers
* 3 x 5 Volt VRMs
* 1 x JTAG-ICE-MKI programmer for said Atmegas
* 1 x "magical" breakout board from Sparkfun [SKU: BOB-00718 ] to turn signals into computer based serial.
* 1 x Jumperkit, including Capacitors, resistors, and some breadboards... various other sundry electronic components [Total cost so far, < $150 US].
The general goal is to have the microcontroller interpret the incoming signals from the various buttons, encode them into a long byte stream, send it over to a laptop running ALSA hidden in the piano cabinent and PRESTO! Electronic piano!
As to installing the AVR Toolkit, I know that Sam mentioned how frustrating some things were. I am running Mandriva Linux 2008 on my devel-machine and installed the following packages to get everything working AOK:
avrdude
avr-libc-1.6.2
binutils-2.19.50
ddd [graphical gdb front-end, kinda nice since I'm not used to gdb]
gcc-4.3.2 for the AVR [you'll use --target=avr]
gdb-6.8 [for handyness]
gmp-4.2.2
mpfr-2.3.0
simulavr-0.1.2.5
Those are all of the packages that you truly need [plus their sub-dependencies, such as a YACC or a BISON... also a neat one called "m4" for gcc.
With those installed, you should be good to go. However, I do want to draw this post to a close as otherwise it will be so long you might loose interest.
I will post my Makefile and other "piano-warez" on my website or this blog for those who are interested. The Makefile is very basic, so remember, just because you graduate with a BS in CS does not make you a programmer.
I will also post on some of my other projects as they happen.
Regards,
Brandon Bagwell
Labels: avr piano gcc atmega brandon
posted by Brandon Bagwell # 22:54 
