June 2012 Meeting Notes

Compiled by Dave Jaffe

Contributions from Kevin Appert and others

SVFIG on Google+ - long url - tinyurl

09:45

Coffee and a Chat

10:00

Using Change.Org to Balance the California Budget - CH Ting
"I was impressed by the change.org website, which I read about in Time a month or two ago. It is a site on which people can post petitions. When enough people sign up for a petition, it gets noticed by government agencies and companies, and sometimes they changed their behaviors."

"I have thought long and hard on the California(and USA) budget problems and have this proposal:"

"Balanced Budget Initiative"

1. "The Governor (President) must propose a budget which does not exceed the total revenue income of the preceding fiscal year."
2. "A legislator (Senator, congressman, representative) cannot make a motion which would increase the budget."

"This will place a solid cap on the budget, and avoid all the loop holes that legislator force into the budget."

"I have no idea how to write this initiative in terms of legalese that can stand against challenges. It would be nice if we can talk over it and make a good petition to submit to change.org."

11:15

Inside the Maker Faire Demo - CH Ting
Ting had two demos at Maker Faire: an Arduino Uno board driving 6 servo motors, and another Arduino Uno Board driving an 8x8 LED array. He showed us the demos and give us a look at his code.

Download software from Offete Enterprises

Books in English

eP32 Microcontroller Design in VHDL

eP16 Microcontroller Design in VHDL

Tao of Arduino

eForth as an Arduino Skrtch

11:45

Lunch
We ate at the Treehouse.

13:00

Introductions, announcements, rumours, and gossip - All assembled
Random discourse! What would you like to do with Forth? What would you like to learn?

13:20

View of a Faire - Dave Jaffe
Dave will share photos from the Maker Faire.

Slides - 1.87 Mb pdf file

13:40

GA144 Demo - Dennis A. Ruffer
Dennis will describe the demo he did with the Green Arrays GA144 for the Maker Faire.

14:20

Break

14:35

My Personal Software Process Refines Yet Further; Distinguishing Stateful and Combinatorial Words - Samuel A. Falvo II
"Test-driven development isn't for everything, or for everybody. I'll demonstrate an alternative that similarly guarantees high quality software by constructing a gap buffer implementation right before your eyes."

14:50

Requirements for Gforth and RTOS Integration - John E. Harbold
The Forth language interfaces to such operating system as Windows & Linux. In the embedded world, it would be nice to interface to an RTOS. In interfacing to an RTOS, there are requirements that have to be met in order to utilize Forth This talk is about those requirements.

Slides

15:55

Clean Up

16:00

Adjourn

Other items:

Forth

Computers

MK802 Mini PC

MK802 Mini PC Runs Android 4.0; Sports USB-Like Looks

Ubuntu 12.04 Ported to the Allwinner A10 MK802 Mini PC 33

WikiReader

WikiReader - programmed in Forth

WikiReader by Todd Thomas

Available on Amazon ($28.49)

WikiReader Forth Simulator

WikiReader, Forth, and Hacking

WikiReader at GitHub

Go Forth and WikiReadit

Software

MP3 Bitrate Changers:

MP3 Bitrate Changer

Change MP3 Audio Bitrate to Reduce Size

MP3 Quality Modifier 2.33

Metadata (with MediaMonkey or other tools)

Hardware

Forth Programming Books

Articles

6502 Primer: Building your own 6502 computer

Stores

Robots

Games

Companies

Forth Jobs - submitted by Dennis Ruffer

Lectures

People

John G. McKnight

GreenArrays

Surplus Houses

Meetings

Videos

YouTube videos of meeting:

Morning session (audio starts at 7:58)

Afternoon session (meeting video starts at 8:17 - no audio)

Dennis Ruffer's presentation video - desktop (2:25 total)

Books

Courses

CodeHS - Stanford JavaScript "beta" online course (free)

Other