HamLib.org, originally founded by Frank Singleton (VK3FCS/KM5WS), Seems to have been following VA3LGD's call for a concrete protocol in rig control by creating HamLib.org (now hosted at SF.net).
HamLib is a 'wrapable' library (API) for communicating to conventional Amateur Radio rigs via [RS-232]. There is still a lot to absorb here, bit it looks like a good protocol definition is already in place for the OpenTRx Class 1 and 1a paradigm!
I am a bit nervous to subsume an entire library, wholesale, until I am sure that we can easily present the right 'hooks,' allowing developers to take advantage of our pipeline with little to no modification of existing code.
For now: take a look at FLDigi, by W1HJK. His group seems to have taken on the mantel of library development for HamLib.
2 comments:
Maybe I'm missing it, but this would be a lot better if the modules for the individual radios were in XML or something that you could build a tool to easily implement the commands on each radio instead of hard coding it.
So, if I called int setFreq (double frequency); it could call whatever low level code is set out in a simple key/value dictionary that someone who isn't necessarily a program could create.
Precisely! I am reviewing the code now, and though their control architecture and ontological methods are novel, it it readily clear that Rig Discovery will be a crucial factor in the design of the protocol.
Leigh, WA5ZNU, has pointed out that XML is not necessary for light-weight, local(ized) control; A byte-code implementation may be all that is needed, so that the PICs of the world can respond via i2c or a UART without a great deal of consternation from parsing logic.
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