Group Update and interesting items

[folkn...@googlemail.com]

I know it's been a little quite on the group recently apologies, I've
been up to my neck in both work, research and DIY at home..

Looking to arrange a meetup shortly (sorry been slacking), if you have
any ideas let me know.

Here are some interesting items I thought I would share:

Farnell and Microchip have a training event on the 1st December which
looks good if your Microchip inclined.
The cost is £50 but you get given a dev kit worth about £37 so it's
good overall value.
http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/bespoke/bespoke3.jsp?ICID=i-f4bf-00003028&bespokepage=farnell/en_UK/promotions/edf_reg.jsp

If you are looking for a really low cost 8 bit micro-controller dev
board check out the STM8S discovery
http://www.st.com/mcu/contentid-130-113-STM8S_DISCOVERY.html for the
STM8 micro-controller - http://www.st.com/mcu/inchtml-pages-stm8s.html
I found this via Hackaday - http://hackaday.com/2009/11/23/stm8s-discovery-microcontrollers-reach-a-new-low/
You can buy it in the UK from Farnell for £4.25 -
http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/displayProduct.jsp?sku=1775251&ICID=i-b2ff-00001000
Unbelievable value!!

My Protuino boards (http://folknologylabs.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/lab-
prototypes-updates/) arrived and I have already used one to knock up
an Arduino based motor controller to test a bunch of reclaimed
steppers. If anyone is interested in playing with one, just come up
with a nice idea and let me know, I can bring a few along to the next
meeting for worthy causes.

Here is a few more interesting links I have come accross recently:-

These guys make the OC8, Opensource based networked microcontrollers -
http://www.opencontroller.com/form.aspx
Yet another Arduino (ARM based) but for OEMs - http://www.bugblat.com/products/cor.html
A free landing pattern calculator/software -
http://pcbmatrix.com/Products/LPSoftware/LPCalculator/
For those like me who love the command line, a command shell for AVR/
Arduino - http://www.instructables.com/id/AVRSH-A-Command-Interpreter-Shell-for-ArduinoAVR/
Useful tips for moving between 5V and 3.3V logic -
http://www.rocketnumbernine.com/2009/04/10/5v-33v-bidirectional-level-converter/
Improve your c-coding performance using some handy BitHacks -
http://www.catonmat.net/blog/bit-hacks-header-file/

regards
Al