Raspberry Pi

[james]

Well..... I only had a little while to work with the Pi yesterday, but....

I installed samba so I can find the Pi in my Windows workgroup and drag and drop files in and out of a directory on the Pi.

I also figured out how to get the Pi to boot up with a 32 bit frame buffer. So X now runs in full 32 bit color and LaserBoy looks perfect!

The performance is so-so. It is noticeably slower than a typical PC. But it works! And it's a nice resolution.

For the record, it takes more than 30 minutes to compile the LaserBoy code!

I think I will work out the last few nits about getting LaserBoy to look perfect in 16 bit packed pixel video mode. That uses half the video RAM and things move a bit faster.

I found that I have to look for a compile time macro to determine that the LaserBoy code is being compiled for an ARM processor, so I can twiddle the order of the bytes for proper RGBA byte order in the video RAM (much like for Mac OSX but a different order).

As I do more and more research on SoC computers or "PC on a stick" I realize that the Raspberry Pi is old news and slow!

There are other offerings coming out by the day that are faster, smaller and even cheaper if you consider the fact that you also have to include the price of the power supply, cables, mem cards, USB hub, etc, etc...

There are dual core and even quad core ARM processors with up to 2GB of RAM!

I think I will be releasing a new version of LaserBoy soon with instructions for installing and compiling it on the Raspberry Pi and I will try to get my hands on the fastest new quad core 2GB stick as soon as I can!

The only issue with that is that these new SoC computers all come with Android installed and they do not usually have a standard wired Ethernet connector. They have WiFi and Bluetooth and the Linux community has to get the drivers working for these devices. I have no doubt they will!

James.

[JohnYayas]

Cool. Are you going to make a LaserBoy PocketPal?

[mrfloppy]

what did you set your video ram split to?
and did you overclock it?
mine works fine on 1 Ghz

[james]

I left the video RAM split the way it was. I think it's 64MB for the frame buffer in Raspbian Wheezy. I have not attempted to overclock it yet. I got a crumby snap-together case when I ordered it. Since then, I ordered a nicer Plexyglass case that comes with two tiny heat syncs for the CPU and GPU. When I get that, I might try to over clock it.

These things are so new, most of the really attractive models are still not available to the general public! Once I get my hands on a quad core ARM with 2GB of on-board RAM I will probably develop it into a complete LaserBoy workstation that can be placed inside the projector with a modified sound card DAC. Then I can write some apps to make it easier to control the whole thing remotely.

I said it before, way back in like 2008 (or before). The nice thing about doing all the processing in Generic C++ code (as opposed to proprietary hardware + firmware) is that it can be compiled and run on just about anything that qualifies as a computer! These things will only get smaller, faster and cheaper. And LaserBoy will always have new places to go!

At some point, I will look into HDMI audio streams. HDMI supports 8 channel Linear PCM audio streams! I already found a device that splits the audio stream off the HDMI signal and converts it to 8 discrete analog audio signals. Right now it's about $150. That will go down fast when there is more demand and more competition.

High definition audio streams as part of multi-media streaming will always be well developed and supported. Specialized laser show signals.... not so much.

I'm going to put my time and effort into going with what is already out there and make the most of it.

James.

[james]

Huh!

I just noticed that my forum status was changed from "Senior Member" to "Technically Still Banned".

I wonder what that's all about.

Does anyone else share this status or am I just super special?

More to the point, why?

James.

[ImageLight]

I move to rescue James from the island of broken ILDA toys and let him walk freely among us.. He's been banished long enough..

Mark

[james]

Thanks Mark!

I have to admit it's pretty depressing to feel like I'm in the 6th grade all over again.

James.

[mixedgas]

Ok, I'll say it because every body else will not.

That signature might have something to do with sound card DACs having poor quality and many frustrated users. In the eyes of the board's owner, and others. The whole counterculture thing is fine, but preaching to newbies that there is nothing better has irritated many. Especially those who have to clean up after the mess, or constantly suggest FB3, Spaghetti or Riya as a better buy to some one who has already spent 200$ and countless hours to find they they are way behind the state of the art. It is is not cheaper, long term, to use a sound card DAC. Playing the same WAV over and over without hotkeys for music sync or other effects is not very useful in a club or party environment.

Once upon a time it was a good deal. But I note no one else has wrote support for the concept for in years. If there were a actual real time show controller that used WAVs that might be useful, but it does not exist. There is nothing easy that is dedicated to laser, easily runs on Win7 or Linux or Win8 and has a real time functionality that uses WAVs. That alone makes the concept dated.


Its time to move on to some other output device James.

A few SPI dac chips hooked to a PI is a trivial exercise in hardware development. The SPI high level call library is already publically available. In line assembler to write a driver or call function has to be trivial with the amount of ARM support out there.


Steve

[james]

OK. Steve.

While you're at it, why not convince the entire laser display industry that using ADAT machines is a bad idea.

I've worked with one person after another, tech supporting them trough a LaserBoy DAC build and they have all found great success with it.

It seems pretty strange to use a few complaints about specific sound devices on specific computer platforms to shoot down the whole idea,

AND me with it!

~Especially when there are some people out there who think they know something about it and don't!

If people are having problems getting it to work, maybe they should contact me. I've seen just about every way it can fail and I know in most cases how to fix it. Most of the problems I've seen (excluding improperly built correction amps) are with the Windows sound system itself. It's very picky about how it deals with 6 or 8 channel sound devices (any of them).

In general, the idea is simple and sound.

The kinds of laser signals that we are all dealing with to control color modulation and scanners are well within the definition and specifications of multi-channel linear PCM digital audio streams.

That will always be true.

Specific hardware issues are superfluous.

Can you name any other solution that works exactly the same in all modern computing platforms?

James.

[mixedgas]

If Adat machines are so great, why are the few of us that still have content for them, or wish to preserve the art others have on tape or hard drive recorders trying to get everything ported to LSX or Pango or Lasergraph Dsp ASAP? There is only one plant in the world still making tape, and they are phasing it out. I had a "End of lifetime buy" notice on tape in my in box a while ago.

The newer Alesis and other HD or better products do not support DC coupling nor are they capable of being modified without custom ASICS on add on boards. Even that is difficult.

Your dodging the question. Why with all your programming skills will you not write a modern integrated ap, with hotkeys and a time line, and built in 3D editor etc.?? It is a PITA to create art in one program, digitize it in another, move it to Laserboy, convert to wav, edit it some place else, move it to another ap to play back, all while praying the C-Media drivers will stav stable enough for one evening. In the olden days laser told a story and was edited for a canned playback. Now laser is interactive, done in real time, controlled by a DJ or Lighting Designer, and few people set back and relax for graphics shows.

Time to write a modern ap and give up on the past. My cell phone has more processing power then my entire collection of laser gear, and its cross platform. Heck, we dont even call code programs any more, they are applications. Like in Applied, Easy, and Useful?

I just spent my entire day in a mouseless, touch screen environment and loved it. Even signed my signature with my index finger and it looked as good as it would with a pen.

Steve