[syndicate] I have a beef

[Pall Thayer]

You can read all about it here: http://www.kernelthread.com/software/ 
ams/

Some PC laptops have accelerometers too. I understand that IBM  
Thinkpads have them and have actually had them longer than Apple  
hardware. They just didn't make a big deal out of it.

On 31.10.2005, at 00:22, Alan Sondheim wrote:

>
>
> For those of us on pcs, can you say something about the motion  
> sensor? How many degrees of freedom, what does it do exactly, etc.?  
> Thanks - Alan
>
> On Sun, 30 Oct 2005, Pall Thayer wrote:
>
>
>> There have been a handful of interesting experiments involving use  
>> of the so-called Apple Motion Sensor or Sudden Motion Sensor  
>> that's built in to all recent PowerBooks and iBooks. Most of these  
>> projects have used a program called AMStracker to read from the  
>> sensor. However, the current version works only with the first  
>> powerbooks to come out with the sensor. It doesn't work with the  
>> iBooks and now the newest PowerBooks have yet a new way of  
>> handling the motion sensor. When I made my Carpenters Level  
>> Dashboard Widget, at first I used AMStracker. But it bothered me  
>> that I had to instruct people to download and install AMStracker.  
>> You see, it's proprietary and the creator, Ahmit Singh strictly  
>> forbids distribution of it. So, for the sake of making  
>> installation of my widget easier for the end user, I went looking  
>> for an open-source program that would do the same thing. I found  
>> it, it's called Motion, originally written by Chris Klein. Since  
>> it's open, you can distribute it along with your nifty motion- 
>> sensor-enabled-whatever-it-is. On top of that, I've adapted the  
>> original version so that it works on iBooks and have now adapted  
>> it again to support the newest PowerBooks. Ahmit still says he's  
>> trying to find the time to fix AMStracker for the iBooks (on top  
>> of that, he says that it's an OS thing but it's not, it's a  
>> hardware thing. Don't tell him. Let's let him think it's an OS  
>> thing).
>>
>> Here's my beef. I'm still seeing stuff coming out for use with  
>> AMStracker. Why on Earth would anyone want to use it when there's  
>> an open alternative? It boggles my mind. So, if anyone is  
>> interested in playing around with Apple's motion sensor. Don't use  
>> AMStracker, use Motion. It's open and what's even more important  
>> is, it works. AMStracker works on one model of three. You can  
>> hardly call that functional. Also, if you know of anyone who is  
>> likely to do anything with Apple's motion sensor, share this info  
>> with them.
>>
>> Motion can be downloaded (source-code, Makefile and compiled  
>> binary) here:
>>
>> http://pallit.lhi.is/palli/dashlevel/motion.zip
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Pall Thayer
>> pall at fa.is
>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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--
Pall Thayer
pall at fa.is
http://www.this.is/pallit