[Satiagraha] let us know that Texas Instruments(TI) has given out a neat “LED Reference Design Cookbook” PDF. The document contains 17 some odd little projects featuring different TI ICs and ways of using them to control LEDs in things from backlights to torches to solar lanterns to advanced PWM control! Sure the document is biased towards using TI equipment, but that shouldn’t stop you from recreating, modifying, and generally just having fun with their designs in your own productions.
Texas Instruments has issued a DMCA notice to United TI, a group of enthusiasts. They had been cracking the keys that sign the operating system binaries in an attempt to gain access and possibly expand on the features. This seems, at least a little counter productive to us. Texas Instruments doesn’t sell the operating system separately do they? These people were buying their product and expanding on it. There is no difference in their income, except possibly a gain as people flock to the one they can modify. Maybe they are charging more for an expanded feature set that is crippled in the OS.
[via slashdot]
Sometimes a project has more sensors, buttons, or LEDs than your microcontroller has pins. The PCF8574 is an easy way to add 8 low-speed input or output pins to a microcontroller. A configurable address lets multiple PCF8574s exist on the same bus, so two microcontroller pins can control dozens of IO pins. We’ll show you how to use this chip below.
[skeezix] has got his hands on one of the first Pandora dev kits to make it out the door and took a few photos. This is 1 of the 20 MK2 devboards that were produced. Although, not final it certainly is close to the version they’ll be shipping. Pandora is a Linux based portable game console. The main chip in the clamshell device is a TI OMAP3530. It has OpenGL hardware acceleration and an 800×480 touchscreen. A QWERTY keyboard is included along with analog and digital game controls. WiFi, bluetooth, USB host, TV-out, and dual SDHC card slots round out the package. The team has already presold 4000 devices.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrSJz9-ImHo]
Add lights to your graphing calculator. Do it now. [Sil3ntP8nd8] added some, and seems to have done a decent job. They are spread around the back, supplying a nice even light on, well, on whatever is under your calculator. It may be difficult to see too much detail though on account of the water marks. You have to protect your intellectual property though. This almost compares to the DS LED monstrosity we covered recently.
[Mark] had a broken TI-83 graphing calculator and an overwhelming urge to play Pokemon in math class. The solution to his predicament, obviously, is to hack a GameBoy color into the body of his TI-83. He gutted the calculator and connected the front buttons to the contacts on the GameBoy. After some cramming and taping bits together, he got it all working. Now he just needs to find a way to make the cartridge a little bit less conspicuous.
[via Make]
