8th January 2023 - Technology Battles
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I have been battling technology of late. All self inflicted but I have 
been chuffed with myself still. 

The first battle has been with pilot-link. This is a suite of software 
to provide you with means to communicate with your Palm Pilots. I have 
acquired a Tungsten E and Tungsten E2 with a TX on the way. Why? Well 
I got curious about them and the cost has been naff all. Palm OS 
amazes me as a whole with how efficient it is. Anyhow, it is always 
great to be able to load programs to your device. Well...... 
solitaire. Yes, I basically have 2 solitaire machines to satisfy those 
urges. I should really get help with that addiction. Anyhow, I thought 
this would be easy. I use Manjaro and love the aur, a repository of 
software with the build instructions provided so you don't have to do 
much. Nice in principle and most of the time. However, sometimes you 
hit road blocks. Jpilot was one of them. Jpilot kept failing to 
install due to pilot-link. Something about GCC not being able to 
execute programs. This was a nightmare to work out options. Well, 
until I found I could simply use the package pilot-link-git. That 
worked without hassle. However, I still could not install Jpilot. Why? 
I can't really remember but it conked out complaining about missing 
files. So I decided to build it myself. Oh dear. I do not build many 
programs. I am not all that interested in the depths of linux and 
unix. They are tools and a means to an end. Well.... I got stuck in an 
autoconf loop. There were missing files from the build so I had to run 
a whole string of tools to get this all to build. ARRGGHGHHHHHHHHH! It 
is a good thing I was jonesying for that sweet solitaire hit or I 
would have thrown the palm device through a window. Eventually I got 
Jpilot compiled and then hit the next issue of syncing the bloody 
thing. I got there but could never get the installing a program to 
work. Eventually I discovered the existance of pilot-xfer. This is by 
far the most simple way to instal programs to your palm pilot. A lot 
of frustration but I am mildly impressed with being able to work 
through it. The added bonus of scratching that solitaire itch helps. 

The second battle has been with an ARM cortex M0+ board. This is a 
thing called a sensor watch and is basically a micro-controller 
designed to be fitted into a Casio F91-W. For those who are not aware, 
the Casio F91-W is the squarish classic digital Casio which has been 
made since the 80s and always seems too cheap to be true. Well... I 
got interested in the possibilities of making a dumb watch smart. 
There was also a sort of desire to support someone who has come up 
with a smart design. It clearly has been thought about and some 
sensible design decisions have been made. I also liked the idea of 
logging temperatures on a watch for Scout camps. It would be nice to 
understand what the temperature was against how the Scouts feel. Well, 
this whole thing involved downloading the git directory and you can 
then add new watch complications written in C. The standard image 
lacks a few features I was after so I went about reconfiguring an 
array on the main configuration file. All very simple. You then use 
the build tool in a specific folder to get your image. Well... in 
theory that is the case. I kept being hit by errors about missing 
libraries. Turns out those were linked projects in the original repo 
so I had to download those seperately. The documentation made no 
mention of this. I then kept getting more errors. Turns out I am a 
terrible typer and failed to spot the typos I added. Then I was able 
to get an image. SUCCESS! Now I just had to get this on to the watch. 
In theory, you connect the board to a USB B Micro port and then double 
click a reset button. This should enter things into reprogramming mode 
and then the board appears as a mountable drive. Yer.... that doesn't 
happen and I cannot work out why not. I assume I am doing something 
daft but I am fed up of fighting technology. The PCB is on the desk 
with some soldering bits I got out in excitement and ready to transfer 
the piezo arm from the old PCB to the sensor watch PCB. I will try to 
solve this one day but not for a bit I think.

The first issue was simply with being lazy and not wanting to build 
the software. I can do better.... I should do better with that sort of 
thing. However, the second just feels like the instructions are 
incomplete. They assume a level of software engineering skills which 
not all of us have. I probably should expose myself to more of these 
but meh. I spend enough time solving engineering issues at work to 
have an urge to learn about software. Grumble grumble grumble! It is 
nice to only have these as issues which bother me in life. Now back to 
solitaire!