Eric Arseneau's Weblog

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49 Port USB Hub, 49 USB cables and 49 Sun SPOTs !!!
Thursday March 22, 2007

We are working towards getting our Handls-On-Lab content ready for JavaOne this year. In order to hold this lab, I have 200 Sun SPOTs at my disposal. One major issue is how to work with so many Sun SPOTs with only 2 ports on my MacBook, or even with the piddly 7 port USB hubs one can get.

Well working at Sun Labs has its advantages. The folks here are not afraid to get down and dirty putting out new software and hardware that is pretty cool. Today, I got to hold this huge behemoth of a 49 port USB hub that they custom built. The guys started with 8 7 port USB hubs, hacked them a little bit, and with a little tape and glue put them all together. The configuration is one 7 port hub going to 7 hubs, and each of these 7 hubs providing 7 ports each. Giving us 7x7 which equals 49. This is not quite 42, the answer to life the universe and everything, but it will do for my needs for now.

I've included a picture of what it looks like with 49 Sun SPOTs actually connected !!!

(2007-03-22 23:14:25.0) Permalink Comments [5]

Project Sun SPOT released
Tuesday March 07, 2006

Here are some high level highlights of this project:

By simplifying the development of wireless transducer applications, the Sun SPOT System from Sun Labs will help transform the potential of wireless sensors into real-world products.
Sun SPOT: Simplified Development of Wireless Transducers Using Java™ Technology

See Sun SPOT World for more detailed information.

This is the project I have been indirectly working on for the past couple of months. In a previous post I talked about being PI on Squawk, well Squawk is the VM and base runtime that is running on these SPOT devices.

Sun SPOT is a productization of our VM that we JUST got certified, which I blogged about on my prior post.

(2007-03-22 22:59:16.0) Permalink Comments [1]

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