Some time in late 2014 I purchased an Intel Edison
About the same time, many manufacturers seemed to be competing for the smallest form factor SBC (Single Board Computer).
While it might seem easy to make a small board, adding WiFi and Bluetooth brings the problem to another level, on other boards these features were an add-on.
On the surface it looked like this was certainly a board to add to my collection.
When it arrived, it was astounding how small it was.
This is the module compared to an AA battery
Photo three minions me, myself and I
It certainly fitted the small size that it claimed.
Unfortunately as I dug into it, I realised that the module on it's own was well ..... power less.
So this tiny board needed to be connected to something else in order to power it, let alone get to the GPIO.
You have to realise that at the time of ordering they weren't on the market, so the third party manufacturing machine hadn't ramped up.
I did order the Arduino Kit to go with the module, and this solves all the access issues, but adds some extra real estate.
In case you've lost the module, it's in the bottom left corner
Photo three minions me, myself and I
So it went into the drawer box (along with many other boards) until I figured out what I'd use it for.
Just to be clear here ...
I buy lots of boards for different reasons.
Some get powered up and I'll try them, others are purchased because I can, so just because it went into the box doesn't reflect on the quality or usefulness.
At some point in time, I'll have a need and they will be there to use.... call it my insurance for a rainy day (or biblical flood proportions given the numbers)
Test Drive
When I was asked to be a judge for the Electronic Upcycle Challenge, I thought it only proper to get the Intel Edison out and take it for a test drive.
I've said it before that I'm not a software programmer (hence why some boards are in the box), so the first step was trying it with Arduino.
Intel have provided plenty of documentation and downloads.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/84575/Intel-Edison-Breakout-Board
The Edison Driver was no problem.
https://downloadmirror.intel.com/24271/eng/IntelEdisonDriverSetupLatest.exe
Intel have provided a platform independant Arduino IDE here
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24271/Intel-Edison-Board-Software-Package?product=84575
I downloaded this and set about extracting it.
The extraction had issues with 17 files.
Cannot create arduino-1.5.3-Intel.1.0.4\hardware\tools\edison\sysroots\core2-32-poky-linux\usr\src\debug\gcc-runtime\4.8.2-r0\gcc-4.8.2\build.i586-poky-linux.i586-poky-linux\i586-poky-linux\libstdc++-v3\include\i586-poky-linux\bits\messages_members.h
Total path and file name length must not exceed 260 characters
Once I added my directory onto it, the full name went to 283 characters. (23 more than the maximum in Win7)
Since my path length was 23 to start with and a further 23 were added by the extraction process, the 46 characters had to be reduced .... somehow.
It meant comprimising where I put the files, or changing how I extracted the files.
To give you an idea this is the tree (I've omitted some directories)
As you can see it is rather long and quite frankly .... a bit unplanned.
How did I extract it
The file is zipped using 7-Zip which is an open source compression utility.
Winzip has been updated and will accept this, but it has limits on what you can do.
I wanted to remove the leading directory name, but there appears to be no way of doing that, even in command line.
I could extract to c:\temp, and then rename the folder from "arduino-1.5.3-Intel.1.0.4" to "Intel_104" which reduced the longest name down to 228 charcters.
By the time I add it back where I want it, it should be 243 charcaters.
The other option is to open it with another utility.
I have an Evaluation copy of WinRAR which open a .7z file as a directory structure.
The default option is to just select the file and then "Extract To".
BUT if you click on the folder it will display all the underlying folders.
Select all
and then "Extract To" and choose your location and folder name.
The leading directory name will be removed.
Intel have also provided a method of adding the Intel Edison to an Arduino 1.6.4 IDE.
Adding the Intel
Edison Board to Arduino* IDE 1.6.4
Basically you Select Tools > Board:* > Boards Manager:
Scroll to the end of the list.
select Intel i686 Boards and click Install.
So that is the first step
Next step will be seeing if we can do anything.
This started as a simple blog, but has now grown over a few posts, so an index is appropriate.
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