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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
  • in reply to ntewinkel

    Hi Neil,

     

    Gobetwino with Open Office on XP seems to behave well for me. It opens OO, then starts typing things into the fields reliably.

    I couldn't figure out how to handle a timestamp in the time I had this morning, but it looks like it should be possible. It's hard to debug, since the Serial output goes to Gobetwino.

     

    I made a new blog post for the details and the sketch: http://www.element14.com/community/people/ntewinkel/blog/2012/03/26/gobetwino-with-open-office

     

    My wife kicked the tomato plants out of the house, so they are all in the greenhouse now - which means I really want to get this thing up and running soon to see if they're in any danger!

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico

  • in reply to neilk

    Hi again,

     

    Yeah I gave into temptation and just bought another Arduino-Nano and 2x nrf24l01+ wireless cards - about $20 for all so that's not too bad.

     

    So that should allow me to send and receive data between two arduino boards over a longer distance than with the bluetooth.

     

    I shied away from getting the SD card module... for now image

     

    Haven't had time for the gobetwino-openoffice data logging yet, but this weekend is looking really good.

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico

  • THANKS FOR NEIL,

        WELL IT ALL WORKS. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I can program robot people. No, i will not publish this in these times. Still,  THIS PROGRAM FOR GOBETWINO IS A GOOD ONE, AND SOUND. If anyone has problems check your other stuff, the program is sound praise the god Almighty Alpha and Omega of mine for this and some praise, of course, for Nico teWinkel. Nico will get a little (not supposed to be a lot) of jealousy for this good deed. Exceedlingly good deeds MUST result in a little persecution- i.e. GOOD DEEDS gonna be that way [for fairness etc...].

     

    (Of course, I speak in ADDITION TO the slow sticker on all vehicles, part time job only, no hard schedules, build THE BOX, contact me as your healer ((I'm by-the- book psychology only)), ease your passing in this, say such at all stores and phone calls as "greeting" and do so without dietizing me consciously or unconsciously or indirectly.)

  • in reply to neilk

    Hi Neil,

     

    That's too bad - it always looks so easy doesn't it? but then the details often hurt.

     

    If all goes well I might give it a try later this week using OO on XP.

     

    And yes I remember something about the SD card pain conversation. So far I haven't had any issues with the little gadgets I've bought on eBay, but they haven't been as complicated as an SD card.

     

    Hope you have an awesome time in Paris! I guess that's one of the advantages of living in Europe - all the cool places are relatively close! For me Paris would take quite a long time - living on the West coast of Canada kinda puts us far from everywhere!

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico

  • in reply to ntewinkel

    Hi Nico

     

    Good news and frustrating news:

     

    1. The Excel test sketch supplied in the Gobetwino samples works fine in XP.

     

    2. Gobetwino runs in windows 7 (starter) and your demo notepad sketch works just fine.

     

    3. I can open OpenOffice calc via Gobetwino in Windows 7 and get a spreadsheet, but when I substitute that app for excel in the Gobetwino sample, the spreadsheet opens, the commands seem to parse OK, but no numbers arrive in the sheet and Gobetwino says the process has ended after the first set of commands - the rest simply error.

     

    However, if I remove the loop from the sketch, so only one line of data is sent, All the commands seem to run OK, except that the application doesn't open until all the commands have been sent and there is nothing in the sheet, and there is no attempt to save the file, as there is with excel in XP

     

    I tried putting in a delay between the command to open the application and starting to send data, so I could be sure the sheet was open - 5 secs not enough; 10 secs and I got 2 correct numbers in A1 and B1 and the active cell moved to A2.

     

    I put the loop back in to read and send 15 sets of data at 2 second intervals - this time I only got 1 (wrong) number and then Gobetwino decided the process had terminated.

     

    Next I increased the delay between the readings from 2 secs to 5 secs - This time I got 2 correct numbers and the active cell moved to A2, but again Gobetwino decided the process had terminated after the first set of data, so everything else was errors

     

    Finally - I've had enough for now - I tried increasing the delay between the readings to 10 secs and I got the same result as before.

     

    I am fairly new to windows 7 and also to Open office, so I don't really know where to look. I find it confusing that Gobetwino thinks the process has terminated but the spreadsheet is still open.

     

    I will be off the air until next week - I'm off to Paris for a few days - relaxation!

     

    Best wishes

     

    Neil