Moving forward with Touch

I got tired of trying to find a solution where the Ethernet-enabled microcontroller boards would exist on their own (due to not putting the router MAC address on UDP packets, or basically being unable to DHCP a router address, depending on board).

So I decided to just bite the bullet and use static IP addresses and a "helper PC" that forwards packets to the Internet server that connects the two ends of Touch together.

So I hooked up an RVHE (the big board on the bottom) to the Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller (which is the very small board on the left). I'm using the same RS-232 connection that you use to program the RVHE in BASIC to connect to the servo controller, as RVHE.com is now defunct and I can't figure out where the second RS-232 port is on the RVHE from the documentation!



So now one finger of pressure sensor info is sent by a second RVHE through the "helper PC" program to the Internet server. The first RVHE also sends its one finger of pressure sensor info through the "helper PC" to the Internet server as well. The Internet server then sends back a finger position to both RVHE's through the "helper PC", and the RVHE's command the servo controller over the RS-232 connection.

This gives me one finger's worth of Touch to test out timing and scaling issues. I think the RVHE is a dead product now, so I imagine it won't make it into the final project. It is too bad, the RVHE was like a BASIC stamp with Ethernet, which would rule.

In other news, I think I might have found a solution to my Modtronix SBC65EC UDP ARP/DHCP problems. We'll see tonight...