[Phys-L] Re: OT: fun things

[Brian Whatcott <betwys1@SBCGLOBAL.NET>]

At 01:37 PM 9/22/2005,  John D., you wrote:

> I know a kid who recently got a "Legos Mindstorms Robot Invention System".
///
> The programming language is a "drag and drop" graphical thingy (sorta
> like LabView, but simpler).  I was pretty impressed to see a pre-teen kid
> writing and debugging some distinctly nontrivial programs.


Long ago, the US government surveyed its computing resources,
  noting that heritage code maintenance was a major, major cost.
  Someone proposed a way to displace the dozens, really hundreds
  of code variants and dialects then in use.
   They would create a walking, talking, scientific, engineering,
  business language endowed with flexibility, and which would enforce
   methods designed to make hard the mistyping of data with the
expected unforeseen consequences.

It was a grand concept!  It was to be specified for all new projects.

It was understood that there would be an initial learning curve.
   And someone wisely let out numerous trial projects calculated to
familiarize the user communities.   All the same, the price tag on
  new projects was staggering - not least, for flight simulators.

Soon there were waivers requested for incremental projects,
  and add ons.

Sadly, for flight simulators in government use, the outcome
  was not pleasant. A US mainstay went bust. New simulators
faded in favor of band aids of the most varied kind - tack on PCs,
or Suns or VME chassis of the dumb, or PC based, or Unix based kind.

Processor on processor - all hooked up with ethernet interfaces,
which could be strung between them.
Executives and operating systems of more dialects than ever
came into use.

It is against this backdrop, that I mention a feature I was recently
  dealing with.    To provide simulator sound effects, a company offers a PC
  with the aformentioned ethernet interface. This box  can fire off
wav files, and process input signals to generate suitable sounds - i.e
  input an RPM value to fire a signal processor making turbine
  whine as an example.
    In the case in point, an aircraft's operating rules were revised
  to provide for manual (rather than automatic hydraulically driven)
Auxiliary Power Unit - APU  door opening in cold weather,
  in order to avoid failures due to icing incidents.

This simulator faithfully rendered an apu door opening bang,
a starter wind up, then a turbine whine, initiated only by an
RPM signal winding up, triggered by a cockpit APU start switch.

I needed to separate the door bang from the starter windup,
and supposed that someone had edited a wave file with a bang
on the front end of a sound effect waveform.

Finally, I brought myself to play with the sound system.
    It turned out that the vendor had opted for a novel visual
code diagramming method. (Visual Programming Plus!)

I soon found a diagram with the incoming APU RPM signal,
  scaled 0.0 to 1.0.
Here is the line connecting this input to a low
pass filter box. This is shown connected to a real to binary
  converter block, and this signal fires a bang wave file,
while the RPM signal is also drawn connecting to a  DSP block
  providing a whine proportional to the RPM signal.

What could be easier than erazing the low pass filter to
  trigger door bang at low RPM, and instead, draw an input
connection directly to the bang wave signal block, for host
  control?

It was a real surprise and pleasure to eraze a line connecting
  the input to a low pass filter and draw a new input connector,
then run it!    Just as John was impressed by the usability of
  a drop n drag  graphic control interface for robot control
  - so was I!

Brian Whatcott    Altus OK    Eureka!
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