Hackaday Links: January 24th, 2013

Raspberry Pi’s answer to the iMac

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If you always wanted a sweet looking all-in-one computer like an iMac, but without OSX this one’s for you. [Michael Davis] glued everything you need for a Raspberry Pi computer to the back of an LCD monitor.

Dancing Japanese robot shows high creepiness factor

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You’ve just got to see this one to believe it. Someone choreographed some seriously lifelike dance moves for this robot. [Thanks – via Dr. GIY’s blog]

Helper script to install MSPGCC

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The repositories available to Ubuntu are nice, but if you want to get the newest version of the GCC toolchain for MSP430 microcontrollers you’re going to need to do the compilation yourself. [Jose] is trying to make the process a bit easier with this helper script which download and installs MSPGCC Uniarch.

Easy reset for WRT-54G routers

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The whole point of the router reset button being hard to press is so you don’t hit it by accident. But the difficulty of getting to it drove [Noah] crazy so he added his own easy to reach replacement.

Camera stabilization tips

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This is a public service to amateur videographers. You don’t need expensive equipment to make a video without nausea inducing shakes. Try out these simple camera stabilization tips. You can use a tripod as a counterweight, or a piece of 2×4 to give the point-and-shoot a dual grip.

Building An Up-to-date MSPGCC Toolchain

[Sergio Campamá] wrote in to tell us he’s assembled a guide for compiling the latest release of MSPGCC. This is a cross-compiling tool chain for the popular MSP430 line of microncontrollers. We used a version available from the Ubuntu repositories when developing with the TI Launchpad and the eZ430-F2013.

Installing from repositories is easy, but you don’t get the newest features and often newer hardware isn’t supported. [Sergio] reports that the newest version, called Uniarch, pulls source code and header files from the middle of this month and supports over 300 devices. In fact, it specifically outlines the goal of making new hardware easier to incorporate than with previous versions. He’s tailored this guide specifically for Ubuntu but while we were wading through a Google search we also found a page that outlines compilation for OSX.

We didn’t really notice before, but GitHub sure does make those README.md files look nice when viewed on the web, doesn’t it?

How-to: Launchpad Programming With Linux

When TI released their Launchpad development board at the end of June it generated a lot of Buzz. Here’s a package that delivered a programmer, debugger, two microcontrollers, and some accessories for less than five bucks (including shipping). They even provided a choice of two software suites but only for users running Windows who don’t mind proprietary software. If you’re looking to go another way you should consider trying out the open source alternative MSPGCC. After the break we’ll take a look at getting the tool-chain up and running in a Linux environment.

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