• Registered: 2009-09-26
  • Posts: 19

Topic: talking to hardware within flash

Is the externalInterface class supported on the Flash implementation on the Chumby? I need to read an RFID card.

If not, it's been suggested to me to have an daemon running that reads the RFID card which then calls Flash.

Suggestions on how to do this? The 3 hardware items I need to talk to are an RFID reader, cell modem and GPS.

thanks,
-s

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,200

Re: talking to hardware within flash

Flash Lite does not support ExternalInterface.

What we typically do in this situation is create a small HTTP server that knows how to talk to the hardware, and present the result in XML, then use standard Flash XML calls to access it.

You can either create CGIs for the built-in web server, or derive from "chumbhttpd", which is in the source code repository.

If what you're building is not a widget, then a movie launched locally can have access to various ASnative extensions that can launch local executables.  See this wiki page.  You can use "backtick" for fast, synchronous tasks, and the "exec://" protocol for asynchronous operations.  The ASnative interface also supports pipes - there are a few threads in the forum on how to use that.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2009-09-26
  • Posts: 19

Re: talking to hardware within flash

Thanks Duane,

Any word on cell modem support? Or thoughts on how complicated this will be to get going?

The general advice I've gotten is that if I want something quick for a prototype, XPe will be faster and easier due to the availability of drivers and documentation, but the Chumby would work much better for a small deployment so if I can figure out in rough terms how to do this then I'll have the information I need to hire someone to build it.

Also, I would be very interested in sponsoring the development of hardware interfaces for the Chumby as an open source project if you know of someone working in this direction.

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,200

Re: talking to hardware within flash

Since the chumby uses Linux for it's base operating system, the availability of drivers and documentation more-or-less matches that of mainstream Linux distributions.  There are occasionally a few wrinkles when compiling for the ARM processors, but manageable.

As you know, the chumby hardware itself is also documented and interfacing to the "chumbilical" is pretty straightforward for devices using USB, I2C and SPI - and USB alone opens up a lot of possibilities.

There are a few hardware hackers that hang around the forum - some of them may be interested in working with you.

Duane's Website