Hi,

I sent this earlier already, but it got stuck in moderation because of
too many recipients (on CC). So here it is again, with only one - this
list. I vowed to myself I wanted to get this out today, so apologies
for the "double" post. :-)

Here we go. Original text follows.

Perhaps this is interesting for some people. We hope so. :-)

I am glad to announce the availability, as of today, of two
Squeak-based projects that both deal with letting Squeak interface
with the surrounding world.


1. PhidgetLab

Phidgets are sensors and actuators that can be connected to a PC via
USB. So far, support for them in Squeak was not freely available -
this changes now. :-) A group of students in our group - Lysann
Kessler, Stephanie Platz, Thomas Klingbeil, Philipp Tessenow, and
Frank Schlegel - have developed PhidgetLab in fulfilment of a
coursework assignment. It provides a "low-level" Phidgets API in
Squeak, but is also integrated with Etoys.

Behold: http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/swa/projects/phidgetlab/

2. NXTalk

Over the past few years, we've made the occasional announcement of
this: it's Smalltalk on Lego Mindstorms NXT. It's a real Smalltalk VM
running on the NXT, with an image being interpreted. Now it's finally
available, including the VM source code. NXTalk is the outcome of
Martin Beck's MSc research; Martin is a former student in our group.

Behold: http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/swa/projects/nxtalk/


Both projects' source code is MIT licensed. They both are based on
(L)GPLed software, though: PhidgetLab uses the Phidgets API from the
vendor, which is under the LGPL, and NXTalk uses NXOS, which is under
the GPL.

We would be grateful for any suggestions for improvement - for both
the projects and the respective web pages alike. Experience reports
are, of course, most welcome too. Unfortunately, we cannot make the
required hardware available as easily as the software. ;-)


Please let us know what you think!


Best,

Michael