STARTUPDATE (Sept 8.2006)
Some interesting things have happened.

1) A LIRC module was released for Ruby and this will let me accept the raw codes and get rid of the totalitarian lird.conf file! Hooray! Now I can allow people to, via a RIA app (Flex) remap arbitrary IR codes to switcher activities!
2) Ruby actually works on my device! Having trouble packaging it up to return to the SH4 community but I’ll work on that more later.
3) I learned how to build RIA apps in Adobe Flex.

This means some progress is being made, just slowly. Lots going on as I put the finishing touches on the huge home remodel I did All On My Own With Help From My Dad.

oh, and now I don’t have to code in C. All Hail Ruby (this month at least).

ENDUPDATE

As my 2 regular readers know, I am deep into my Whole House A/V Distribution installation. Overall the results have been fantastic but there is one missing component, its just not turnkey enough. If anyone else had to maintain it they’d rip it off the wall and plug all the RG-6 into a splitter from the local Cable Co.

Thats not the goal here, the goal is to build a Distribution system to stand the test of time, one that Ozymandias himself would be proud of. Wait. Bad example. So, the latest quest has been for a small appliance that can act as the switching system.

There are any number of these out there but they are all limited in one way or another, until now that is! JJPlus (http://www.linux.jjplus.com/) recently released this cute little box that has NAND RAM onboard, accepts USB storage external or internal and has multiple network ports AS WELL AS a serial port! That makes it perfect for my scheme. Should be easy enough right?

Not really, see, since I haven’t had hardware to work on I’ve been playing ‘product manager’ in my head and thinking up all sorts of crazy features. The goal is to make this thing usable when I am no longer the owner of it. Towards that, here is my current feature list:

Dynamic Configuration of IR codes

• Accessed via a web-based wizard as well as a Java SWT app
• Allows for configuration of switch (add/remove inputs/outputs) and assignment of IR codes via learning

PROBLEM – LIRC is great but its typical ‘Linux’ stuff meaning ‘the people who use it use it one way’, I need LIRC with an sql back-end and no .conf file. I don’t know much about it yet, it probably does this already since lircd can spit out raw codes on socket.

PROBLEM - JJPlus box is very low resource. Thats ok, I’ll write my CGI’s in C and use really lite XML.

Plug-in architecture for switching languages

• Each switch manufacturer uses a different protocol, although they are all text based. We’ll need to be able to drop new protocols in whenever required.
• XML communications to Java App

Obvious, buy why a Java app? See next point ZeroConf implementation to support Java app configuration – This is the key ingredient. Launch the java app, it finds the switch controller and your off to the races. So thats the list today. I think its a nice, doable, medium term project that I can get cracking on. I haven’t coded in C in -years- (who codes in C now? No one I know but then again I hang out with perl nerds and java snobs). It should be a blast and I’ve been wanting to build a -useful- embedded system for quite awhile. DISCLAIMER : I Know That There Are More C Coders Out There Then Sand On A Beach. It Was A Sarcastic Remark. Some of My Best Friends Code In C, regularly! From a user perspective its great, plug power, ethernet and null modem to the box, power it up, launch the java tool, add your inputs and outputs and for each combination assign IR controls. Viola! Truly distributed media switching that was dynamically configured by someone who could care less what an autopatch is, why its connected with a null modem connector and how levels work. PS – Why do I care that my HTPC handles it today? Well, my HTPC tends to CRASH or be REBOOTED BY MICROSOFT on a regular basis. Thats cool, they are protecting me from Evil, I know this but it makes things get screwy with Girder and the IR sub-systems when it happens to often. Its also lame to have this big 3ghz P4 system required to issue 6 character codes over the serial port. Its also just way cooler to have a little 1″x4″x8″ solid-state box doing all the magic, thats what my inner nerd tells me. Finally, I am on a quest. For the last 18 months everyone I know tells me I am crazy, that my system is to complicated (even though my wife can use it with ease) or that its to expensive. This is the final piece of the puzzle to complete the vision and prove, once and for all, that I have built the Budget A/V Switching System To End All Budget A/V Switching Systems. Thats not to hard, its the only one going. Turns out A/V Switching systems are not that popular..