No - only waders, and the swamp got a little deep this week so yes, I am well behind schedule. No eta right now - I’m just bailing as fast as possible.
@ mcalsyn - Just a ping to see if you got the display module working with scratch 
I ask because the brainpad is on sale!
How is the brainpad display support coming for scratch? 
I now have a brainpad sitting on my desk
Leave the poor guy alone and let him enjoy his vacation… :whistle:
Whaaaat?
He said August 21! It’s October already!
Slacker:)
Oh, how I wish it was a vacation. Unfortunately, it wasn’t, but I am on my way back across the ocean, and I will be back online around the weekend, and will be working to get caught up after that.
So, where exactly is the latest brainpad firmware, and gateway program (for Scratch) ?
edit: okay, looks like the gateway is found here: [url]http://scratch4.net/Software[/url]
Any update on the brainpad display support in scratch?
Yes, I have an update, but I was waiting for the new firmware release. Now that the firmware is out, I am travelling and don’t have the ability to safely push the update to the web (ok, I can push it, but not verify it afterwards because I didn’t bring a BP with me). Worst case, that means that the update will come out shortly after I return to my office on Nov 25. Best case, I will figure out some way to get it out sooner. Apologies for the delays - as you’re no doubt aware, this isn’t how I had planned for this to go.
Updates include:
- Lots of stability and performance improvements
- Better handling of serial ports
- New ‘settings’ page
- Display support
- ‘Classroom’ mode
The new ‘classroom’ mode can be installed from a zip file and disables dynamic updates and removes any need for an Internet connection. It also locks out some UI options that would cause problems if the students experimented with them, and provides a simple ‘reset’ button that resets the environment to its install state. Basically it is intended to ensure a more stable, predictable environment for guided lessons and classroom labs.
I will probably make one more change : removing the touchpad blocks from the scratch template. Their use under Scratch was always kind of wonky, and the new board doesn’t have them, so the blocks are just a distraction. Unless anybody wants to argue otherwise, I will remove these blocks.
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@ mcalsyn - Just excited to revealing this to my son and setting him on his course for a life of embedded software engineering, to help compensate for his overly good looks.
edit: I need him to get interested in programming before he becomes interested in girls, and all is lost. Short window!
Just a thread bump to indicate that I am still very interested in your eventual awesome display support for scratch update, which I think will reclassify the GHI brainpad into a “cool thing” into the “next great thing for kids.”
And that Christmas is 17 days away
Any chance you could add support for Scratch’s “Say” statement, that could output a text string via some IO on the clickboard pinout?
I’m hoping that at some point I could route the “Say” strings to a text-to-speech module (a spare emic2 I have laying around)
Technically, that’s possible, but a little complicated operationally. What I mean by that is that I would have to only enable that mode if you were using a CDC USB connection (instead of a serial adapter), and I would need some confirmation from the user that there’s not something else plugged into the expansion port that would get upset by the ‘say’ string.
Potentially, that could take the form of some sort of a declarative block (a do-nothing block) that represents a speech thingy plugged into the expansion port. If you add that block, then you are telling me that you have a speech thingy plugged in. The same approach could be used for other interfaces on the expansion port. I’ll think about this a bit…
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