Wyrdoscope Hardware User Manual

gowyrd.org

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Table of Contents

Wyrdoscope Software User Manual

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1.1 License

The Wyrdoscope Controlling Software is open Source and runs under the GNU Public license.

In case of further questions , please contact Wyrd Technologies.

1. Controlling the Wyrdoscope

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2. Terminology

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To make sure you have a good baseline for any event, turn the Wyrdoscope on and off 15 minutes before and after the event.

After pressing the On button, it takes a couple of minutes to boot up. You will know it is ready when the light on the event button glows blue and the battery and memory displays light up.

The Wyrdoscope records the data of two Random Event Generators (REGs) and facilitates the collection of meta data with an event and an audio button.

Inside the Wyrdoscope two TrueRNG Pro REG's are used to synchronously generate random data. One REG is named Alice the other one Bob. Each second per default 200 Random Bits are taken from each REG device. The software is using the maximum time precision possible to capture the data at the same time. The data of both REG's are saved in separate csv (comma separated value) files called Raw Data Files. ��A Raw Data File contains five columns: UTC Unix timestamp, the duration in seconds, the REG bitstream, the REG bitsum and a comment column used to mark events and start and stop times of audio recordings. The naming convention of the files "Alice_ or Bob_ Year-month-day" allows you to conveniently find raw data files of a specific day. ��If the Wyrdoscope is switched on and off on the same day more than once, then at the end of the filename "_1", "_1_2", "1_2_3", etc is added.

A similar naming convention is used for generating audio files.

Renaming raw data or audio files is not recommended as it might impact further data analysis with our analysis software.

The Raw data files are stored in the "/data" folder, the audio files in the "/data/AudioRecordings" folder.

If the Wyrdoscope is turned off for a longer period, please turn it on every 3 months to ensure the Realtime Clock battery stays charged. Should it fail and you start getting inaccurate dates/times, please try resetting as per section 6 below.

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3. Usage of the Wyrdoscope

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3. Usage of the Wyrdoscope

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3.1.1 The Event Button��As soon as the Wyrdoscope has finished booting (which takes c. 1 min) the LED of the Event Button is switched on.

The event button (1) serves to mark events during a recording. If you press it a numerical event is saved to the Alice and Bob Raw data files. These events will show up as event1, event2, etc. in the analysis software.

If you hold the Event button down for longer than 3 seconds the Wyrdoscope switches into Standby mode.

As soon as the Wyrdoscope is in Standby the LED of the Event Button is switched off.

If in Standby mode a short press on the Event button restarts the Wyrdoscope.�

3.1.2 The Audio Button��The LED of the Audio Button (2) is only switched on during an active audio recording.

To start an audio recording press briefly the Audio Button (Audio Button LED is switched on). To stop it press the Audio Button again (Audio Button LED is switched off).

The audio is recorded either by the inbuilt microphone in older editions of with a lapel mic in newer editions. To save space on the SD card the audio files are stored as mp3 files. More recent editions of the Wyrdoscope have a wireless lapel mic that connects automatically via Bluetooth to the Wyrdoscope when you turn the mic on.�

3.1.3 The Power Button

The LED of the Power button (3) lights up when the Wyrdoscope is switched on and the battery charge is above 3%. Note that there is approximately one minute between switching on the Wyrdoscope (Power button LED lights up) and the Wyrdoscope switching into recording mode (Battery and Memory LED's light up).

3.1 Buttons

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3.2 The battery LED��The battery LED shows the battery status. Each LED segment represents 20% of the battery capacity. If the Wyrdoscope is connected to the grid and the battery is charging then the segments flash on and off up until the segment showing the current charging. Once the battery is fully charged the flashing stops. ��Note that when the battery charge goes below 5% the Wyrdoscope is switched into standby mode to guarantee a safe shutdown.�

3.3 The memory LED��The memory LED shows the amount of memory that has been taken up on the SD card. Each segment represents 10% of the SD card memory. ��The last two segments are coloured yellow and red. When the yellow segment is reached, please move the data from the Wyrdoscope to an external computer to avoid the SD card running out of space and you missing any recording data..

3.1 Buttons

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4.1 Data Access Interface��The Wyrdoscope has a simple Samba file server interface to access the REG Raw data and audio files via an external computer. Additionally, it offers full access to the Wyrdoscope desktop including the controlling software and the file structure via a Virtual Network Client (VNC). The Wyrdoscope additionally allows you to plug in a keyboard, mouse and HDMI monitor to use it as a full computer, using a USB C Hub plugged into the USB C output.

To connect via Samba or VNC client the Wyrdoscope provides WLAN access. Search in your available networks list and connect with the "Wyrdoscope" WLAN network. Enter the WLAN password you received in a separate file when you purchased your Wyrdoscope.

4.2.1 Access the data folder on Windows and Linux��Enter \\192.168.0.1 (do not forget the \\ ) in the file search address bar. For Windows this is in Windows / File Explorer. On Linux it depends on the distribution. On KDE it is "dolphin" or "thunar" and the address to enter is smb://192.168..... On GNOME it is "Files" or "Nautilus", also with the smb:// prefix. When doing this for the first time, a login screen will pop up. Enter username "wyrdo" and the user password “Wyrd&2023” (figure 3a) . Save your settings for future access. After logging in you will see in your network folder an entry "192.168.0.1", which shows three folders: "wyrdo", "Wyrdoscope_controlling software" and "Wyrdoscope_data" (Figure 3b).

4. Accessing the Wyrdoscope Data

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The "wyrdo" folder is read-only and provides an overview of the complete folder structure on the Wyrdoscope.

Figure 2 Wyrdoscope WLAN.

Figure 3a (left) shows the login screen of the Windows Explorer when logging in the first time. ��Figure 3b (right) shows the three Wyrdoscope folders after logging in.

4.2.2 Access the data folder on Mac��In Finder, choose Go > Connect to Server. Type smb://192.168.0.1 in the server address field at the top and click Connect. Once connected, you will see 3 volumes listed. “wyrdo” at the top should be selected. Click OK. You will then see multiple folders listed. Open the “Wyrdoscope” folder, and in that open the “data” folder (it may take a moment for the files to show up).

4. Accessing the Wyrdoscope Data

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Figure 3d (middle) shows the three Wyrdoscope volumes after logging in. Select Wyrdo.

Figure 3c (top) shows the Connect to Server in Finder.

Figure 3e (bottom) shows the folders and files in the wyrdo volume. Select the files you want to transfer and analyse from the data folder.

The "Wyrdoscope_Controlling_Software" (Figure 4) contains 1. the controlling software "Wyrdoscope_REG_Control", 2. the Displays controlling software."Wyrdoscopy_displays_control" and 3. their C++ source files "Wyrdoscope.cpp" and " Wyrdoscopy_displays_control.cpp". It gives you read and write access. In the file "config.txt" you can change the bitrate which represents the collected bits per second the REGs are collecting data (the default value is 200). The serial number is also provided in this file and must not be changed as otherwise it might be difficult for our support team to track problems on your specific Wyrdoscope.

Any updates to the software, which will be provided by our support team must be copied (overwrite the old file) into this folder. After the new version is copied into this folder, restart your Wyrdoscope and it will run with the new software.

4. Accessing the Wyrdoscope Data

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Figure 4 The content of the Wyrdoscope_Controlling_Software folder

The "Wyrdoscope_data" folder (Figure 5) gives you full access to all your REG data files and audio recordings. The audio recordings are stored in the "Audio_Recordings" folder. To process them further with our analysis software just select all (CTRL+A) entries in this folder and copy or move them over to your computer. The analysis software can directly read the data from there. Please do not rename any of the files, neither in the Wyrdoscope folder nor on your external computer, otherwise the analysis software might not be able to load or display the data correctly. It also expects the audio files to be in the related folder "Audio_Recordings", so please do not remove or rename this folder.

For MAC and Linux users: Choose your favourite file browser and follow the same process. The file browsers must be able to display samba folders, which is a normal feature of all popular file browsers.

4. Accessing the Wyrdoscope Data

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Figure 5 Typical content of the Wyrdoscope_data folder

4.3 Access the full desktop with VNC��For advanced users, the Wyrdoscope grants access to the full desktop via VNC (virtual network client). Download a VNC client (e.g. Real VNC) and access the desktop by entering "192.168.0.1" into the address bar of the VNC client. After establishing a connection a picture similar to Figure 7 should show up. You can see the Start up and monitoring program, the Wyrdoscope REG Control and the Wyrdoscope display control software in action. An information shell shows the serial number of your Wyrdoscope. You can fully develop your own Wyrdoscope Controlling software by adapting the provided Source Code in the C++ files. The source files provide compiling instructions in the comments. The main software "Wyrdoscope_REG_Control" is compiled using a Makefile.

4.4 Access the full desktop using a USB C Hub��The Wyrdoscope has a USB C port at the front end. Using a USB C Hub, you can plug in a mouse and keyboard and use the Wyrdoscope like a full computer. A screen can be plugged into the HDMI port on the back. This is especially useful if you want to develop your own applications using additional hardware which can be plugged e.g. to the USB ports. Have fun playing and hacking!

4. Accessing the Wyrdoscope Data

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Figure 7 VNC desktop after logging into the Wyrdoscope

5.1 How to report a bug��Should you encounter an error that looks like a bug, it is important to report this to Wyrd Technologies, so that it can be fixed. An error report can be filed at: <insert web page> (via help scout)

A few tips on how to report an error:

• Use a descriptive title about what does not work as intended
• A detailed description of the problem, including the steps to reproduce it is important. Be Specific and to the point. Try to summarize the problem in minimum words yet in an effective way. Do not combine multiple problems even if they seem to be similar. Write different reports for each problem.
• Always specify the used operating system (Windows, Linux, MacOS).
• Always specify the used version.
• In the bug report, specify the information from the Version

5. Bug Reports

6. Resetting the Real-time Clock

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• Download RealVNC viewer from here: https://www.realvnc.com/en/connect/download/viewer/
• Connect to the Wyrdoscopes IP Address (192.168.0.1). This should give you the desktop of the Wyrdoscope Software. The user is "wyrdo" and the password the "syntropy+2023"
• In the desktop, on the top open a new terminal window
• Set the clock with "sudo date +%F%T%Z -s “"2025-01-08T12:00:00UTC"”. Note that this date and time should be the actual date and time in UTC when you set it (this is an example). This sets the on-board clock of the Pi. You may have to enter the password of the user again.
• Transfer the time from the on-board block to the realtime clock with: "sudo hwclock --systohc --utc".

© by Wyrd Technologies, All Rights Reserved.

Hardware prototyping and software development: Dr. DI Wolfhardt Janu