Chronos: (open) where to start?

[elpaso 15]

Hi,

 

I've got the new chronos for my birthday, nice present 

 

Now I would like to start hacking it by compiling a custom firmware, I use gcc and Linux and proprietary software is  not an option for me.

 

I've downloaded and successfully compiled openchronos and openchronos-ng but I'm completely confused about which of the two is the most up-to-date and the preferred starting point.

 

Apparently, the ng fork is more recent, but somewhere in Google group I've read that it has just a fraction of the features that are in (original) openchronos, it doesn't seem to me: make config shows more options in the ng branch.

On the other end, openchronos-ng doesn't compile out of the box if you don't disable accelerometer  because that module is not yet ported.

 

To make things even more complicated, there are a dozen or more forks here and there (github, gitorius, sf etc.) and it's difficult to understand where to start.

 

Is there anybody out there willing to coordinate efforts a little bit?  It seems to me a complete waste of programming resources if everybody forks and there is not a well defined master repository.

 

Any hint?

[elpaso 15]

Ok, I did start and wrote a few notes for those who are willing to start hacking this watch under Linux:

 

http://www.itopen.it/2013/11/28/the-hackable-watch-a-wearable-msp430-mcu/

 

Comments, corrections and suggestions are always welcome!

[bluehash 1,581]

Thanks!

[petertux 40]

I've got the new chronos for my birthday, nice present 

 

Now I would like to start hacking it by compiling a custom firmware, I use gcc and Linux and proprietary software is  not an option for me.

 

I've downloaded and successfully compiled openchronos and openchronos-ng but I'm completely confused about which of the two is the most up-to-date and the preferred starting point.

 

happy birthday

 

regarding your question, it depends of what you intend to do.

 

'openchronos'  is more in line with the original sourcecode, they patched the original code to compile with mspgcc. complete with SimpliciTI stack for wireless comms. the bluerobin stuff was dropped due to too much blobbiness.

 

'openchronos-ng' is more of a complete rewrite, it's much more modularized which makes the code much easier to understand and to tweak by users. the only problem is that not all of the features were ported. there is no SimpliciTI in this fork, but you can switch to the 'swap' git branch that includes code for the swap stack [1] if you need to talk to the outside world.

 

so if you want to slightly tweak the original code go with the first one, however if you want to implement new ideas definitely go with '-ng'.

 

[1] http://code.google.com/p/panstamp/wiki/SWAPchronos

[elpaso 15]

happy birthday ;-)

 

regarding your question, it depends of what you intend to do.

 

'openchronos'  is more in line with the original sourcecode, they patched the original code to compile with mspgcc. complete with SimpliciTI stack for wireless comms. the bluerobin stuff was dropped due to too much blobbiness.

 

'openchronos-ng' is more of a complete rewrite, it's much more modularized which makes the code much easier to understand and to tweak by users. the only problem is that not all of the features were ported. there is no SimpliciTI in this fork, but you can switch to the 'swap' git branch that includes code for the swap stack [1] if you need to talk to the outside world.

 

so if you want to slightly tweak the original code go with the first one, however if you want to implement new ideas definitely go with '-ng'.

 

[1] http://code.google.com/p/panstamp/wiki/SWAPchronos

 

 

Thanks for the wishes and for the clarifications, I've already started with "ng", I like the modules system, it makes it really easy to add a new module.

[Automate 69]

Congrats, you made DP.  http://dangerousprototypes.com/2013/12/03/ti-ez430-chronos-watch-getting-started-on-custom-firmwares/

[elpaso 15]

Thanks!

This explains why my site was so slow yesterday  ;-)

 

BTW, In the meantime I've also added a short Hello World tutorial: http://www.itopen.it/2013/11/29/openchronos-hello-world-tutorial/