Hi Jim I'm not that far off retirement myself. I am away from Friday for 10 days. I hope there will be enough interest stacked up by the time I return to make it a goer. Building things is good therapy so keep coding away.
Bob On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 13:20 -0600, Jim Rogers, W4ATK wrote: > Bob I am a retired senior systems analyst and would be most interested in > taking part in such an activity. I have programmed in assembler, basic, > pascal, C, Visual Basic and of course that dinasaur COBOL (ugh!). Currently > I have been exploring OS X and Xcode. Old programmers never die, they just > code away. Please keep me posted. > > 73s Jim, W4ATK > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://web.mac.com/jimrogers_w4atk > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Bob Cowdery" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Reflector Flex-Radio" <flexRadio@flex-radio.biz> > Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 4:43 PM > Subject: [Flexradio] A proposal > > > > Hi all > > > > If you are not in the slightest interested in delving into some of the > > software engineering behind all the wonderful SDR hardware available > > then please disregard this message. > > > > The purpose of this message is to gauge interest in learning how to > > apply Erlang to SDR implementations. Anybody who has been following > > along with the messages on the various forums must be aware that Erlang > > is an integral part of some future architectures. I happen to believe in > > its capabilities and therefore want to promote its use. I am not > > implying that what I am doing is in any way the actual implementation of > > that future, just that it's a good base from which to start learning. > > > > My proposal would be along the following lines. A set of tutorial based > > sessions with supporting software and text. These would be delivered > > over Skype or some other similar forum. The sessions would build up to a > > working radio using the building blocks that I have developed. Each > > component (primarily the Erlang parts) of the architecture would > > therefore be explained in detail and thus the Erlang language would be > > taught by example after perhaps a primer session. The intention would be > > not just to explain what is there but to enable experimentation by > > building new parts to plug into the architecture and explore ways to > > improve and enhance the design. > > > > I would expect to cover the following topics. > > > > 1. Why Erlang? Installation of Erlang, dev tools and a language primer. > > 2. Context, how the Erlink-SR architecture fits together. How messages > > are routed. > > 3. The message routing component explained with a test harness to > > experiment with. > > 4. Linking to C code. How do linked-in drivers work. How is data > > marshaled between the Erlang and C sides. An explanation of the Erlang > > 'C' helper library. Supported with simple examples to play with. > > 5. The main data handing components explained and the use of shared > > memory. All these use linked-in-drivers to acquire, process and output > > sample data. Simple test harnesses will be used to exercise these > > components. > > 6. The Mnesia database explained and the radio database API with a test > > harness to exercise the database. > > 7. The Erlang bindings to wxWidgets explained with some simple > > stand-alone UI examples. The integration of wxErlang with Erlink-SR with > > a walk-through of the pattern for creating new widgets and how they > > interact with the system. > > 8. Driving the hardware, a walk through the hardware component and a > > test harness to exercise it. > > 9. Putting it all together. The OTP (Open Telecomms Platform). The FSM > > (the OTP FSM behaviour, not to be confused with anything else going by > > that name) at the centre of the system, what it does and how it does it. > > The system startup and shutdown. > > 10. Running the radio. What's missing and discussions of how to address > > the missing parts and build out new capability. > > 11. A quick look at the Java integration using erlink-j. > > > > You should come out of this knowing a lot about Erlang and have an SDR > > system you understand sufficiently to be able to experiment with and > > contribute to. A couple of provisos. The system is not finished yet but > > there is enough there to run the sessions and to run a receiver (SDR1000 > > only at the moment) under Windows. The C code is not ported to Linux yet > > so if you have only Linux you won't be able to run everything. You will > > need to have had some programming experience to get full benefit but you > > should be able to follow along and try the built examples without any > > previous experience. > > > > Now for the crunch. Obviously, this would involve me in a lot of effort > > and I would be looking to cover some of my time by charging a nominal > > fee per session. I would want to keep that very low, maybe something > > like $10 a session. If there are enough people interested to make it > > viable I will make it happen. > > > > A final plea. I don't want to start any discussions about technologies, > > operating systems etc. Please don't use this message as a bouncing > > board. > > > > 73 > > Bob > > G3UKB > > http://www.g3ukb.co.uk (there is a problem with my ISP at the moment so > > the web site is unavailable, but hopefully fixed soon). > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > FlexRadio Systems Mailing List > > FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz > > http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz > > Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ > > Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: > > http://www.flex-radio.com/ > > > _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
