I am exploring the Microsoft Micro Framework
Amazing, simple and solid. I'm hooked!
Thanks to Jordi for the images, have you got any needles that I can use????
You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!
I am exploring the Microsoft Micro Framework
Amazing, simple and solid. I'm hooked!
Thanks to Jordi for the images, have you got any needles that I can use????
You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!
Comments
I have now had a weekend with the Tahoe II and the Windows Micro Framework 4.0 (wmf). It's been slow going!
There isn't a great community like avr and arduino, most project examples that can be found on the web were for previous versions of the framework. 4.0 was only released a few months ago so the examples are for 2.5 and 3.0. All broken!
The microsoft sdk documentation just lists the classes and methods. No example code! (it is free) They provide some samples with the framework sdk which are crude but provide some of the basics.
Plugging an xbee into the port on the Tahoe II causes the Tahoe to reboot when the xbee sends anything. Event when the xbee is associating! Maybe I have set the xbee up incorrectly for the board, but I have a lot of xbee experience and never had a problem. This might be a problem associated with using usb to the board via windows 7. I have asked the manufacturer what I am doing wrong and will post their response.
I have managed to perform some I2C stuff and created a neat sliding menu bar of mini images. that when clicked expand to the full image with some nice animation during the expand. Responding to touch or button press is easy, creating multiple window panes, laying out gui objects, creating drop down lists and scrolling text was all easy.
Creating new threads, responding to timers and debugging is all very simple. Graphics handling, event handling, threading, debugging and emulator all great.
I haven't given up yet but I’m not to impressed with how little documentation the Tahoe manufacturer “device solutions” provides. I await their responses to my questions :)
The chaps who make the tahoe II have also more recently produced this board with a 4.5" or 7" screen.
All these options are good but not perfect
Maybe Chris will produce a 7" OLED xbee ready gps aware ground station with logging and GPRS support. For the micro framework
Freescale i.MXS @ 100MHz (ARM920T)
Microsoft .NET Micro Framework built in
4MB Flash
8MB SDRAM
This is not a working ground station yet but soon will be. But the the two different pictures show real x/y/z bitmap scrolling.
The board is called the Tahoe II. Supports 3.3 and 5v devices, has on-board SD card, xbree ready and 2 axis accel, ethernet. (only 1 decent uart, not so good!)
3.5in touch screen display (would be better if it was OLED but is TFT). Screen is very bright and clear.
I think I can get what I need on the screen but not with so many large controls. Maybe more digital numeric type controls. The long/lat and a lot of other stuff could be on other windows. I'll keep the x/y/z horizon and the compass.
It seems easy to create multiple windows and a set of tabs on the screen. The board comes as you see it in the pictures, the only thing i added was the xbee, but it just plugged in. Simple!
To create a new textbox the code is a little like this. Create as many controls, images etc as you need and just add them to a panel which is a child of the window. (Attaching click or touch events are one liners)
// Create a text element
text = new Text();
text.Font = Resources.GetFont(Resources.FontResources.small);
text.TextContent = "Hello World";
text.HorizontalAlignment =
Microsoft.SPOT.Presentation.HorizontalAlignment.Right;
text.VerticalAlignment =
Microsoft.SPOT.Presentation.VerticalAlignment.Bottom;
// Add a panel to hold the other controls.
this.Child = panel;
panel.Children.Add(text);
This is the board
The processor is mounted on a very flat cpu board attached to the back of the main board. the cpu board is just under 2" square. You can see the cpu here
Runs limux, windows ce, micro framework and gcc
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