mcu8051 IDE for Windows

mcu8051IDE can now be used in Microsoft Windows also. If you are not aware of mcu8051IDE, read my previous post: Introduction to mcu8051IDE

Download the following:

• mcu8051ide.exe
• Active Tcl
• SDCC (optional)

First install ActiveTcl and SDCC and then mcu8051IDE.
Then you have just completed mcu8051IDE installation in windows.
If you want to report bug, go here.

FEL: Qucs tutorial for beginners Part1

Qucs- Quite Universal Circuit Simulator - is now as the name suggests, quite universal. Pspice, Tina Pro etc give a very fine experience for circuit designers. But as far as a student is concerned, buying them seems difficult. Even though SPICE and its open source derivatives were free to download, their user interface was diffcult to be handled by a beginner. In such cases, people go for a demo version. But some people need freedom to do anything and Qucs is intended for such people.
Qucs is opensource an run on both Linux and Windows platforms. Most probably, you can find the binary in your OS repo while a readily installable file is available for Windows users.
After successful installation, launch qucs from menu or entering command 'qucs' and hitting enter. A window similar to figure shown will appear with a plane work space. Click components and add std. compnents to workspace by drag and drop. You can change the component parameter by double clicking on the component. A label should be added to the workspace to indicate that which simulation you are doing. For a beginner, it is easy to learn simulation in Qucs after watching this video: Qucs.ogv

Download Qucs video tutorial : Qucs.ogv

Download Qucs sources.

Download Qucs for Windows
Note: You need FreeHDL to be installed along with Qucs in order to simulate digital circuits properly. It will be installed automatically if you install it from repo. If not, you should manually download and install and reinstall Qucs if necessary.

FEL: Introduction to MCU8051IDE

There is a lot of free and propitiatory IDEs for micro controllers. Here I like to write about MCU 8051 IDE - An open source project packaged under FEL (Fedora Electronic Lab). Intel 8051 is a standard micro controller and that's why it is essential in engineering syllabus even though some good stuffs are there in newer micro controllers from Microchip, Atmel etc. Simulating 8051 is pretty easy if you own a good 8051 IDE. There is a lot of IDEs available for 8051 simulation and emulation. But it is not a good idea to spent your valuable money for that, if such good free and open source IDEs are available. I am just coming to my point. It is about MCU 8051 IDE. It is packaged with fedora electronic lab. If you intend to stick with other OS, you need to compile the source code. Currently it supports more than 79 MCUs. Know more and how much powerful it is. I have uploaded a screencast of MCU 8051 IDE and I think it is enough to start with for a beginner who knows assembly level programming in 8051. Of course, one can write and simulate the program in C also.
Download video tutorial mcu8051.ogv.

You can view the screencast with VLC media player or any other ogv supported media player.

mcu8051IDE for Windows

PHET science simulations for students

PhET interactive simulations - Fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena from the PhET project at the University of Colorado.

I found those simulations were good in today's eduction- thanks for university of Colorado. Most of them are intended for Upper and High school students and pre- graduate students. However, if you just spend your time in experimenting with it, I am sure you get something new. Phet interactive simulations create a virtual lab environment. It's just a feeling that to enter into a physics or chemistry lab in a college. You can do anything in your own lab. Nothing to fear. No more comments from teachers...
One more advantage is that, you only need a java powered web browser. You can browse through different lab environments. If you like PhET virtual lab, you can download it for offline usage. Linux(80MB), Windows(97MB) and Mac OS(85MB) installation supported.

Browse phet simulations
Download phet for offline usage.

Go on with pyS60

I got a very good feedback from my previous post: "How to simulate PyS60 in your PC". As the request of opentechlab readers, I am attempting to write a brief beginner level tutorial on pyS60 emulator.

Once you are successful in installing and setting up the environment (If you didn't set up yet, click here), it is the time to go on.

Start the emulator program from:

Start->All programs -> S60 Developer tools -> 3rd edition FP2 SDK -> v1.1 -> Emulator

You probably need to wait for a couple of seconds to load it if your system is slow. Then a medium sized window with a full fledged mobile phone appears on the screen.

Now you need to open python. Just do as in your mobile phone. it's in Menu -> Installations -> python.

Now it's ready and do what you want.

Hacking python script

Select options -> Run script ->ball.py

You can move the ball anwhere in the screen. It's a physics simulation example in python. You can see the actual python script by opening ball.py file using any editor (notepad is not recommended. programmers notepad is good). The file is stored in :

C:\S60\devices\S60_3rd_FP2_SDK_v1.1\epoc32\winscw\c\python

Search for the word 'blobsize'. Then you can find a line like:

blobsize = 16

Change the value of blobsize into 25 and save it. Then open ball.py in emulator. Did you notice any change? Similarly you can change acceleration, gravity (what about changing gravity into -0.01 ?) etc.

Developing your own programs

I am just starting with a hello world. Here is the program.

1)Simple hello world

print "Hello World!"

2)Say, hello world

from audio import*

say("Hello World!")

3)graphical hello world!

import appuifw
appuifw.note(u"Hello World!", "info")

It is good practice to make a short cut of python on the mobile desktop by changing options in settings.

How to simulate PyS60 in your PC

You can do your experiments in PyS60 without touching your mobile phone. The experimentation is easy while you set up everything in your PC. Here I am explaining how to set up the PyS60 environment in WinXP platform. I didn't try this attempt on my Linux yet. I will surely post about it if I get some good mobile stuff on Linux. This will be a boon for python developers in Nokia S60 mobile phones. But rarely it can be seen that some python scripts works neatly on simulator may cause strange responses on your real world system. I would like to here about it if you get any funny experience on your S60 device.
Download the required things:

1)Download S60_3rd_Edition_SDK_Feature_Pack_2_v1_1_en.zipfrom the following link:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/807ec36d-0a8e-4bda-8e10-4d5e5bb4764a/S60_3rd_Edition_SDK_Feature_Pack_2_v1_1_en.zip.html


2)You can find ActivePerl 5.6.1 build 635 here:

http://downloads.activestate.com/Act...SWin32-x86.msi

3)Download PythonForS60 _1_4_5_SDK_3rdEdFP1.zip from http://sourceforge.net/projects/pys60/files/

First install ActivePerl because S60 SDK requires it.
Then install S60 SDK. Please note to install it in C:\ drive to avoid confusion.
Extract PythonForS60_1_4_5_SDK_3rdEdFP1.zip. Then you get another archived file sdk_files.zip.
Extract it again and you get a directory named 'epoc32'.
Copy this directory into "C:\S60\devices\S60_3rd_FP2_SDK_v1.1"
Then probably Windows XP asks to replace the already existing folder 'epoc32'. Click yes.
You have done. Cheers!