Carrying my wearable computer.

Olli Markkanen — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:44:50 +0100

I was shopping for some velcro and other things I was decided to build my carrying solution with, but I found something I thought might work quite well. And now when I've tried it, it does.

It's a beltcase for camera. ThRead More...

My wearable computer rig this far.

Olli Markkanen — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:07:14 +0100

I've spent some time building a case for my beagleboard, the main unit of my wearable computer. Here's a pic of the whole system now.

The case is made of plexiglass, and I don't really have much else to say about it, except that it nicely shields the sd-card now.

That rectractable usb is going to be my powercord, I'll connect it to some NiMH batteries somehow Read More...

Facing the interface. Would you like a covert HMD?

Olli Markkanen — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:18:32 +0100

Interface rant

So I will soon have usable wearable computer. So far so well, but I need to choose what OS I'll run, and which interface. For now, I'm going to go for Ubuntu minimal install with a menu based interface, something like what INX has and which I like. But there's none I could just pick is there? Except for INX menuscripts themselves, but while I do like the concept really, I'm not going to have my menus in several bash files, when I can just have one excecutable and it's coRead More...

Progress is in progress, please wait.

Olli Markkanen — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:50:01 +0100

So, here I'm again.

My progress goes something like this:

Beagleboard, it just works. Currenty I don't have any worthwhile distribution running on it, so I can only test my glasses with the test colorscreen. I have a pic, if you wait for a while I'll update this blogpost with some pictures later today. I'll add more to my profile albums later. Beagleboard only needs a case to be ready.

Status report: over two of three months gone. Fail, and Success.

Olli Markkanen — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:05:55 +0100

So, last time I wrote about my to-be wonderful keyboard. It's still not working.

I'm not really that good with electronics, and wouldn't be surprised to have just messed up some simple thing that I'm now overlooking. Ampmeter tells me that power and data comes and goes, and also something happens when I press the keys, but it still isn't recognised by a computer. It should be, and it shouldn't need any drivers other than the standard USB keyboard. Doesn't show even on lsusb or dmRead More...

Halfway status report. Display - success

Olli Markkanen — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:41:56 +0100

My computer is becoming wearable, though it's taking some time.

Half of the allocated time is gone already, and I feel like I should have accomplished a lot more. Also I feel like I'll be finished in a week, which is not true either. I now have a working computer, which doesn't yet seem to understand my 3g, working head mounted display, in monochrome as it's a lot more readable that way and I'm going to spend my time in command line anyway, and barebones keyboard, which has not yet beenRead More...

Spiffchorder part 1

Olli Markkanen — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:14:00 +0100

Today I have been building the keyboard for the wearable. So far it's almost ready, except for the Atmega8 chip which has not yet been programmed, and I still need to create a case for it. The chorder is a Spiffchorder, or a Spaceman Spiff's chording keyboard. It's a free hardware project and it's so simple to build that even I (newbie with electronics) seem to be able to. Even though I didn't make that board itself, nor did I have to hunt for those parts, I just soldered and wired it. It'sRead More...

Status report : June

Olli Markkanen — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:00:00 +0100

So, I'm building that wearable computer now and when I have this blog, I thought "Why not to report here?".

So, I got that BeagleBoard, yay. I have also ordered a Myvu Crystal and I have Spiffchorder parts.

BeagleBoard is certainly powerfun enough for a wearable. Also, it works really well. It works now.

I had to make a serial->beagleboard cable. In the beginning my keyboard was not working with minicom, but I needed to swich pins 2 and 5 froRead More...

Wearable what?

Olli Markkanen — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:00:00 +0100

So, a wearable computer, have you ever heard of those? Probably not. I mentioned those in my last post and there's still not a group for them, or anyone other mentioning them besides me and those old TLDP-pages.

So, Steve Mann "Invented" the modern wearable computers. I'm not talking about intelligent clothes, pdas or silly wrist-worn computers one would not catch me in public with alive. I'm talking about a small computer that is preferably running some flavRead More...

My Linux history, future and this blog

Olli Markkanen — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:00:00 +0100

Like everyone else, I'll start this blog with "this is my first blog ever!"

Now, I'm not a complete stranger to Linux, but I'm certainly not a guru. I got my first impression of Linux from my older brother who was using it once, now he's back to Windows. I had seen Linux couple of times, and I was seeing news and so many good things about it and I wanted to try. I downloaded Ubuntu 7.04 and it was good.

It was so easy to install compared to Windows XP that I was aRead More...

Blog entries from Olli Markkanen