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#1 2007-11-09 13:17:33

tomwilliford
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-11-09
Posts: 5

Scratchboard problem

Hi all,

I have a scratch board connected to a SPST switch and a few momentary push buttons. Every now and then the board appears to stop talking to the computer. That is, the scratch board watcher will show the same values like it's frozen and stopped receiving updates from the board. I have a timer as part of the program and the timer and keyboard inputs still work but the board is non-responsive. To fix it, I can "select serial/USB port" on the scratch board watcher and choose my correct value (COM4) and it works again but it does this far too often to be considered reliable. Has anyone seen this before or have any suggestions on what to do to fix this?

Thanks!

Tom

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#2 2007-11-13 10:48:18

tomwilliford
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-11-09
Posts: 5

Re: Scratchboard problem

shameless self bump in hopes someone will know something about this. ~help~ :S

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#3 2007-11-13 13:44:06

andresmh
Scratch Team at MIT
Registered: 2007-03-05
Posts: 1000+

Re: Scratchboard problem

I've forwarded your message to the people working on the board.


Andres Monroy-Hernandez | Scratch Team at the MIT Media Lab
on identi.ca and  twitter

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#4 2007-11-13 15:55:20

tomwilliford
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-11-09
Posts: 5

Re: Scratchboard problem

Thank you Andres

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#5 2007-11-13 22:15:55

room209
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-03-17
Posts: 94

Re: Scratchboard problem

We went through a round of Scratchboard problems today, where our newly purchased boards weren't communicating with the computer even after installing the current driver from the website.  We finally figured out that it makes a difference what verson of Scratch is in use.  We have Macs running OS 10.4.10, but the Scratch was 1.0.2.  Swapping up to 1.1 fixed the problem.

I figure it is worth mentioning in case others run into the same situation.

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#6 2008-01-15 11:32:50

tomwilliford
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-11-09
Posts: 5

Re: Scratchboard problem

This problem appeared to be related to the USB-Serial cable adaptor that is provided with the Scratchboard. Per a developer/team members suggestion, I replaced that cable with a standard DB9 cable (not a null modem cable) and it runs without issue now. As an added bonus, the board is no longer tied to the computer due to USB cable length issues; I can run a serial cable much farther and cheaper than USB.

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