Paul:

 Reading all your posts on EFI systems and GPS intefacing has kept me
 thinking about what might be the best operating system to use if one
 wanted to create an entire home-brewed glass-panel display.

 I ran the idea past my wife's cousin, who is now retired from a position
 as a programmer for some Silicon Valley hardware developer.  He
 suggested a look at TCL (pronouced: Tickle)

 see:
 http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tcl_Programming/Introduction#So_what_is_Tcl.3F

 He sparked my interest so I've been hacking around with it for the last
 couple of day.  The weather has been snowy/rainy and we occasionally
 have up to 3 dogs and 8 grandchildren under 8 years of age ramming
 around the house, so hiding in my office is often prudent behavior :)

 I first explored methods using TCL GUI tools to draw the panel
 instrument (which I've done with the vertical gauges on the bottom of my
 panel).  I  then decided that displaying images of real instruments was
 a faster/prettier way to do it. I can now simulate the appearance of
 most anything on the screen.

 I now need to figure out how TCL can be used to read an external
 data-source.
 I will probably test it by having it read test-numbers from a simple
 external data file, but according to claims from online sites, I should
 be able to read data from most any data port as well.  That is my next
 project.

 This is one of my most recent panel displays.

 Robin Bergland


 Robin,
 This is very impressive and very nice appearance.

 SUGGESTION: include an attitude indicator, and layout the "clocks" in the
 standard T layout.

 Philippe CHENEVIER

 Can TCL be used to program a Honeycomb tablet?
 Tablets have build in gyro's.


 Paul Lamar

 I believe JAVA is the only programming language supported except
 native mode. So basically no. But we can use TCL with Ubuntu or Linux.

 Henry

Unfortunately the notebooks that support Linux do not have build in GPS
or gyro's. The GPS is easy to fix as there are several USB GPS's. I have it working
in Ubuntu 10.04 but the gyro is more of a problem.
There must be  merge bewtween Android Honeycomb and Linux sometime soon.

"A microelectromechanical system (MEMS) is an embedded system that integrates
electronic and mechanical components at a very small scale.  A basic MEMS device
consists of an ASIC and a micro-machined silicon sensor.  The AGD1 2022 FP6AQ chip
found in the iPhone 4 is a MEMS gyroscope designed by STMicroelectronics."

Apparently these come in two version. One is designed to be embedded into the memory
map of a computer and the O.S. (Android Honeycomb) must be written to access it... I think.
My guess Android Honeycomb does this as does the I-pad.

The second one is a standalone 3 axis analog output probably used in toy helicopters.
Here is a pdf. The AVRXplain $30 PC board could be used to convert these three analog outputs
to a USB signal.... Perhaps..... If we are lucky. See gyro the data sheet pdf.

BTW there could be a market for a stand alone attitude gyro using this PC board and a gyro
chip and an OLED display. Piece of cake after you learn AVR asm language.
Cost would be well under $100 while stand alone electro mechanical gyro's are $1000 to $3000.

Paul Lamar