Arduino Is Its Own Source...

Hot Topics:

By Phillip Torrone
Posted 2012/03/16 @ 3:00 pm
Category Arduino

IDEO Labs – Arduino Tool That Connects Each Board to it’s Own Source.

If you create something with Arduino and put it out into the world, there is no well-established link to the source. If you personally made the device, the source can get lost over time. If you didn’t create it, you could have a tough time tracking the source down. You have the physical device, why can’t it tell you where it’s code lives? I made a tool for Arduino called “Upload-And-Retrieve-Source” that for the most part solves this problem.

Very clever and cool to see IDEO continuing to get some great ideas out there.

In the Maker Shed

Cube 3D Printer

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

BeagleBoard BeagleBone Black

Tux Case for Raspberry Pi

4 Responses to Arduino Is Its Own Source…

irts on March 16th, 2012 at 3:51 pm said:

Frosty Pist.

Also, that’s awesome!

Reply ↓
rocketguy1701 on March 17th, 2012 at 6:21 pm said:

Really nice idea. I understand why the usb mac address is a convenient identifier, but I’m wondering if there isn’t another way that is more universal, and not dependent on a particular board as was commented earlier (hardware replacement etc).

The only thing that comes to me is something like an md5 hash of the binary, but I’m not sure if it’s possible to even get that from a board. Might be that the IDE needs to be amended with some sort of audit function. Or a tool module to load some sort of eeprom cookie that can be read from the IDE later? So when you load the program, an ID # is loaded into a register which could be read later, and matches the git repository ID.

You’re really on to something here, hope you keep developing it!

Reply ↓
- macegr on March 17th, 2012 at 8:47 pm said:
  
  avrdude (the utility used by the IDE to program the chip) can pull a binary back from the hardware. This is actually already done every time the Arduino is programmed, for verification. A hash of this binary would be pretty unique and require no changes to existing programs or EEPROM storage.
  
  Reply ↓
  
  rocketguy1701 on March 19th, 2012 at 4:13 am said:
  
  Seems like this could just be a function of the IDE then, both for initial posting and later retrieval. Might be cool to have it as the default, as long as the user is cool with it…
  
  Reply ↓