Re: [buildcheapeeg] Re: software

From: Rob Sacks (editor_at_realization.org)
Date: 2001-04-15 14:24:00


Hi Yaniv,

I was sorry to read that you think you made
a mistake by trusting me too much. From the
beginning, I tried very hard to be completely
honest with you about the chances that the
program would get finished and would
become available. Please accept my
apologies if I misled you in any way. If I
did, it was inadvertent.

Your remarks made me rethink the whole
issue. I changed my mind about a few things.

First of all, until some better software
gets written, my program may be useful.
It works now with Joerg's machine. So
I'll freely distribute the exe to anybody who
wants it.

(By the way, the program also works with
the BrainMaster and Steve Ciarcia's HAL.)

The program is sufficiently complete to
use for neurofeedback at present, and several
people including myself have used it for
that purpose. Its great functional limitation
at present is that it can play only one reward
signal at a time (see below).

If any bugs turn up that don't require writing
a lot of new code, I'll fix them. (There are
two known bugs at present: the program
crashes when a screen saver blanks the
screen, and the sound doesn't work
properly on all machines.)

The program has a lot of missing pieces.
Two of them seem especially important to
me for neurofeedback:

1. It can play only one reward sound at a
time. This is inadequate because if you
are trying (for example) to raise one
frequency and lower another simultaneously,
you can't hear two separate tones as the
individual threshholds get crossed. Ideally,
the way to handle this would be (since the
program is a Windows program) with
DirectMusic. This would allow the signals
to be MIDI sounds -- chords, notes, music,
instrumental voices, etc.

2. The program calculates all threshhold
crossings with FFT instead of digital
filters. I am not convinced that it makes a
difference -- the whole issue of low
latency (fast response) with digital filters
seems questionable to me because the results
have to be averaged before comparing them to
a threshhold, thus extended the latency -- but
despite my reservations, the program should
have a variety of digital filter types for
experimentation.

If any programmers come along who want to
write either or both of these two missing
pieces, I'll discuss at that future time turning
the program into an open or group project
and releasing the source code. (The program
is written in Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 and
must be linked with the Intel Digital Signal
Processing library, which Intel distributes for
free. It requires either DirectX 6.0 or 7.0 --
I've forgotten which.)

Another limitation of the program is that it
was designed to be used on a high resolution
monitor. (I was planning to rewrite the
graphics.) It will work sort of okay on any
monitor, but it definitely looks best at 1280 x
1024 or 1600 x 1200, up around there.

Regards,

Rob

----- Original Message -----
From: <yaniv_vi_at_yahoo.com>
To: <buildcheapeeg_at_yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2001 1:08 AM
Subject: [buildcheapeeg] Re: software

> hi
> i'll write what i know about this things
> 1. currently nobody has started writing software . and we don't even
> have specs .
> 2. i have asked from petereson to write some spec , and he said
> that maybe he will start soon.
> 3. i have created contact with this guy vlad , a new member in our
> group . he has open source neurogame (game based on
> neurofeedback). he said that it wouldn't be a problem for him to
> add neurofeedback to it .so i think we can collaborate with him
> and get the software done .
> but in order to do this , he need a machine .so maybe moritz/jeorg
> would contact him , and find a way for him to get a machine .
> 4. i'm working on a connection with other poeple , for example
> a group of bioelectric engineers doing some neurofeedback game .
> if anybody could find software poeple willing to work it would be
> great .
>
> we have reached to this states because two of my mistakes :
> 1. rob sacks in the start hadn't gave complete assurance about
> sharing his software , and i trusted him giving us software too
> much .
> 2. second i don't mean to criticize doug ,because he's on a volunteer
> basis and maybe he doesn't have time to work , but after he said
> that he would start working on spec and software , i left this
> thing alone , and didn't check on him ,and after 2-3 months i seen
> that nothing has been done , and so i began looking for some one
> to be responsible for software . i think i should have checked
> long ago , and maybe tried more to fidning people to write
> software.
>
>
> but anyway , i think because our new member vlad , the chances for us
> to get a good software and pretty soon , are pretty good .
> and still i'm looking for other people , because it would be always
> helpfull.
>
> sincerly
> yaniv v.
>
>
>
> --- In buildcheapeeg_at_yahoogroups.com, e_e_ling_at_h... wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > What is the software situation for our project? I read Rob Sacks'
> > post that says we should not rely on his software. Do we have any
> > alternatives? Who is responsible for the software side of things
> > here?
> >
> > Eric
>
>
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