Processor Companion with Alarm Function to wake up Main Computer

[TrashyMG]

So what you're saying is you spent $100 on a computer to turn in your TV which could have eqsily been accomolished with a $10 microchip?

 

I've spent 5 times that much on something I hacked apart the minute I got it home. Like Mr W.Stan said some people like toys.

 

[edlee]

So what you're saying is you spent $100 on a computer to turn in your TV which could have eqsily been accomolished with a $10 microchip?

A microchip by itself would not be able to turn on my TV for me.  The microchip would have to be part of a computer system.

I actually spent more than $100 on my HP 200LX computers.  I actually have four HP 200LX computers, two of which I have cannibalized for parts. The HP 200LX cases tend to form cracks near the hinge.  The hinge becomes loose. Thin parts of the plastic crack in the battery cover and screen latch.  When the screen gets flexed by being put in a pants pocket, some of the solder joints crack, and random vertical or horizontal lines on the screen become blank. Sometimes the ribbon cable that connects the motherboard to the screen becomes severed from repeated opening and closing of the clamshell case.  The same problem of a broken screen ribbon cable also affected my first two laptop computers.  A clamshell computer design where a bluetooth keyboard has no electrical connection to the screen would be more reliable.  If you want to use an HP 200LX as a portable device, then you need spare parts.

 

[edlee]

sudo su
echo unix_date_in_UTC > /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm
exit
For example, if it is currently December 4th 2013 at 5:00pm EST, that means the UNIX timestamp is 1386194400. I want it to wake up at 6:00pm EST, timestamp 1386198000
echo 1386198000 > /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm


And then shut down or put the Pandora to sleep. At 6:00 PM EST (23:00 UTC) it will power on as if I had hit the power switch. The hardware clock sets a register which can be read by the kernel (which it currently doesn't do, but it can if you want to recompile the module) that will tell you what started it so you can know if it was powered on by a flick of the switch, being plugged into an outlet, or alarm triggered.

I just tried this, and it works.  That is cool that the OpenPandora already has this feature exactly as I described.  The file in the same directory with the name, "since_epoch", will tell you the current Unix time.  If you add a few seconds to that and echo the value to, "wakealarm", and then shut off the OpenPandora, the machine will turn itself on at the designated time.

 

[Asiyura]

I tried too, I setup the pandora to wake up a bit later than me, it did without fail at the right hour. (and the clock hasn't gone haywire once booted, great job Notaz!)

Now, what we need is a software to use that function  ^_^

As previously said, I feel that pandora is missing a good PIM software (Osmo seems like a good contender with its GTK+ interface made for netbooks).

EDIT : I really should setup a "dev" partition on my SD card and try to compile that kind of thing on it  :unsure:

 

[WizardStan]

The file in the same directory with the name, "since_epoch", will tell you the current Unix time.  If you add a few seconds to that and echo the value to, "wakealarm", and then shut off the OpenPandora, the machine will turn itself on at the designated time.

Nicely done! I never thought of that, I've been manually calculating times like a sucker.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

So what you're saying is you spent $100 on a computer to turn in your TV which could have eqsily been accomolished with a $10 microchip?

 

I've spent 5 times that much on something I hacked apart the minute I got it home. Like Mr W.Stan said some people like toys.

@EssoAir:  I have even broken 2 of my Pandoras for the dual screen hack meanwhile I've already had  2 DSes and 4 3DSes.  I'm not geek, but "curious" people don't like their toys in perfect state doesn't matter how expensive they are 

 

[edlee]

I found a web site which contains coding examples in multiple computer languages for converting Unix time to human-readable time and vice versa:

http://www.epochconverter.com