I’ve been playing with a nRF dev kit from Nordic Semiconductors. The bad news is that they require a product key to access downloads. The kind-of-good news is that their code is designed to be compiled under Eclipse with GCC (hurray for open source). The bad news is that they’ve designed the files to use assumed toolchain install paths, their makefile literally says:

ifeq ($(findstring 86, $(ProgramFiles)), )
PROGFILES := C:/Program Files
else
PROGFILES := C:/Program Files (x86)
endif
GNU_INSTALL_ROOT := $(PROGFILES)/GNU Tools ARM Embedded/4.7 2013q1

So… it only works on the default install path of “GNU Tools ARM Embedded”, and only works for one version. Also note that spaces in paths are bad, brackets are even worse, especially with GCC. I had to do some editing with the project configuration and makefile before the examples can be compiled. (only some examples support GCC, all of them work in Keil).

There are plenty of other problems with using that kit. I didn’t know I had to buy a “motherboard” for it, which had buttons and LEDs and UART and stuff on it. Most of the demos depend on a button press to start. I had to solder on my own buttons and LEDs, and gave it a FTDI connector for the UART. http://i.imgur.com/ChFMyuD.jpg

My friend just got a CC2541 kit, last time I checked, he wasn’t having much luck with it.

I am considering picking up a Hantek DDS 3X25 (function generator). There are problems with it but there are also firmware fixes available so wish me luck.

Finished Uncharted 2 and 3, insanely good games, better than Tomb Raider (2013) if you compare the same style of games. I also started playing Saints Row IV but so far it’s been disappointing, there’s problems with the website (and thus I couldn’t download characters I wanted), the intro levels are very bland compared to Saints Row 3, and the game UI is terrible (the game actually pauses while you switch weapons). Also NONE of the PS3 games I’ve played so far had any loading screens, but Saints Row 4 had plenty, and some were right in the middle of the action.