Electronic badges

Mon Jul 9 16:09:46 UTC 2007

--- Dave Cramer <davec-zxk95TxsVYDyHADnj0MGvQC/G2K4zDHf at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On 9-Jul-07, at 8:42 AM, Colin McGregor wrote:
> 
> > --- Dave Cramer <davec-zxk95TxsVYDyHADnj0MGvQC/G2K4zDHf at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> >> The company I work for is visible assets. We make
> a
> >> unique RFID tag
> >> which is active and can store information on the
> >> card.It is unique in
> >> that it operates at 132KHz.
> >>
> >> I may be able to get a few hundred tags, and a
> >> reader or two for the
> >> show. I will provide how instructions on how the
> >> card/reader works if
> >> anyone is interested.
> >>
> >> Complete disclosure here... my aim would be to
> >> expose this technology
> >> to some innovative people for a new application.
> >> FWIW we already have
> >> most of what you need working.
> >>
> >> Dave
> >
> > Okay, I may be missing something here (or I may
> not be
> > imaginative enough...), but I'm not sure where/how
> > this technology, that while interesting helps
> GTALug.
> >
> I'm probably to blame here for not following the
> thread closely enough.
> 
> There is a display on some of the tags, however it
> is pretty limited.
> 
> The tags can be used to read the name of a person on
> a computer when  
> they come up to the booth. You can store approx 256
> nibbles inside  
> the tag.

I'm still not seeing a fit with GTALug. But I do see a
potential fit for events like the Ontario LinuxFest as
a whole. 

Large trade shows (and even some not so large shows)
issue the attendees a paper name badge with a bar code
on them. Ask for more information at a vendor booth
and they will pull out a battery powered hand held bar
code reader and scan the bar code. Then end of the
show, those scans are matched up with the registration
database. 

I could see your firm's tags in the above sort of
role. The concerns I would see are:

- Getting enough tags so that every attendee has one.
- Getting enough readers so that every "vendor" has
one.
- Co-ordinating tag numbers with registration data
(i.e.: tag 1234 = <<Sue Jones,sjones-omLZJFyqO6s4Q++5jOxPmw at public.gmane.org>>)

If you can see solutions to the above, I would
strongly suggest you get in touch with the Ontario
LinuxFest people and see what can be worked out.

Further I could, depending on how Linux friendly your
firm's products are I could see doing a magazine
article that mentions the above. 

Again, depending on how Linux friendly your firm's
products are I could see these badges as the basis for
a good GTALug presentation.

Hopefully someone else on the list can come up with
additional ideas.

> If this is of not what you had in mind, then please
> ignore. However  
> I'd still make the offer to anyone who does have an
> application more  
> suited to this.

Basically I see the badges as an extra advertising
media, a role your firm's badges were not really
designed to fill. Still as noted there is some room
for doing interesting things with those badges...

> The tags can be read underwater, inside steel cans
> (not aluminum  
> however). As they are at 132Khz the bandwidth of the
> channel is  
> pretty slow.
> 
> DAve
> > The name badge idea was as a cute talking point
> and
> > being able to go from a paper badge on people's
> > shirts/blouses that says something like:
> >
> >    Hello, I'm <<name>> of GTALug
> >
> > to a scrolling sign that says something like:
> >
> >    Hello, I'm <<name>> of GTALug, we meet the 2nd
> >    and 4th Wednesday of every month, we are the
> >    Toronto area voice of Linux fans ...
> >
> >    Today's lucky number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3
> 5B
> >    D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
> >
> >    Hello, I'm <<name>> of GTALug, we meet the 2nd
> >    and 4th Wednesday of every month, we are the
> >    Toronto area voice of Linux fans ...
> >
> >    If Microsoft is the answer it must have been a
> >    very dumb question
> >
> > etc., etc. GTALug promo mixed with some geek
> humor.
> >
> > In other words how could we use this offer to help
> > GTALug is my basic question, and at the moment I
> don't
> > see it...
> >
> > Ideas folks?
> >
> > Colin McGregor
> >
> >> On 8-Jul-07, at 11:08 PM, Colin McGregor wrote:
> >>
> >>> --- phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org wrote:
> >>>>> As noted in my posting about the Ontario
> >> LinuxFest
> >>>> I
> >>>>> am opening up the electronic name badge can of
> >>>> worms
> >>>>> again. So, with that in mind let note the
> >>>> strengths
> >>>> (snip)
> >>>>
> >>>> To anyone considering a single-chip
> >> microprocessor
> >>>> project using the PIC,
> >>>> I would strongly recommend looking at the Atmel
> >> AVR
> >>>> series of
> >>>> microprocessors. The Microchip PIC is arguably
> >> more
> >>>> popular, but - based
> >>>> on my experience implementing code on it and
> the
> >> AVR
> >>>> - it has some serious
> >>>> architectural deficiencies.
> >>>> - limited number of instructions leads to
> opaque
> >>>> assembly language code
> >>>> - bank-switched registers and paged memory make
> >> for
> >>>> convoluted code and
> >>>> complex debugging environment
> >>>>
> >>>> Anyone who challenges this is invited to write
> a
> >>>> routine that simply pumps
> >>>> out a section of memory to a host computer. On
> >> the
> >>>> AVR, it's about three
> >>>> lines of code. On the PIC, it's an ugly,
> >>>> non-intuitive hack.
> >>>
> >>> On the BASIC Stamp the oddities of the PIC chip
> is
> >>> hidden behind a BASIC interpreter. So, I have
> not
> >>> written any PIC code...
> >>>
> >>> Oddly enough the LCD name badge problem is a
> >> variation
> >>> on what you describe. The LCD module has some
> >> limited
> >>> smarts, so we don't have to worry about dealing
> >> with
> >>> individual pixels (well, subject to conditions
> we
> >> can
> >>> if we want to...). We want to walk through a
> block
> >> of
> >>> memory, feeding information out to the
> controller
> >> in
> >>> the module, toggling two control lines, and we
> >> want to
> >>> do a lot of waiting (even the BASIC Stamp could
> >> update
> >>> the display so fast as to make the display a
> blur,
> >> so
> >>> waits are a must).
> >>>
> >>>> A compliler can hide many of the architectural
> >> warts
> >>>> of the PIC, but there
> >>>> are good reasons for projects of this type to
> >> work
> >>>> in assembly language.
> >>>> The code size is smaller and C tends to hide
> >> certain
> >>>> types of bugs.
> >>>>
> >>>> Comparable IC's and development systems are
> >>>> available for both devices.
> >>>> Prices are similar.
> >>>
> >>> I have an old PIC programmer, not sure how many
> >>> current devices it supports. But regardless I
> >> suspect
> >>> that if this is all a one person show it may not
> >> get
> >>> done. So this is why I got a kick out of:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
>
www.instructables.com/id/E5H5UDWB5UEUKIKV8V/?ALLSTEPS
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> A very bare bones AVR development system for
> about
> >> $10
> >>> (U.S.). Even that modest sum can be slashed if
> one
> >> say
> >>> has a parallel printer cable they are willing to
> >> cut
> >>> up. In other words a development system cheap
> 
=== message truncated ===
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