[GreenKeys] Volpe board help...

Tue Sep 18 21:49:39 EDT 2018

I'm going to keep planning on making a run of these boards for now (I've
told Eric to go ahead and take the reins if he ends up being able to before
I do, though).

I will take note of anyone's interest in these boards now, but I'll put out
an official request for orders...  sometime (I'm moving and building a
house for pretty much the rest of this year, so I don't know what my
availability is going to look like). When I do, please just assume I didn't
take note and raise your hand again to ensure nobody falls through the
cracks.

As for software, there are a few newer ones available including the one
Eric wrote for his board (he posted the link on this thread earlier) and
the one that John Nagle wrote for his board design (
https://github.com/John-Nagle/baudotrss).

I'm writing a fairly extensive suite that is exclusively meant for
Raspberry Pi. It's not quite as portable as Python but could be made to
work on MacOS with some tweaking and homebrew gnu substitutions. You won't
be able to utilize the GPIO for automatic control of motors and loops
without the Pi, though. You could substitute it for some other kind of USB
controller compatible with a Mac, but I'd recommend to just get a Pi if
possible even if you don't use the suite that I'm writing. Python was the
obvious choice, but I decided to take a more interesting route, the details
of which I won't bore everyone with here.

It will include the following (bold items are functional as of now, though
there are still a lot of rough edges I want to clean up before making it
available to the general public):

* *Send/receive SMS*
* *Send/receive email*
** Print pre-selected RTTY art*
* Have a photo-booth of sorts that would convert a live image to text and
print it out as art (would require at least two page widths to get enough
resolution to be recognizable, and the camera booth would need to have a
white background to avoid noise)
** News*
** Weather*
** *Emergency weather alerts
* Ability to receive ITTY-like streams
* *Ability to generate ITTY-like streams*
** Live relay via TCP for connections to any TCP-enabled device (currently
can only receive connections-- not yet able to initiate connections)*
** Relay of received messages to a MorseKOB 4.x telegraph interface via TCP*
* Compatibility with i-Telex (not just via telnet)
* SSH
* White glove installer for Raspberry Pi so that those who are not
technically inclined won't be overwhelmed getting up and running
* Maybe one day some other interfaces like Slack, WordPress, Facebook,
Twitter, &c. Those are much farther down on my list right now.

I've even considered providing a turn-key solution for those who don't want
to tinker with their setups at all-- it would basically be a box with
preprogrammed boards, a preprogrammed Raspberry Pi, and all the necessary
power distribution and switching hardware and wiring to automatically
control motors and loops, not to mention built-in loop and motor plugs--
totally self-contained, and basically plug-and-play. That way I'd eliminate
the technical barrier for people who want to get their machines online but
don't have the technical prowess to do it on their own. Then we could have
more people participating in the online telex presence (i-Telex and
otherwise) and hopefully provide reason for more people to keep preserving
more machines. Something like this is miles down the road, though.

I think about this stuff too much and never have time to do it... one day,
friends. One day.

--Jordan

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 4:59 PM E. <hanyou at xsmail.com> wrote:

>
> Yeah, that’s why I would like to use a Volpe board because I have a Mac
> (multiple) and Macs have no serial port ;p .  Also, I know that Jordan
> Spencer Cunningham has successfully used the Volpe board on his Mac - so
> it’s really the only option I have, minus the software ;o ...
>
> Speaking of - that's something someone else needs to get on, if possible,
> is a new app to run these things ;o (I know nothing ;p ).  Heavy Metal is
> so old ;o (and not Mac compatible ^_~ )~
>
>
> > On Sep 17, 2018, at 5:52 pm, epvgk at limpoc.com wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 10:48:16PM +0000, Barnett, Andy wrote:
> >> Hey sorry to ask a totally dumb question but what is the Volpe board?
> Googling did not come to my rescue... Some sort of teletype interface?
> Loop to rs232? Curious 😀
> >
> > It's this: http://heepy.net/index.php/USB-teletype
> >
> > It was an interface i made a couple of years ago that looks like a USB
> serial port to a
> > computer, and like another teletype machine to a tty loop. Mostly a
> response to modern
> > computers not having serial ports.
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >>> On Sep 17, 2018, at 6:43 PM, "epvgk at limpoc.com" <epvgk at limpoc.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 06:27:41PM -0400, Ralph Irish wrote:
> >>>> Maybe it is time to take some kind of poll and see if it might be
> worthwhile for Eric Volpe
> >>>> to make another run of his products.  They are  NOT  something that
> one would logically
> >>>> consider making a half dozen of.  If the count got up into the
> 'several dozen range', or a
> >>>> bit over 50, he might consider another run of the items.
> >>>>
> >>>> I would take a pair of them or even two pairs to help the count
> grow.  I would also be willing
> >>>> to pay in advance and  NOT  sit, tapping my foot until they arrive.
> Such an activity needs
> >>>> time, and whatever that timeframe is would be the waiting time for
> all.
> >>>>
> >>>> How about it, Eric?  How many tentative and certain orders would it
> take for you to 'tool up'
> >>>> again and make another run?
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks, by the way, for the last run.  I got a pair of the items then.
> >>>>
> >>>> Ralph - W8ROI
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Hey,
> >>> Yeah, I'm sorry about not being very active in organizing another run
> of these. I don't think
> >>> it would be a huge undertaking, and I doubt any of the parts have gone
> out of production
> >>> since the first run, it would just need a bit of work that I'm not
> that likely to get to in a
> >>> reasonable time span.
> >>>
> >>> If anyone else has done small scale mfg/assembly stuff and wants to
> take it on partially or
> >>> entirely, I'd be happy to help as much as I can though. Eagle files,
> BOMs, etc are freely
> >>> available to whoever wants them.  I think it'd involve:
> >>>
> >>> 1. pick a board/assembly house. The guys I had do it last time were
> fine (myropcb.com) and
> >>> reasonably priced.
> >>>
> >>> 2. go over the BOM and make sure all the parts or at least the
> non-passives are still in prod
> >>> and can be gotten in the necessary quantity without a long lead time
> >>>
> >>> 3. get the board house quotes for fab and assembly (ie, they'll want
> to supply passive parts,
> >>> other stuff will need to get supplied to them from digikey or whatever)
> >>>
> >>> 4. shell out the $2500 or whatever it costs to have the boards made
> and assembled.
> >>>
> >>> 5. receive, flash program, test finished boards, take orders, collect
> money, ship boards
> >>> to everyone. I used square.com for orders and it worked well except
> for their annoying
> >>> non-support of non-USA buyers, which sucks.
> >>>
> >>> eric
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Sep 17, 2018, at 5:30 PM, E. wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Hi!
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Was wondering if there was anyone out there who could help me build
> a Volpe board ;o ?  I’m ok with simple circuits, but bad with complex :/
> (and don’t want to fry my teletype ;p ).  Over the past four to five
> months, I’ve been trusting the building of the board to a local, young ham
> - the wunderboy, as I call him ;p … really good at circuits.  I bought him
> a bunch of tools, clean boards, acid, etc… he etched three boards (he’s
> hoping that he measured everything out right), has a part list, but that’s
> all the further he’s ever got ;o … he just started college and - I admit,
> even though it’s a volunteer job - he has admitted himself that he’s been
> procrastinating.  I would really like it to get done - so that I can
> finally hook it up to my computer, communicate on it with Jordan Spencer
> Cunningham and maybe someday even receive NWS bulletins over it, but for
> now ;o ...
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Anywho, I’m itching to grab the boards from him and try to find
> someone else who can complete it.  I’m thinking about looking locally first
> with some other hams, but if all else fails, would anyone here be willing
> to lend a hand ;o ?  I’d pay for all the components to be shipped, along
> with any additional fees that one would like.  Been a little frustrated
> with the progress thus far - partially due to my shortcomings, but hope
> that someday the job can get done :) .  Please contact me directly if it’s
> a possibility ^_^ ~
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thanks much in advance ^^ !!!~
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