[TriEmbed] Quercus_MeetingMinutes_17Aug2022

[jaime johnsen]

Meeting Reminder Project TriEmbed Quercus

August 17 @ 7-9p

Doors open 6:30p

Beverages at 8p

The Forge

https://g.co/kgs/QLPFDd

Meeting Agenda

Project News (Paul, Rob, Nick, Pete)

1 Windows installation status

2 Plan for next improvements to the installation process

Proposal (Dawn)

Start a League Users Group (could be alpha-testers, or maybe new signal group)

1) goal #1 of this group is to read the Greenpak Designer Users Guide and create a Quickstart User's Guide

2) goal #2 - progress to programming some FPGAs (Cookbook designs, or design-your-own)

3) goal #3 - provide feedback to quercus designers on limitations, feature requests, ease of use, etc

Show and tell (Nick)

Hands on with the Blinky app to modify it (group)

Open discussion (group)

End agenda.

Attending:

Rob Mackie (in and out)

Dawn Trembath

Carl Nobile

Paul MacDougal

Glen Smith

Ron Carig

Nick Edgington

Pete Soper

Begin minutes.

Discussions regarding how the install process for windows should work.

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Linux method:

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Clone repository from GitHub.

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Open directory structure, run linux_install.sh

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Windows plan:

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Clone repository from GitHub

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Open directory structure, run win_install.bat

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Equivalent to “clone” is to click on the green “code” button at https://github.com/TriEmbed/quercus and then click “Download zip”

Installer will currently make a copy of quercus/ant and quercus/aardvark to the local machine eith que_ prefixes.

Linux installer is careful to validate an already installed Expressif IDE to make sure it is not corrupt.

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Clone succeeded

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Switched to 4.4 branch

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Submodules loaded OK

Much discussion of how Windows needs to run the install process. Pete was confused by questions where he couldn’t figure out or kept changing his mind about the subject being to do with how things work with Linux now, how Windows has to do the same thing, how things should be eventually, etc, etc. Frustrating low S/N ratio.

Who are our expected users?

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FPGA users (have arguments over which Git interface is better)

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Curious Makers (have used Git, understand some of the concepts)

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Less experienced folks who can get through our tutorials and how-tos

Paul is looking to Dawn for support to write the Windows installer, since Dawn has taken over the Linux install.

Nick is looking at getting Micro DNS running on the device so that the network connection can happen with less interfacing with the wetware. On Linux this should eliminate all manual install operations except the following, assuming an ESP32 iis connected via USB:

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Entering password (or Windows whatever) for privileged execution (max of one time for Linux)

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Pointing browser to localhost:8080

Dawn described her proposal and after discussion it was agreed there will be virtual meetings to start with hands-on practice using Quercus, starting with one on Wednesday August 31 7-9pm via Jitsi at the same address as used fir TriEmbed meetings.

Nick did a combination show and tell and monologue about how Quercus might operate in the future, focusing on the notion that the aardvark/ant abstract away a great deal of complication and allow the user to focus more on their application. He shared details about some peripherals he is using with his Quercus superset and described some that he expect to use in the future. Here are some additional notes about what Nick said:

(for Nick to clarify) Nicks report from the future:

Ant runs on the device, Aardvark runs on a laptop or desktop. Ant virtualizes the I2C interface, allowing the device to talk to an I2C master. ESP has 2 web addresses the first is your home Wi-Fi the second is at 192.168.44.1, from here you can configure the device after entering your password and selecting from a ‘list’ of command line options. OTA upgrades are happening. The device can scan the SSID’s that it knows about and report the status of them. An SD card has been added to one of the devices, as well as a 32 bit ADC (open source from CERN).

Time did not allow for the hands on session with the blinky app to get into use of the Renesas/Dialog synthesis tool (“Go configure”). [Anybody else find this to be a HILARIOUS play on words (i.e. go figure) that the Dialog marketeers might not have intended?]
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