[syndicate] I have a beef

[Alan Sondheim]

thanks for this. now if there were an external one that could be attached.
- alan

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005, Pall Thayer wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>

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