the time is near, I can smell death in the air, yup, the research presentation is due in a few days. I still haven't gotten the program to do anything productive. On the bright side, I actually got my hands on the CommunicationsSDK API, so this might help me with some stuff. But then after spending about two hours on it to figure out the structure, I found out that it's actually a chain of programs, and the one sent to me from cloudcap actually doesn't do anything productive. With the chain of pointers and stuff I'm pretty much left trying to figure out how to use it without the certainty of it actually working at all. One of the most disappointing thing about this is that it appears that the main program, made for most users were written in MSDN, which we can't use on the plane. We're using LINUX, cuz we're cool like that. So while I was searching for this stuff, I found out some guy from MIT actually did what I'm doing for about a quarter of his master thesis. He is also installing it onto the PC104 and then writing some sort of simulator. This is a CS guy too. Uninspiring, hell yes. Okay, so I was just extremely confused in reading the code because it keeps referring to COM1, which I knew for a fact didn't exsist in Linux, so i e-mailed the guy from cloudcap, and he replied "yes, it works" and i'm like... "okay, shit, tell me more." I'm starting to get really annoyed with the guy from cloudcap. Okay, also, the code he sent me makes me pick a constant, I don't know if this is a typical thing to do, but picking a constant for the serial buffer size before anything could be compiled? who knows. Today, I should be trying to get it to work more. Comeon!!!

Today

Okay, I'm starting to face the fact that it's not looking good. I gots finals to study for, and a million papers to write. However, I am spending alot of time trying to get this serial talking thing to work. I've finally disected the code enough to find that it has a thing written in it to communitcate with the thing. Even though it was designed for the ground station, it will actually work with an onboard computer. Talking to the guy from cloudcap is like talking to a wall though. I think that unless there is the MOST specific question possible, dont even bother asking.

So today, I tried compiling the software with the under the directory LinuxTest provided and the command line provided and I got the following errors:

[labuser@neogilab2 LinuxTest]$ g++ -pthread Test.cpp ../CommSDK.a -g -I../ -DIRIDIUM
In file included from /usr/local/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.6/../../../../include/c++/3.4.6/backward/stream.h:31,
from ../Network.h:25,
from ../CommManager.h:181,
from Test.cpp:3:
/usr/local/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.6/../../../../include/c++/3.4.6/backward/backward_warning.h:32:2: warning: #warning This file includes at least one deprecated or antiquated header. Please consider using one of the 32 headers found in section 17.4.1.2 of the C++ standard. Examples include substituting the header for the header for C++ includes, or instead of the deprecated header . To disable this warning use -Wno-d[labuser@neogilab2 LinuxTest]$ g++ -pthread Test.cpp ../CommSDK.a -g -I../ -DIRIDIUM
In file included from /usr/local/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.6/../../../../include/c++/3.4.6/backward/stream.h:31,
from ../Network.h:25,
from ../CommManager.h:181,
from Test.cpp:3:
/usr/local/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.6/../../../../include/c++/3.4.6/backward/backward_warning.h:32:2: warning: #warning This file includes at least one deprecated or antiquated header. Please consider using one of the 32 headers found in section 17.4.1.2 of the C++ standard. Examples include substituting the header for the header for C++ includes, or instead of the deprecated header . To disable this warning use -Wno-deprecated.
In file included from Test.cpp:3:
../CommManager.h:192: error: `StreamPkt_t' does not name a type
../CommManager.h:260: error: `StreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:260: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:266: error: `OldStreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:266: error: expected `,' or `...' before '*' token
../CommManager.h:266: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pOldPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:266: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `StreamPkt_t' with no type
../CommManager.h:542: error: `StreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:542: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:543: error: `StreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:543: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:546: error: `StreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:546: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:547: error: `StreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:547: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:571: error: `StreamPkt_t' does not name a type
eprecated.
In file included from Test.cpp:3:
../CommManager.h:192: error: `StreamPkt_t' does not name a type
../CommManager.h:260: error: `StreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:260: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:266: error: `OldStreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:266: error: expected `,' or `...' before '*' token
../CommManager.h:266: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pOldPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:266: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `StreamPkt_t' with no type
../CommManager.h:542: error: `StreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:542: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:543: error: `StreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:543: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:546: error: `StreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:546: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:547: error: `StreamPkt_t' has not been declared
../CommManager.h:547: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `pPkt' with no type
../CommManager.h:571: error: `StreamPkt_t' does not name a type

I'm not completely sure the source of the error, maybe the code is made for MSDS (which the rest of the non-"test" code seems to be or maybe its the way I installed GCC (probably not though). So I e-mailed the guy at cloudcap about it. every meeting seems to end with me e-mail the guy from cloudcap and getting a response that less than helpful to say the least. To be continued this weekend, I have to step up the frequency of my work.

Continuation of serial comm

Spent the day trying to read data off realterm to see if ican figure out what the damn thing is reading. I can't seem to decipher it. After e-mailing Bill from Cloudcap, he told me that the data I'm looking at is the TELEMENTRY and CONTROL_DATA, but let's face it, these are 60 bytes of data, some signed, some unsigned some 8 bits, some 16 bits, some 24 bits, some 32 bits, I'm not going to decipher it by looking at it. So while Mr. Daniel is trying to get the plane to even fly normally, I'm thinking about e-mailing the guy. Then I had a bright idea of trying to figure out if we're on the right baud rate: 56k?. What are we, using a modem?! so I tried everything ranging from 300b/s to 115kb/s and it's all the same, bad data, except for 56k. So wasted about half an hour there. Okay, back to e-mailing bill to ask him if there is such a thing as a start byte or something to help me identify it. Then Daniel said somelike like "hey, there are some C files that come with the thing." Ok, so I looked into the C files, and it looks like maybe some of it could be useful. We'll see, till next time.

figuring things out

I got a reply from the guy at cloudcap instructing me on almost exactly what the piccolo is sending out. I haven't tried it and he wasn't too detailed about it. But I figured the DB-9 serial port is actually used for the payload. I installed realterm onto the windows machine to read the serial and I'll do something with the data eventually, as soon as I find out what it all means, i suppose. But what i spent most of the day doing is trying to figure out if I can get flightgear in linux to simulate like it does in windows, I failed. Next time, I should try to decipher the message entirely, and see what happens. I also should learn to use that windows app that comes with the piccolo. That's it for today.

PC104 to purchase

Here is the PC104 that I want to purchase. It is a Xscale with
-4 USB 2.0 ports
-533Mhz
-3.5Watts
-997 for linux developement kit.

Here is the link: Arcom Vulcan

Any comments?

ps The PC104 has NO video out.

Btw, I would like for us to quickly buy a pc104 board because that might allow us to skip the entirety of the IPaq portion. Opinions? I'm probably wrong.

Fedora Core 4

No time to write, so i'll bullet point

-Tried to install Fedora Core 4 on comp
-Partitioned out 3 gigs to a FAT32 to try to store the ISO for the install and install from there
-Didn't have a CDr Drive so i tired to install from the harddrive to the same harddrive, had difficulties
-Threw the CDr drive sitting around in the other machine
-NEED 4 CDrs, please bring some

Cool

So I want to install a partition of Linux on the right machine, this is because I feel that if I use the cross compiler which is a "derivative" (i'm not sure of the correct terminology) of gcc, which runs on linux anyways, we might as well make the connection (between the ipaq and the computer) on linux (as in why use windows?). (Am I wrong on this?) I don't really care which distro is installed, anyone have a perference? And Prof Neogi said if we need more harddrive space, we should get a new hard drive. But to avoid such thing there is still 5.85 gb of Hard drive space left in this machine and I'm sure a linux partition doesn't take even half of that. Any opinions? Any objections?