Shop OBEX P1 Docs P2 Docs Learn Events
A challenge, Involving BS2s and Iphone — Parallax Forums

A challenge, Involving BS2s and Iphone

xesxesxesxes Posts: 9
edited 2009-06-22 16:47 in BASIC Stamp
A jailbroken iPhone can access the serial pins on the adapter. Here is a page discussing how to do it.
http://devdot.wikispaces.com/Iphone+Serial+Port+Tutorial

This is a long shot, but I would love to have an iphone program that I could use to program Basic stamps on the fly.

little bit of background, I work for a company that builds props for the film/tv industry and I have taken up stamp programing. Mainly to write simple little programs to control text on VFDs and LED lighting. Often times I have to bring the stamp back into my office to make adjustments or bring in my personal laptop. If the prop is small enough, then I can reprogram in my office no problem.

Hope this makes sense, most of you people are MUCH MUCH MUCH more savy than me at this sort of thing. I can only do baisc programing and soldering.

-thank you
-Travis

Comments

  • UnsoundcodeUnsoundcode Posts: 1,532
    edited 2009-06-22 13:39
    Hi Travis, I don't think you will be able to re-program on the fly because the only two serial signals you have are RXD and TXD , you would also need DTR.

    If you have Visual Studio on the phone or some other programming language that provides access to the serial lines you should be able to communicate and use the Iphone to command the Stamp to react in different ways or run different programs·pre-loaded in·a multi slot Stamp.

    Jeff T.
  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2009-06-22 14:21
    @xesxes - Sorry to put a damper on this, but ...

    1) "Jailbreaking" an iPhone is risky. Admittedly there are some bright and experienced people who continue to work on this, but Apple has some very bright people with full knowledge of the hardware and operating system who work to make this difficult to impossible. If you get it wrong, you can "brick" your iPhone, making it unusable for anything, even as a non-Phone.

    2) The new OS (3.0) has provisions for connecting external hardware in an "approved" way although there's nothing yet that uses this feature and you would probably have to buy someone's commercial interface to use it.

    3) The Stamp compiled code format is proprietary to Parallax and is not publically documented anywhere. A number of individuals have figured it out though. The only way to compile a program is to use Parallax's Stamp "tokenizer" and this has only been released in binary form for Windows, the MacOS, and Intel Linux. There would be no way to run it on an iPhone.

    I suggest you have a look at the Propeller. There is a simple Basic interpreter for the Propeller called FemtoBasic which can be used to write programs with just a TV (or VGA display) and PS/2 keyboard. You can store programs on an SD card that's PC compatible and there's access to the I/O pins. The interpreter is designed to be extended, so it's possible to add new features.
  • Tracy AllenTracy Allen Posts: 6,662
    edited 2009-06-22 16:47
    Thanks for the links to the devdot "how to do it" and also for the serious caveats. One of my customers last week requested a serial link to the iPhone from a Stamp sensor interface. I had to look into it too, and discovered that the interface possibilities seem very limited. My customer did not need programming of the Stamp, only the serial interface for data, but even so. iPhone bluetooth seems to be limited by design to audio streaming. Is that right? I heard of wifi bridges from the iPhone to devices like zigbee networks, roundabout.

    The iPhone is evolving and maybe new releases will open up more capabilities. The link you posted is referring to code that was released in 2007, ancient history. In my experience as attractive as these PDAs are as an interface (including Palm and CE mobile) , they are a moving target both for the software and for the hardware and connectors. It is one thing as a hack for one time use, but a real headache if you want to integrate one into a hardware+software product.

    One possibility for you might be something like the 9url=http://www.parallax.com/tabid/768/txtSearch/stache/List/0/SortField/4/Default.aspx] Stache module, to carry programs from the office to the set. I know the Stache has had that role for special effects on the deck of the Starship Enterprise.

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    Tracy Allen
    www.emesystems.com
Sign In or Register to comment.