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  • Author Author: ntewinkel
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Gobetwino

ntewinkel

I was watching a conversation on the forum about questions regarding Arduino, which involved connecting Arduino to a Windows-based program named "Gobetwino", and it caught my interest.

 

In a nutshell, Gobetwino is a program that runs on your Windows machine, and waits for commands via the serial port.

You can use your Arduino (or any other micro-controller, or even another computer) to send commands to Gobetwino via the serial port.

 

So I set it up and after a bit of fiddling got it to open NotePad and had it type "Hello World!" into the new NotePad file image

 

Attached are the complete step by step instructions for both sides of the equation, in case anyone is interested.

 

ps, I did this on a WindowsXP machine (in a VirtualBox on Mac actually). The Gobetwino author also recommends XP, so it may not work the same way, or at all, on Vista or 7.

 

Cheers,

-Nico

Attachments:
Gobetwino.rtf

  • Hi Nico

     

    TI only supply via distributors in the UK. The main distr. is Farnell (Element14). I hadn't investigated them in detail because they show the MSP430 as out of stock until MAY.

     

    However, I have now looked further and found the following:

     

    price is £3.03GBP with FREE Delivery. However, I must place an order of minimum value£20.00GBP (eg 7 off MSP430!) and then pay 20% tax on top of that...........so still not as well off as you guys across the pond, but that is a better deal than the distr who has it in stock!

     

    Thanks for your offer to ship me one - Not just yet thanks.....I'm well on the way with my LM35's and I'm using 2 - one inside the greenhouse and one outside. You also scared me off about it being much harder to program.........I'm on the point of buying another Arduino anyway so I can have something to work on while the temperature monitor is running!

     

    I can't wait to hear about the wireless cards...........

     

    All the best

     

    Neil

  • in reply to neilk

    Hi Neil,

     

    I found that the easiest and cheapest way to buy it was straight from Texas Instruments on their own website. All the third party places charge horrible amounts for shipping and handling. Plus you can add a few sample chips that way too - I picked up a few 20-pin chips for the added IO pins.

     

    And I still got it overnight that way, so either they have lightning fast couriers or they have warehouses in every country.

     

    The MSP430 is a lot harder to program though. That's almost worth the extra bucks for the Arduino! It's the super cheap price that makes it interesting, so $17 shipping ruins that for me - I just received an Arduino Nano yesterday that cost me $15 on eBay *after* shipping. (Still waiting for the 2 wireless cards)

    If you can't get it straight from TI, it's small and light enough that I could reship one to you for probably about a dollar if we take it out of the box. But I'm pretty sure if you go straight to the TI website that you can get it direct.

     

    I've only done a little bit of Fortran in my days - it was one of my first work terms as part of the university degree. Then it was pretty much all C up until I got into (Apple) Newtonscript and then Java. So with C now being the standard for firmware, that's a useful skill to have again image

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico

  • in reply to neilk

    Hi again Nico

     

    I looked at the MSP430 & watched the 2 launchpad videos............amazing.

     

    The only UK agent I could find quickly, with the MSP430 in stock, will charge me £3.26GBP - similar to your $4.30, but also £12.00GBP - around $17 for shipping...................................I am kind of speechless. There may have also been a further 20% tax on top - I didn't get that far in the ordering process!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

     

    However, If I bought 20 of them, I would get free shipping.................

     

    All the best

     

    Neil

  • Hi Nico

     

    The MSP430 sounds interesting; I'll check it out!

     

    I haven't made much progress in a forward direction, other than re-writing a huge amount of code and consequently achieving a tremendous feeling of self-satisfaction:-

     

    I'm not a C programmer - my programming was ALGOL, FORTRAN, various assemblers and finally MUMPS or M, before I ceased programming more or less commpletely around 20 years ago. Consequently, since taking up with Arduino, I have been totally reliant on the (EXCELLENT) published reference information and forums.

     

    For instance, I'd never heard of stdlib and particularly the atoi() and itoa() functions, until I saw them and  puzzled over them in the gobetwino sample sketches. I also had no idea about using pointers, again until I saw it in the same place.

     

    Basically, I have rewritten all my I/O code to use pointers with character Arrays instead of String objects and atoi().........and scrapped a lot of my own code that I had laboriously written to do the same jobs. Self-satisfied is how I feel!

     

    Also - We have our grandaughters staying (8 and 11) so there are other demands on my time between breakfast and their bedtime!

     

    Perhaps I will have a little more time after Easter when they go home.

     

    Best wishes

     

    Neil

  • in reply to neilk

    Hi Neil,

     

    Thanks for the hints on the temp sensor, I'll give that a shot.

     

    I spent most of yesterday actually doing some planting in the greenhouse, but I took some time today to work on the MSP430 launchpad that I have here - it's that $4.30 (includes shipping!) board from TI. The basic demo it comes with sends temperature from it's onboard temperature sensor via serial to a windows GUI.

    I figure that would be a good unit for this project, as it's so inexpensive. Then it doesn't matter as much if a slug shorts it out image

     

    So I've been modifying the demo code to remove the unwanted parts of the demo and to make it send a readable string for the temperature, rather than a single byte. Wow I have to tell you that's nasty cryptic stuff - it's C but not nearly as clear and easy as our friend the Arduino!

    It doesn't have as much stuff (power, memory, pins) as the Arduino, but for many projects it could make a viable alternative. Too bad the programming environment is so complex.

     

    I got it sending strings for the temperature, so it's just a step away from hooking up to gobetwino.

     

    Then I got an email from a client needing some stuff, so I guess I best get on that!

     

    Hope you're off to a good start this week.

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico