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Monthly Archives: April 2013

Virtual Breadboard – Hardware Prototyping

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VirtualBreadboard(VBB) is for designing and testing embedded software in high-level interactive circuit simulations and rapidly prototyping hardware from those designs.

Virtual Breadboard – Test Embedded Systems

Compared to other simulators many people find the high level approach taken VBB easier to use and much faster to model and test out new ideas and circuit variations.

From Design Gopher – Electronic Product Development

VBB electronic circuit components are modeled at the function block level and are wired together to create a real-time interactive circuit simulation representing the whole embedded application.

VBB does not use SPICE. SPICE is better suited to subcircuit designs whereas VBB is concerned with merging multiple subcircuits treating each subcircuit as a self contained function block.

Beagle Board – Create Open Embedded Devices

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The Beagle Board is a low-cost, fan-less single-board computer based on Texas Instruments OMAP35x processors featuring the ARM Cortex-A8 core.

Beagle Board – Create Open Embedded Devices

The USB-powered Beagle Board is a low-cost, fan-less single board computer that unleashes laptop-like performance and expandability without the bulk, expense, or noise of typical desktop machines.

BeagleBone Black – Boot Linux in under 10 seconds and get started on development in less than 5 minutes with just a single USB cable.

BeagleBone Black

OMAP3530 processor highlights:

Over 1,200 Dhrystone MIPS using the superscalar ARM Cortex-A8 with highly accurate branch prediction and 256KB L2 cache running at up to 600MHz. HD video capable TMS320C64x+ DSP for versatile signal processing at up to 430MHz.

Buy a BeagleBoard at Digikey

Some Projects on BB

beaglelab – BeagleLAB is an Embedded Developer’s Workbench

BeagleBot – Beagle powered robot – A small experimental robot with Beagle Board as it’s heart.

RT Software Oscilloscope GUI DLL Library

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“The library makes it possible to show on the beams of the oscilloscope over a million quantization steps of signal per second (on the Pentium III machine) – less than one micro-second is sufficient for one signal sample. This software can be used for linking to real-time controlling programs as longer delays in relay of data to the oscilloscope don’t occur.”

RT Software Oscilloscope GUI DLL Library

Universal Real-Time Software Oscilloscope GUI DLL Library

“The library is supplied with a comprehensive description of the program interface and simple examples of its use executed in various different program development environments: MS Visual C++® & Visual Basic®; Borland Delphi® & C++Builder®; MathWorks Matlab® & Simulink®, C# (C Sharp).”

“Applied software emitting data to this oscilloscope obtained data via such communications as serial port (RS232, 422, 485), SSI, USB, CAN bus, Ethernet, GRIB (instrumental interface), via custom-made communications equipment and also by collecting information via a data acquisition card with analog-to-digital converters mounted on the PCI bus-bar of a PC.”

delabs Notes –

I am amazed, i did not notice this. I tried it it, not fully, it seems to be quite versatile. I feel this may be useful for hobbists to try out some experiments in oscilloscope and logic analyzer. It would be good if it was Open Source, it may help developing more instruments.

I am not sure about this Library in terms to actual high speed testing or if it may be developed further. But is it interesting.

For students i feel Bitscope offers some nice tools too. BitScopes are USB or Ethernet connected PC Based Mixed Signal Oscilloscopes.

AVR XMEGA Oscilloscope and Waveform generator

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The Xmegalab is a development board for AVR XMEGA microcontrollers, a dual channel oscilloscope, an arbitrary waveform generator and a scientific calculator.

AVR XMEGA Oscilloscope and Waveform generator

From Hyper Embedded – Microcontroller ASIC and EDA

Some features:

  • ATXMEGA128A1 microcontroller with 128KB Flash, 8KB SRAM, 2KB EEPROM
  • External serial SRAM 32KB
  • Arbitrary Waveform Generator, 1MSPS, using the XMEGA’s internal DAC
  • JTAG and PDI interfaces for development
  • User external connection with digital I/Os or SPI interface
  • Graphic LCD 128×128 pixels with backlight

From –

Gabotronics – Designs and manufactures embedded systems. Specialized in 8-32 bits microcontroller projects, instrumentation and data acquisition, PCB Layout, custom electronic designs and engineering consultation. Based in Palmetto, FL.