JWoodrell

playing with the software for it, I rebuilt the text display routine to accept fonts that had variable spacing for each character (the example program only had the 8x6 pixel block letters)  and also it can run fonts that take up multiple bytes vertically.
 
I plan to implement vertical scrolling as well, but don't have that done yet.  as an extension of vertical scrolling I am working getting sprites to move smoothly in the vertical direction, as right now they can only display on the whole row numbers (1byte tall, 8 bytes total display, so only 8 vertical positions)  I am going to have the MSP resample the byte array and build the new one with the proper pixels where they need to be.  After that sprite transparency (for the outline mask so they can be other than square sided shapes)
 
anyway I have it down pat on digitizing fonts, it takes about a minute or so.
 
here is the display using 2 different 2 byte tall fonts. (one is called "Segoe Print" in windows, and the other is "italicT" )
 
longterm I am going to have some sort of playable game, with sprite characters probably in a side scrolling shooter format.   well see though 2 colors are limiting.
 
the downside to the 2 byte tall fonts is they take up a chunk of memory.  the italicT one takes up 1668 bytes, and the segoe one takes 1308.  although they only compile into the program if you use them, otherwise they are optimized out.

Hi all!  This is my first post on 43oh forum. I am currently working on a project which i think the 43oh community members will like.   :grin: 
 
Project Description: The main aim of the project was to create a Simple, Easy to control Graphic User Interface (GUI) to control various pins on MSP430 Launchpad (MSP430g2553 uC). The GUI for this purpose was created using Visual C# and can be used on any Windows based System.
 
(GUI in action)
                                                                                                                                                                         
 


Features:
The GUI allows the user to test and develop hardware without having to write any code for the device. Pins configured GPIO can be turned "LOW" or "HIGH". The present version of the GUI enables real time data acquisition and plotting. The data obtained from the pins configured as "ADC" can also be stored in an Excel Sheet. Data from Internal Temperature Sensor of the uC can be obtained and plotted as well. The GUI enables the user to Generate three independent PWM Signals and vary the Duty Cycle. Instructions:  You need to upload a code to the MSP430g2553 microcontroller for working with the GUI. The code and the application GUI can be downloaded from the link given below. Extract the contents of the download file and load the MSP430_ControlWare project in Code Composer Studio and upload the code to the MSP430 Launchpad (MSP430g2553 uC). You can also view the video for the demonstration of the GUI. 
 
Future Upgrades:  First thing that i will do this weekend is to implement a scheme for making the serial communication more efficient. There are way too many comparisons in the current code and i would definitely like to reduce that by a significant amount. Secondly, i will improve the PWM part to allow user to select the frequency as well. I would like to have suggestions on what more i should do with the User Interface.
 
For any queries and suggestions, feel free to drop me a mail or reply to this post.
 
MSP430 ControlWare.rar 

I found exactly what I was looking for here:  
 
http://artists.sci-toys.com/speech
 
This is working great!

Got this from TI:
http://links.mkt102.com/servlet/MailView?ms=NDI3MTAxMTQS1&r=NjQwMTIxMDExNjYS1&j=MjA0ODMxMDU4S0&mt=1&rt=0
 
Surprise at the end of the short survey.
 
 

[update]
have text displaying in 3 sizes now (1,2,and 3 bytes tall, although the 2 and 3 byte tall font takes up a CHUNK of memory for the bitmaps (around 1.5k for the 2 byte tall, and around 3k for the 3 byte tall.  so if all 3 sizes are enabled then it takes up about 5k of memory.)
 
also have preliminary work done on displaying an image at an arbitrary pixel height.  but the display breaks sometimes when you feed a certain byte into the image data.  and it makes no sense, the display code is exactly the same, and it isn't a timing thing.  so I'm stumped :-(
see the most for more info
 
Video of the ball bouncing around  you can see the byte boundries by the black box that follows the ball around (this is the true "image" being written to the screen, im just reediting it every frame to move the image within the image.
[/update]
ok, got the screen brightness sorted out with the help of Bluehash.
 
Here is the ? terminal booster running on the ? launchpad platform.  powered by a 100mAh lipo battery.  the screen is the same one from "the Terminal" oled booster that bluehash made.
 
battery charging works through the USB port.
 
I am going to get the program written so it does more than just display its name. but I need to figure out the bit graphics used in the icons.h file.
 
the entire ? booster, and ? LP hide behind the screen itself.  next version of the booster will have a tab so you can wear the thing like a nametag
 
side view
front view
 
I will run some tests to figure out current draw to see how long the battery will last, and maybe modify the current resistor to dim the screen to lower current if I need to.
 

[update]
have text displaying in 3 sizes now (1,2,and 3 bytes tall, although the 2 and 3 byte tall font takes up a CHUNK of memory for the bitmaps (around 1.5k for the 2 byte tall, and around 3k for the 3 byte tall.  so if all 3 sizes are enabled then it takes up about 5k of memory.)
 
also have preliminary work done on displaying an image at an arbitrary pixel height.  but the display breaks sometimes when you feed a certain byte into the image data.  and it makes no sense, the display code is exactly the same, and it isn't a timing thing.  so I'm stumped :-(
see the most for more info
 
Video of the ball bouncing around  you can see the byte boundries by the black box that follows the ball around (this is the true "image" being written to the screen, im just reediting it every frame to move the image within the image.
[/update]
ok, got the screen brightness sorted out with the help of Bluehash.
 
Here is the ? terminal booster running on the ? launchpad platform.  powered by a 100mAh lipo battery.  the screen is the same one from "the Terminal" oled booster that bluehash made.
 
battery charging works through the USB port.
 
I am going to get the program written so it does more than just display its name. but I need to figure out the bit graphics used in the icons.h file.
 
the entire ? booster, and ? LP hide behind the screen itself.  next version of the booster will have a tab so you can wear the thing like a nametag
 
side view
front view
 
I will run some tests to figure out current draw to see how long the battery will last, and maybe modify the current resistor to dim the screen to lower current if I need to.
 

[update]
have text displaying in 3 sizes now (1,2,and 3 bytes tall, although the 2 and 3 byte tall font takes up a CHUNK of memory for the bitmaps (around 1.5k for the 2 byte tall, and around 3k for the 3 byte tall.  so if all 3 sizes are enabled then it takes up about 5k of memory.)
 
also have preliminary work done on displaying an image at an arbitrary pixel height.  but the display breaks sometimes when you feed a certain byte into the image data.  and it makes no sense, the display code is exactly the same, and it isn't a timing thing.  so I'm stumped :-(
see the most for more info
 
Video of the ball bouncing around  you can see the byte boundries by the black box that follows the ball around (this is the true "image" being written to the screen, im just reediting it every frame to move the image within the image.
[/update]
ok, got the screen brightness sorted out with the help of Bluehash.
 
Here is the ? terminal booster running on the ? launchpad platform.  powered by a 100mAh lipo battery.  the screen is the same one from "the Terminal" oled booster that bluehash made.
 
battery charging works through the USB port.
 
I am going to get the program written so it does more than just display its name. but I need to figure out the bit graphics used in the icons.h file.
 
the entire ? booster, and ? LP hide behind the screen itself.  next version of the booster will have a tab so you can wear the thing like a nametag
 
side view
front view
 
I will run some tests to figure out current draw to see how long the battery will last, and maybe modify the current resistor to dim the screen to lower current if I need to.
 

Picture (MSP430F2132) from http://e2e.ti.com
 

[update]
have text displaying in 3 sizes now (1,2,and 3 bytes tall, although the 2 and 3 byte tall font takes up a CHUNK of memory for the bitmaps (around 1.5k for the 2 byte tall, and around 3k for the 3 byte tall.  so if all 3 sizes are enabled then it takes up about 5k of memory.)
 
also have preliminary work done on displaying an image at an arbitrary pixel height.  but the display breaks sometimes when you feed a certain byte into the image data.  and it makes no sense, the display code is exactly the same, and it isn't a timing thing.  so I'm stumped :-(
see the most for more info
 
Video of the ball bouncing around  you can see the byte boundries by the black box that follows the ball around (this is the true "image" being written to the screen, im just reediting it every frame to move the image within the image.
[/update]
ok, got the screen brightness sorted out with the help of Bluehash.
 
Here is the ? terminal booster running on the ? launchpad platform.  powered by a 100mAh lipo battery.  the screen is the same one from "the Terminal" oled booster that bluehash made.
 
battery charging works through the USB port.
 
I am going to get the program written so it does more than just display its name. but I need to figure out the bit graphics used in the icons.h file.
 
the entire ? booster, and ? LP hide behind the screen itself.  next version of the booster will have a tab so you can wear the thing like a nametag
 
side view
front view
 
I will run some tests to figure out current draw to see how long the battery will last, and maybe modify the current resistor to dim the screen to lower current if I need to.
 

hey guys I was searching around on the vendor sites putting an order together...  and found something odd,  Arrow has the G2553 TSSOP chip for $1.56 ish  (20 pin) and $1.65 ish (28 pin) at quantities of 1
 
I went ahead and ordered 5 of each for my stock, but that is odd because EVERY other vendor has those at 2 to 2.50 a chip...  they only have a few 20 pins in stock left, but have several hundred 28 pin ones.
 
so i guess if you need 28 pin g2553's go snag a few at a pretty good (30%) discount.
 
just something I found, may be usefull to others
 
LINK to ARROW

hey guys I was searching around on the vendor sites putting an order together...  and found something odd,  Arrow has the G2553 TSSOP chip for $1.56 ish  (20 pin) and $1.65 ish (28 pin) at quantities of 1
 
I went ahead and ordered 5 of each for my stock, but that is odd because EVERY other vendor has those at 2 to 2.50 a chip...  they only have a few 20 pins in stock left, but have several hundred 28 pin ones.
 
so i guess if you need 28 pin g2553's go snag a few at a pretty good (30%) discount.
 
just something I found, may be usefull to others
 
LINK to ARROW

hey guys I was searching around on the vendor sites putting an order together...  and found something odd,  Arrow has the G2553 TSSOP chip for $1.56 ish  (20 pin) and $1.65 ish (28 pin) at quantities of 1
 
I went ahead and ordered 5 of each for my stock, but that is odd because EVERY other vendor has those at 2 to 2.50 a chip...  they only have a few 20 pins in stock left, but have several hundred 28 pin ones.
 
so i guess if you need 28 pin g2553's go snag a few at a pretty good (30%) discount.
 
just something I found, may be usefull to others
 
LINK to ARROW

ams.com will often send samples of their rotary encoders.

As of last Friday I'm the proud father of three children! My oldest daughter is three years of age and my son and youngest daughter are only 5 days young.
 
As a result (you can imagine) I won't be able to bug you guys a lot ;-)

My sister sent me this, thought you guys would enjoy this

Natural language programming. ;-)
 
"Take the voltage from pin 12, and when it matches 59, multiply it by 5 and divide by 3 and use that to PWM pin 43."

A Grove Booster Pack has been developed on Upverter.
 

 
A few words about the design.
Seeed Studio's Grove I/O Expansion BoosterPack is designed to enable interfacing between Texas Instruments (TI) LaunchPads and the Grove modular electronics ecosystem. To provide a straightforward means of evaluating single function modules, such as sensors, actuators, and displays, with the embedded intelligence of a microcontroller platform, the Grove BoosterPack will streamline the process for entry level users, students, and hobbyists. Though oriented towards TI's 40-pin LaunchPad series, the Grove BoosterPack will also perform on TI's 20-pin LaunchPad series with a limited number of connectors.
The Grove BoosterPack's full listing of features includes:
Selectable module supply voltage of 3.3V or 5V Approximately 100 Grove modules to select from Shrouded, 4-pin buckle connectors to lock-in modules 23 total connectors13 Digital connectors 7 Analog connectors 3 Specialized connectors (UART, SPI, and I2C) For more information on TI's LaunchPads, visit www.ti.com/launchpad 
For more information on Seeed Studio's Grove, visithttp://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/grove-t-3.html?ref=top
http://blog.upverter.com/design-of-the-week-by-a-whitehead
 
https://upverter.com/a-whitehead/3cebfa8448f208b0/SIMPLE-LaunchPad-BoosterPack-for-Seeed-Studios-Grove/

I'm all about the FTDI chips, the FT230X being the cheapest one to integrate into your board.  Provide a USB mini-B or micro-B port for hooking up and you have a self-contained USB-UART solution...
 
edit: Also, there's a "standard" 6-pin layout for attaching an FTDI cable to a circuit, and FTDI (along with many others) make cables or modules that support this pinout, so you can attach it to your nametag when you need comms and detach it when you're done.

changed it over to SMD headers and had to change the LED orientation scheme to keep the feet from hitting the ground vias.  the incoming power will be close to 4 amps when all the leds are lit up so it is a nice FAT 80 mil power trace to feed it down to the 5v net on the board.
 
each row going up is flipped around rather than each column like I had last time
 
worked to keep all the ground return paths clear
 
I don't know if I should use a 4 pin header (2 pin 5v+, and 2 pins for GND) although the pin headers are generally rated at 1amp per pin, i can't see using 4in and 4out
 
I also have the option of using a resistor for the VCC voltage rather than the LDO like i saw on @@RobG's board...  so either could be used. (unless I misinterpreted what it was )

Hello, I am a Ph.D student at Clemson University and will be working with the MSP430 in my research. The current MSP I am working with is the MSP430F2012. I figured with all the materials available and great people working with these devices that this would be a good forum to join.  

ok, played with the screen on "the terminal"  and without the eagle files had to make some assumptions as to what jumpers were pre connected to what for the g2553, but i think I got it right.
 
anyway here is the  "The ? Terminal" booster.  should be drop in code wise with the full size version (I don't know where to get the OLED screens right now, but it is pretty simple) 
 
let me know what youthink, or if I didn't connect the lines right....  it was guessing. 
 
worked on shrinking the PCB down more, moved the push buttons to side press buttons and put them on the back of the pcb, and shrank it down to the header size.   new PCB size is  26.75mm x 14.25mm  after soldering the OLED flex strip, flip it up and mount it with heavy double sided tape (the permanent kind)

 
here are the eagle files
micro_OLED.zip
 
[old version]
PCB ended up at 40mm x 19.5mm  if I cut the buttons out it would be 28mm x 19.5mm

I mostly agree with you. You can certainly do a lot more in an interrupt routine than the typical "set a flag & return" that is commonly espoused. But at the same time it isn't wise to load them up with time-consuming tasks and hope the hardware scheduler will take care of several interrupts piling up. 
 
In short there is no single "right way" to do things. 
 
There are several considerations such as:
 - the likely frequency of the interrupt
 - how much work the background operation needs to do.
 - what happens if multiple interrupts come through before the previous one has been completely dealt with - ie, can multiple interrupts be ignored, or does every one need to be attended to.  
 - The 430's low power modes can make things interesting too - depending on the task, you can sometimes put all your functionality in the main loop, and all the ISR has to do is wake the processor from sleep.
 - RAM requirements - on uCs with very small RAM, it can be easy to chew through the stack if the main routine calls functions a few levels deep and the ISR also calls multiple levels of functions.
 - Another risk is calling code that is not re-entrant.  An example of this might be if you have an LCD module - The main routine may have called a function to write data to the LCD. Halfway through writing a sequence of data an interrupt is triggered, and the ISR also tries to write data. In this case, corruption is guaranteed. 
 
Personally, while I agree that useful work can be done inside an ISR, I would prefer to err on the side of doing too little in the ISR than trying to do too much.

ok, played with the screen on "the terminal"  and without the eagle files had to make some assumptions as to what jumpers were pre connected to what for the g2553, but i think I got it right.
 
anyway here is the  "The ? Terminal" booster.  should be drop in code wise with the full size version (I don't know where to get the OLED screens right now, but it is pretty simple) 
 
let me know what youthink, or if I didn't connect the lines right....  it was guessing. 
 
worked on shrinking the PCB down more, moved the push buttons to side press buttons and put them on the back of the pcb, and shrank it down to the header size.   new PCB size is  26.75mm x 14.25mm  after soldering the OLED flex strip, flip it up and mount it with heavy double sided tape (the permanent kind)

 
here are the eagle files
micro_OLED.zip
 
[old version]
PCB ended up at 40mm x 19.5mm  if I cut the buttons out it would be 28mm x 19.5mm

ok, played with the screen on "the terminal"  and without the eagle files had to make some assumptions as to what jumpers were pre connected to what for the g2553, but i think I got it right.
 
anyway here is the  "The ? Terminal" booster.  should be drop in code wise with the full size version (I don't know where to get the OLED screens right now, but it is pretty simple) 
 
let me know what youthink, or if I didn't connect the lines right....  it was guessing. 
 
worked on shrinking the PCB down more, moved the push buttons to side press buttons and put them on the back of the pcb, and shrank it down to the header size.   new PCB size is  26.75mm x 14.25mm  after soldering the OLED flex strip, flip it up and mount it with heavy double sided tape (the permanent kind)

 
here are the eagle files
micro_OLED.zip
 
[old version]
PCB ended up at 40mm x 19.5mm  if I cut the buttons out it would be 28mm x 19.5mm

Rats!  So close but yet so far.....  :grin: