New Website

This is to announce a new website.

I've also uploaded my Resume and CV there!

Jishnu.

Return of the Primitive - Quote

Nice quote:

But I lean on no dead kin,
My name is mine for fame or scorn,
And the world began when I was born,
And the world is mine to win.

--Ayn Rand, in the Return of the Primitive

The Fountainhead

Recently, among other things, I'm reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand too. Just go through the Wikipedia link. I feel too small to try appreciating the philosophy portrayed therein in my own words :D.

Team India, Asia Pacific Robocon 2008

Hi folks,

I'm blogging after a long, long time. I was busy preparing for the Asia Pacific Robocon 2008 to be hosted by MIT Pune, India this year on 31st August. After winning the National Robocon 2008, 7 people from Nirma Institute of Technology, Ahmedabad are going to represent India there. 17 countries will play for the Robocon championship title. Being a part of Team India was one of my greatest experiences ever. After three months of working day & night, now I'm back into the regular college life. Although the preparations are almost over, I can't stop thinking of the next challenge, National Robocon 2009, the next chance to prove ourselves...

Chak De India!!

Technodyssey '08

Technodyssey '07, The Voyage to Cognizance, was organised by IEEE Student Branch, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, on 10th-11th August, 2007. This technical extravaganza comprised events like Paper/Poster Presentation competetion, Hardware/Software Project Presentation competition, Robotics workshop conducted by NEX Robotics Ltd., CDMA workshop conductedby TATA Indicom, Documentary and Ad Film Making, Quiz competition, LAN Gaming competition as well as Robotics events. Technodyssey '07 recieved an unprecedented success in the history of IEEE Student Branch, Nirma University with a participation of over 300 participants from different colleges. The event had sponsors from corporate as well as educational field. All in all, Technodyssey '07 was a grand success of our student branch which inspired us to come up with Technodyssey '08.

Every organization aspires to do big things. After all, life is allabout dreaming big. Our thirst for doing something big to be noticed by all – to be soaked in exuberance to be vibrating– to sparkle with cognizance has driven us to organize Technodyssey' 08.

Visit http://www.ieee-nit.com/technodyssey08/ for details.

Thanks to MCS Electronics!

For all those who had started programming Atmel AVR microcontrollers using BASCOM-AVR, you must have made your own home-brewed Sample Electronics cable programmer - as it is called. Same was the case with me. I soldered the connections. Surely, I didn't expect it to identify the target chip in the first run.. eh?! I checked and rechecked the hardware.. After a few corrections, it did identify the chip and loaded the HEX file ultimately. But, after some hours I concluded that it's not completely reliable... Sometimes (even if everything seemed to be okay) during the verification process, I got a message box stating that there is a difference in the hex codes of the actual file and the loaded file; along with the address of the difference. I thought and thought and thought.. Couldn't come to think any other drawbacks other than lack of buffering and impedance matching. I asked my seniors and mentors.. Everyone agreed that it was a bit unpredictable but no-one knew the true reason for it. I searched the net, but didn't find any relevant explanations. So, I remained ignorant until now :D.

Initially, I was using the demo version avilable on the MCS Electronics website. After some experience, my code size often went above 4 KB and that won't compile in the demo version. One fine day, I got the full version crack and installed it on my PC. Then, it was another very fine day (:)) when I was showing the same connections to a friend of mine (Note: now I was using the help section of the full version which was a bit updated), BINGO! I came across this italicized text which almost explained the thing I wanted to know for so long!

I have been having spurious success with the simple cable programmer from Sample Electronics for the AVR series.

After resorting to hooking up the CRO I have figured it out (I think). When trying to identify the chip, no response on the MISO pin indicates that the Programming Enable command has not been correctly received by the target.

The SCK line Mark/Space times were okay but it looked a bit sad with a slow rise time but a rapid fall time. So I initially tried to improve the rise time with a pull-up. No change ie still could not identify chip. I was about to add some buffers when I came across an Atmel app note for their serial programmer "During this first phase of the programming cycle, keeping the SCK line free from pulses is critical, as pulses will cause the target AVR to loose synchronization with the programmer. When synchronization is lost, the only means of regaining synchronization is to release the RESET line for more than 100ms."

I have added a 100pF cap from SCK to GND and works first time every time now. The SCK rise time is still sad but there must have been enough noise to corrupt the initial command despite using a 600mm shielded cable.

Although I'm using Kanda Systems' STK200+/300 as of now, this one explained to me the reason of the old weird problem. My sincere thanks to whoever updated that help section and to the research guy too!!

Note: Although the loading is done via the parallel port, the communication is done in serial mode as stated in the app note.

The Screen

"I'm sitting here looking at the same screen,
All I see is the same thing
I click and click and not a thing blinks
I know I know comes to mind
I'll ctrl alt del tab tab and tab
Nothing still.
Maybe its time to pull the cord.
Now I see how much I've been missing outside of this screen."

I found this poem over here. This one makes me think of how very often we're confined to our computer screens, unaware (or least concerned) about the outside world. A similar quote by Juuso Heimonen also describes how a computer geek tries to shoo away a fly from his computer screen by using his mouse cursor!! Here's how it goes:

"You know you're a computer geek when you try to shoo a fly away from the monitor screen with your cursor. That just happened to me. It was scary."