Using a steppermotor controller with two motors. A video capturing device (videoblaster) and a mini B/W camera.
Web interface with glassbuttons effects which i rendered using Bryce.
Up/down/left/right and diagonal
Red double speed green single speed
Reset view
2 Presets with save and recall
Setup with parallel cable
Written software in html and some CGI scripts. Perl and C.
#include <asm/io.h>
# C Code for moving left
int main(int agrc,char agrv[])
{
int i,wachten;
int richting1[8]={0x27,0x2d,0x1c,0x0d,0x03,0x09,0x38,0x29};
int richting2[8]={0x29,0x38,0x09,0x03,0x0d,0x1c,0x2d,0x27};
ioperm(0x378,3,1);
ioperm(0x37a,3,1);
wachten=100;
for (i=0; i<=7; i=i+1)
{
outb(richting2[i], 0x378);
outb(1, 0x37a);
usleep(wachten);
outb(0, 0x37a);
usleep(wachten);
outb(1, 0x37a);
usleep(wachten);
}
return(0);
}
#!/usr/bin/perl
# Perl CGI script
# Uses 204 no content trick to stay on same page
use LWP::Simple;
my $img = get ('http://10.1.0.1/cgi-bin/left.cgi');
print "Status: 204 No content\n\n";
Streaming video was done using progressive JPG push. Later i used the capturing command in the loop below.
#!/bin/sh
# push jpg, and update after 1sec
# output mime header
echo Content-type: multipart/x-mixed-replace;boundary=--WebcamRules\n
echo
echo --WebcamRules
# create stream
while true; do
echo Content-type: image/jpeg
echo
cat /var/lib/httpd/htdocs/webcam.jpg
echo
echo --WebcamRules
sleep 1
done
The date of this post is when we worked on GMC’s GPC, but i’ll post some other own made hardware related to domotica.
Relais card + one wire temperature sensor (rs232)1Wire to RS232DS18B20
GPC Original Page: https://gpc.metro.cx/gpc/README
This DIY home automation was written by GMC in C. Later we made little microcontroller prints, which could control/switch lights and more.
PIC16x84
We uses GPASM as assembler
Bigred soldering PIC boards like control units and pic-programmers Below a Infrared receiver (Using Lirc)SchematicPower partPIC Print
One of my schematics
What is this?
=============
This is the Global Premises Control package. It is intended to be a
complete solution to the DIY home automation. It provides you with a
daemon which will centralize all control functions, and some custom
programs for sound, remote control and things like that.
The first steps to realizing the goal was made by Koen Martens. He wrote
the first daemon and made the first support programs. Other people got
interested and ported the GPC package to their homes. Since then it seemed
wise to coordinate development to prevent from having three different
versions of the package. It is currently under development and is far from
complete.
History
=======
15-03-98 - The first initiative
With the help of Henri Aanstoot and Marco Geels the first
cables were mounted in the ceiling at Waalstraat 136. This
involved re-dedicating some high voltage lines for the low
voltage used by GPC equipment.
The next few days Koen Martens spend his time writing software
to switch on the lights (which was not possible without
software anymore :). This software was very rudimentry and
did not feauture the daemon yet.
28-03-98 Version 1.0 was born.
The need for a global way to control the premises arose, and
Koen Martens decided to write a daemon which would control the
input and output lines, with support programs for the logic.
This resulted in global, the gpc daemon.
Running on different servers there were programs to control
lights and lightswitches (light_control), sound (sound) and
the alarm clock (wakeup).
10-06-98 Version 2.0 (r0.2.0) was born.
The support programs containing any logic had vanished,
instead the daemon had all the logic encoded in it.
03-07-98 Version 2.0 still.
- Added remote control receiver code.
29-11-98 GPC r0.3.0
- Started coordinated development
11-12-98 GPC r0.3.1
- Security support included, providing a (basic) interface
for protecting variables with passwords on a security level
clearance basis.
- Global notify protocol added, clients can now register one
or more variables. This makes the old (0.3.0) polling method
obsolete thus reducing the network load dramatically.
- Logging library added.
Development
===========
The development is done on the following beta sites:
- Subnet
Location : Waalstraat 136, Enschede, Netherlands
Site coordinator: Koen Martens AKA gmc (gmc@freemail.nl)
Site description: Single floor appartment
3 occupants (1 human, 2 rats)
P60 32MB RAM running linux
486 8MB RAM running FreeBSD
486 8MB RAM running linux
DEC Writer
WYSE terminal
The 486 linux machine has the daemon, and is
hooked up to the premises.
The P60 has a sound card and a RC receiver.
- Lip-on-ice
Location : Lipperkerkstraat 321, Enschede, Netherlands
Site coordinator: Willem-Jan Faber AKA aloha AKA xtz ( And Henri Aanstoot AKA Fash)
(w-jfaber@freemail.nl)
Site description: Three floor house
Four occupants (3 male, 1 female)
Connected to three other premises.
Computer list not yet in!
- Venom
Location : P. Mondriaanstraat ??, Almelo, Netherlands
Site coordinator: Sebastiaan Smit AKA venom (wssmit@freemail.nl)
Site description: Three floor house
Three occupants
4 computers
If you would like to join the development, mail me at gmc@freemail.nl.
In progress
===========
The following projects are in progress right now:
- A script language to describe the control logic for the daemon
Koen Martens
- An cgi interface for the http connectivity
- Support for sharing variables on multiple daemons
Usage
=====
Use is for your own risk. We can not be held responsible for any damage
resulted from running any of this software.
Keeping that in mind, usage is very simple but work needs to be done on
the documentation :)
DIY door sensor using a bend CDROM and a sensor i got
I’d would send a signal to our computers and playing a sound sample on our sound system. Also a IRCbot named (lampje) would mention “Backdoor open” in our own channel. (We where running our own IRC servers, interconnected .. because we can. A average of 3 Clients per server sound the way to go .. LOL ) Lampje the IRCbot also controlled the livingroom light and more.
This year i’ve been really into assembly on Intel x86 machines. With EDK we made some demo’s and generally trying to find the limits of the machines we had.
Funny story, edk made a program which changed the palette every scanline (if memory serves me right), while running the program and looking at the screen the colors faded to grayscale. (Something with run-away tables) We look at eachother and said: We must have been using up all colors, we need to refill the graphics card.
I previously made a copperbar alike thingy on a hercules system. (Have not seen them before on a pc back then ) But with below program, i could display pictures which removed the borders.
Below a nsfw video example (pass protected), but a simplified example in pictures below that.
Test image i’ve used on a 320×200 screen resolution
name split_screen
.286
parm_vert equ 0
data segment
intmsk db ?
oldvidtab db 18h dup (?) ;actuele video-parameters
newvidtab label byte
;HORIZONTAAL
db 0
db 12
db 12
db 0
;VERTIKAAL
db 0
db 5
db 5
db 0;-40
;
db 0
db 0
db 0
db 0
db 0
db 0
db 0
db 0
db 0
db 0
db 0
; REGISTER 13H (OFFSET)
db 0
;
db 18h dup (0)
data ends
stack segment stack
dw 128 dup (?)
stack ends
code segment
assume cs:code,ds:data
cols label byte
set_scrparms:
mov dx,3d4h
mov al,11h
out dx,al
inc dx
in al,dx
and al,7fh ;clear bit 7: enable writes to vga reg 0..7
out dx,al
dec dx
mov al,13h ;offset register
out dx,al
inc dx
in al,dx ;get actual value
add al,4
out dx,al
ret
;
; RE-INIT DISPLAY ROUTINE
;
get_oldvidparms:
mov dx,3d4h
mov cx,18h ;18h registers
mov di,offset oldvidtab
mov bl,0 ;begin met register 0
govp1:
mov al,bl ;register index
out dx,al
inc dx ;3d5
in al,dx ;get actual register content
dec dx
mov [di],al
inc di
inc bl ;volgend register
loop govp1
mov si,offset oldvidtab
mov di,offset newvidtab
mov cx,18h
donewparms:
mov al,[si]
add al,[di]
mov [di],al
inc si
inc di
loop donewparms
ret
set_newvidparms:
mov dx,3d4h
mov cx,18h ;18h registers
mov si,offset newvidtab
mov bl,0 ;begin met register 0
snvp1:
mov al,bl ;register index
out dx,al
inc dx ;3d5
mov al,[si]
inc si
out dx,al ;set register value
dec dx
inc bl ;volgend register
loop snvp1
ret
;
; MAIN ENTRY POINT
;
init:
mov ax,data
mov ds,ax
in al,21h
mov intmsk,al
cli
mov al,11111101b
out 21h,al
sti
mov ax,13h
int 10h
;extend video-memory to 256kb or more
mov dx,3ceh
mov al,06h
out dx,al
inc dx
in al,dx
and al,0f3h
out dx,al
;
mov ax,0a000h
mov es,ax
call set_scrparms
call get_oldvidparms
call set_newvidparms
mov dx,3cch
in al,dx
and al,03fh
mov ah,parm_vert
ror ah,2
or al,ah
mov dx,3c2h
out dx,al
;
;
push ds
mov ax,5000h
mov ds,ax
;
; pallet
;
setpal:
mov dx,3c8h
xor al,al
out dx,al
inc dx
mov cx,256*3
mov si,100h
cld
rep outsb
;disp picture routine
mov ax,6000h
mov ds,ax
mov si,0
mov di,0
mov ax,0
mov cx,352*8
cld
rep stosw
mov si,di
mov cx,8
cld
rep stosw
mov bp,170
mov si,di
hiero:
mov cx,320
cld
rep movsb
mov ax,0
mov cx,16
cld
rep stosw
mov si,di
dec bp
jnz hiero
xor si,si
xor di,di
mov ax,0b000h
mov es,ax
mov ax,07000h
mov ds,ax
mov cx,3000
cld
mov ax,0
rep stosw
mov ax,0a000h
mov es,ax
mov ax,6000h
mov ds,ax
mov di,0
mov si,di
rhiero:
push ax
mov ah,8
int 21h
pop ax
std
mov cx,-1
rep movsb
xor si,si
xor di,di
mov ax,0b000h
mov es,ax
mov ax,07000h
mov ds,ax
mov cx,3000
cld
rep movsw
mov ax,0a000h
mov es,ax
pop ds
;
mloop:
mov dx,3dah
wtv1:
in al,dx
test al,8
jnz wtv1
wtv2:
in al,dx
test al,8
jz wtv2
mov ah,1
int 16h
jz mloop
xor ah,ah
int 16h
exit:
mov ax,3
int 10h
cli
mov al,intmsk
out 21h,al
sti
mov ax,4c00h
int 21h
code ends
end init
I think i started programming in assembly on PC around 1992. I learned a lot from my friend Edk. Who was a assembly wizard just like Sepp. Reverse engineering routines, writing emulators etc.
We made several demo’s like the one below. It must have been around 1994.
Dos emulator running our demo from 1994
Just after this one, we started a demo which could run from a 5.25″ boot disk. No dos operating system. When starting your pc, booting from a floppy you would get a starfield, with some text (from a bootsector) ,after that it would load the next sectors, wich contained the rest of the demo. Due to directly programming soundcard and graphics card, this was hard to pull off on different kinds of hardware.
Demo gfx
Example of assembly code for a effect.
NAME plasma
.model small
.386
.data
colshades db +001h, 001h,+001h
db -001h,-001h,-000h
db +000h,-000h,-001h
db -000h,-000h,+000h
rgb_cols db 256*3 dup (?)
cosptr dw 0
sinptr dw 30
.code
demo proc near
show proc near
xor di,di
mov bp,200
show1:
mov cx,320
mov si,0
mov dx,0
show0:
; push ds
; mov ax,7000h
; mov ds,ax
; lodsb
; pop ds
call getsincos
add cosptr,1
stosb
loop show0
; add dx,1
add sinptr,1
dec bp
jnz show1
ret
show endp
effect proc near
; add cosptr,1
; add sinptr,0
ret
effect endp
getsincos proc near
push di
push ds
mov si,cosptr
mov di,sinptr
mov ax,7000h
mov ds,ax
lodsb ;get cos value
cmp si,320 ;einde costab?
jb cosok
xor si,si
lodsb
cosok:
mov ah,al
xchg si,di
lodsb ;get cos value
cmp si,320 ;einde costab?
jb sinok
xor si,si
lodsb
sinok:
xchg si,di
pop ds
mov cosptr,si
mov sinptr,di
mov dx,0
mov dl,al
add dl,ah
adc dh,0
shr dx,1
mov al,dl
; xor al,ah
; add al,ah
pop di
ret
getsincos endp
setcols proc near
push es
push ds
pop es
mov di,offset rgb_cols
mov si,offset colshades
mov dl,0 ;start with black
mov bh,0
mov bl,0
mov bp,4
set_rgball:
mov cx,64-1
set_rgb:
mov al,dl
stosb
mov al,bh
stosb
mov al,bl
stosb
mov al,[si]
add dl,al
mov al,[si+1]
add bh,al
mov al,[si+2]
add bl,al
loop set_rgb
add si,3
dec bp
jnz set_rgball
pop es
ret
setcols endp
setrgb proc near
mov dx,3c8h
xor al,al ;start with colour 00h
out dx,al
inc dx
mov si,offset rgb_cols
mov cx,256*3
rep outsb ;set 256 RGB values
ret
setrgb endp
wvtr proc near
mov dx,3dah
wtv:
in al,dx
test al,8
jz wtv
ret
wvtr endp
start:
cld
mov ax,@data
mov ds,ax
mov ax,0a000h
mov es,ax
mov ax,13h
int 10h ;screen 320x200 256 colours
call setcols
call setrgb
call show
mov al,11111101b
out 21h,al ;disable int
mloop:
call wvtr
; call show
call effect
mov ah,1
int 16h
jz mloop
xor ah,ah
int 16h
exit:
xor al,al
out 21h,al ;enable int
mov ax,3
int 10h ;screen 80x25 text
mov ax,4c00h
int 21h ;back to DOS
demo endp
end start
Around 1993 i bought Myst, a adventure game. It was really a masterpiece, a interactive rendered world with great moodsetting music scores.
When looking at documentaries like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWX5B6cD4_4 It almost didn’t happen, i was oblivious to this fact ..
Many hours i spent playing this game, sometimes together with Erik.
I loved the puzzles and the rendered transitional movies.
After the first i bought all follow-ups.
I spend hours playing them, first with Erik and later with Monique and Coline taking turns at the controls. Solving the mysteries together was a lot of fun.
1993 – Myst
1997 – Riven
2001 – Myst III: Exile
2003 – URU: Ages Beyond Myst
2004 – Myst IV: Revelation
2005 – Myst V: End of Ages
There is also a parody version called Pyst
After that i found realmyst a remake of the first with better graphics. We played Uru: Ages beyond myst or Uru Live after that. This one had free movement i recall.
I wanted to create a point and click/walk around version myself. My first idea was taking pictures in my fathers car driving from Holten to Laren where Martin lived. Taking pictures (with a analog camera) on the way. Scanning those analog pictures and making a point and click thingy was something i only realized many years later.
I made a website with pictures of the house. People could click and move though my house. I made the path which was obvious in advance, when people clicked a new area or object, they got a popup where you could request the path or object information.
(i found the source code – now i have to make a webserver with a really old php version to get screenshots)
I never came around it to render environments myself .. see my post about rendering.
Somewhere in 1992 i got hold of a Oscilloscope, probably borrowed from someone. I don’t know what happend to it. I got the idea to generate drawings on the scope, because it had two inputs with you could switch to x and y inputs.
Example oscilloscope
My friend Sepp got into it also, we both wrote some software to do funky stuff with this. I found some software today (20220516), and having bought a old skool scope 2 years ago …
So i found source machine code, no executables. Now i needed to get a assembler running again.
Sidenote: I recently fixed a Amiga 500 and got a disk switch installed on the even cia.
Disk df0 df1 switch print at the center of the image
Booting some old seka disks and starting MasterSeka again in a looong time.
ESC - open editor
r (read file)
v (directory)
a + enter + enter (no options assemble)
g (go running the program)
FIrst part of machine code .. at the bottom part are arrays of coordinates to draw things
Some programs on the disk: (some are made by Sepp, who is a far better coder than i am)
Funny triangles
Lissajous figures
Moving square
House
House with door
Draw with mouse
Lissajous figures are simple sine and cosine functions to get:
So how does this work, well a amiga has stereo outputs. These are controlled by two DAC outputs on the 8364 (Paula) chip. (DAC – Digital Analog Convertor) ( Paula has 4 DMA controlled DACs !! )
Looking at the schematics of the audio part, we see a lot going on concering audio filters. The tests i’ve done today (2022) are on a amiga with unmodified audio filters. (Low on my prio list) So frequencies are not direct what you get directly converted from digital values. Besides that, syncronisation between left and right channel, even using DMA can be an issue. (DMA – Direct Memory Access, this means that it can be controlled without using the CPU)
Running the house draw code:
A little house
Note: Due to different hardware not a good working example .. yet
More examples .. hard to capture a still image
I tried a few years after we did this, to modify a generic monitor to display things using two inputs, not using scanlines. But to no avail. Only flipping the screen and colors using relais (more on this later)
Bonus part: Above did remind me of a Vectrex, a game console which utilises same display technic. So no raster lines and pixels, but line drawing by controlling the beam.
Two games on a borrowed Vectrex – You can see the continuous line – faint to see, even harder IRLMovie from 2017 .. Vectrex was made in 1982-1983
I got a free mainframe, when i was about 17. It was a huge Pdp-11/34 which a had to get from Enschede to Holten using a trailer.
PDP-11/34
It was a 19inch rack (loads of metal)
2x 8inch floppy drives
2x 20MB harddisk drives (with cardridge) each 34KG!
multiple (3?) Decwriter III printers
loads of VT100 terminals
2.5 meter of manuals
cables
disks (8 inch) and harddisk cartridges
I converted the power to a generic 230V connector. When booting the machine all the lights in the house dimmed.
I didn’t know anything about mainframes, but i got things working. Sometimes i would play with it, but after a while it didn’t run anymore.
I’ve kept some of the parts of the machine. Terminals we used for a long time to connect to a linux server. ( The VT100 where later switched for more modern Wyse terminals )
One of the two drives (34kg) (not my picture)
Some parts i’ve kept
20MB cartriges for above driveMagentic core memory!16K x 12
VT100 serial terminal (gave this one to a colleage) Postit says: Could you install Windows on this for me??
Wyse 50 TerminalStallion Card to connect 8 terminals
Serial printer
Last Decwriter i’ve got, also gone now.
These printer we used for generic printing, and just for fun. They made a lot of noise, and even they are serial printers they are fast!
So i resourced ms-dos into assembly and printed that, that was a sh*tload of paper. We even made a racing game. (Can’t find the source, but i’ve recreated a lookalike in linux-bash)
Object of the game was to keep your car O character on the road. The printer printed the lines, and you could use the keyboard to move your car, which also got printed.
Below the build-in-5-minutes bash lookalike. ( z left, x straight and c right) Original had more intricate road, and probably the road was drawn using two lines, to speedup printing (Decwriter III could print at 180 characters per second bidirectional!)
Looked more like this i think
#!/bin/bash
i=0
j=0
car=8
while true ; do
no=$(awk "BEGIN{print sin($i*atan2(0,-1)/180)*40+40}" | cut -f1 -d.)
way=$(awk "BEGIN{print sin($j*atan2(0,-1)/180)*10+13}" | cut -f1 -d.)
#echo $way
if [ $car -lt 0 ] ; then echo "boom" ; exit ; fi
if [ $car -gt $way ] ; then echo "boom" ; exit ; fi
carr=$car
rest=$((140-$no-$way))
i=$(($i + 1))
j=$(($j + 5))
while [ $no -gt 0 ] ; do
echo -n " "
no=$(($no - 1))
done
echo -n "#"
while [ $way -gt 0 ] ; do
echo -n " "
if [ $carr -eq 0 ] ; then
echo -n "O"
fi
way=$(($way - 1))
carr=$(($carr - 1))
done
echo -n "#"
while [ $rest -gt 0 ] ; do
echo -n " "
rest=$(($rest - 1))
done
echo ""
read -r -t 0.1 -n 1 -s key
if [ "$key" == "z" ] ; then
car=$((car - 1 ))
fi
if [ "$key" == "x" ] ; then
car=$((car - 1 ))
fi
if [ "$key" == "c" ] ; then
car=$((car + 1 ))
fi
done
Funny story about learning machinelanguage at school.
It was around 1989, and was attending a class Microcomputer Programming in Machine Language.
We where given a problem we had to solve using 8085 machine code. The machine we had to program this on was a Intel SDK-85, much like below example.
Intel SDK-85
Note it only had a hex keyboard and 7segmented display. You had to punch in the machinecode into memory slots yourself.
Problem we where given was something like searching for certain data in memory.
Normal procedure was :
Draw a flow of instructions (Flowchart)
Write the machine languages codes
Convert those assembly statements into Opcodes the machine could understand
Punch in those numbers, run and verify
Most of us knew a lot of opcodes by heart, but some knew all opcodes. And how many bytes where needed. besides that we had to remember jump and return addresses.
So our teacher presented the problem, when he stopped talking, my friend Martin and I when up to our machines … punching buttons.
” Guys .. you can’t expect it to work without writing the program down first!
A few minutes later .. we pressed enter .. and it worked.
A program like above looked like: 01 2E 2B 21 00 00 79 BE C2 1F C0 CD 19 C0 CA 1E C0 78 BE C2 06 C0 C3 25 C0 2C C2 1E C0 24 C9 CD 19 C0 C3 06 C0 C9
Cut into opcodes:
01 2E 2B 21 00 00 79 BE C2 1F C0 CD 19 C0 CA 1E C0 78 BE C2 06 C0 C3 25 C0 2C C2 1E C0 24 C9 CD 19 C0 C3 06 C0 C9
Some opcodes used 1 byte, others 2 or 3. C2 1F C0 – means Jump to address C01F when not zero C9 – means return, go back to a previous CALL statement
Example of machine language which is translated into above
While attending the LTS (lower vocational technical school), i could often be found in the computer lab. I was the only student who had his own key. We had a classroom with 16 computers, 2 drives at the master station and a printer. Everything was connected using Econet. (These where the first networked computers i’ve worked with) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econet
So every moment we didn’t have a class, i was there. Even when i had to do final exams, i was late entering, and sometimes one of the first leaving.
Today (2022) i ran an emulator on my machine and typed in one of my old programs found in a notebook. (The real system above pictured, i have to repair) By the way, this is one of the computers from school, even with its original wooden monitor stand. The school contacted me (a few years after leaving this school) if i wanted to buy one of the machines.
