• Registered: 2011-09-13
  • Posts: 1

Topic: Programming a Chumby using C?

I have an insignia infocast 3.5 that I've been playing around with.  I want to use it for a home automation project, but I'm not a flash developer (yeah, there are a few of us in the world, unfortunately), and I don't really have an interest in adding yet another programming language to an already long list.

Are there any resources out there for alternatives?  I've tried searching the forums, but it seems as though the only way anyone does anything with the chumby is with the flashplayer.  It also stands to reason that there must be a library in the system somewhere that would natively (not via flashlite) interface to the display hardware and touchscreen.  If that wasn't the case, flashlite would have to be rebuilt for every conceivable kind of display hardware out there which wouldn't make a lot of sense.

I'm also interested in using some GPIO on the device, but I suspect that information will be much easier to find.

Thanks.

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,197

Re: Programming a Chumby using C?

The screen is simply accessed by opening /dev/fb0 (or /dev/fb1 for the overlay) and seeking/writing to it. The Flash Player mmaps it to present it as a block of memory.  There is no native window manager or graphics library since that's built into Flash - but you can easily port one - I've ported nano-x in the past, and it's pretty straightforward to port Qt.

The touchscreen is also accessed using a driver.

There are several languages available for the device, listed on the wiki - C/C++ cross tools, python, ruby, java, lua, etc.  A mini-perl is built in.  There are also forum threads with links to them in sticky posts in this very forum section.

There's even a completely native C/C++ toolchain - just ssh into the device and type "make" - it will ask you if you want to download and install the toolchain.  You'll need to add a swap file to build anything substantial, and, of course, it's not exactly a speed demon.

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