Tanmatsu progress update: software
All pre-orders have been fulfilled
It has been a while since our last update here, partially thanks to how busy we have been shipping everyone their Tanmatsu. All pre-orders have been fulfilled and Tanmatsu is now in stock on our webshop.
What is next?
Software! While the hardware of Tanmatsu is very capable the current software situation doesn’t allow users to take full advantage of that unless they are provicient in embedded C development. We want to change that as quickly as we can and here is how:
First stage: the basics
When you take Tanmatsu out of the box it comes shipped with our launcher firmware. Currently this firmware allows downloading apps people make and restarting Tanmatsu into these apps, which are essentially standalone firmware images. This works, but is very barebones and we know it. A lot of work is being put into extending and improving functionality, both by us and by the community.
To highlight some of the cool stuff being worked on: one of our core community members, robot, is working on extending the launcher to allow for starting ELF file applets, this should allow for much smaller apps which can take advantage of the existing software stack of the launcher itself. While another community member, cavac, is working on improving the reliabilty and speed of the BadgeLink interface.
Meanwhile our main developer is working on proper support for LoRa via the SDIO link between the ESP32-P4 application processor and the ESP32-C6 radio. For this the firmware of the ESP32-C6 radio will also be updated to the latest state of the esp-hosted-mcu project by Espressif. As a nice bonus this will also enable support for enterprise security WiFi networks. We plan on having this LoRa support ready for use by the end of the year.
Another community member, HeathenUK, is currently working on adding support for Tanmatsu to CircuitPython. Currently display output is working, as well as the USB mass storage interface. Keyboard support is still being worked on. We are trying to aid this development, making the changes needed to allow CircuitPython to be started as an app. There is still a lot of work to be done, though we expect a first preview release can be made available soon.
Second stage: Tanmatsu as a communicator
After the base LoRa support has been added we will start work on integrating Mesh communication features. We intend on supporting both the MeshCore and Meshtastic networks, although focus will first be on support for MeshCore.
For users that want to use Meshtastic there is currently a preview firmware available which replaces the launcher and allows you to use your Tanmatsu as a communicator today. Though do note that this firmware is very unstable. If you want to play with it simply visit the recovery website using a Chromium based browser and flash the Meshtastic firmware to both the radio and application processors to install it.
Third stage: Tanmatsu as the on-the-go hacking tool
After the LoRa functionality has been implemented we intend on expanding the Tanmatsu software ecosystem by focussing on integration of different on-device programming environments, as well as tools for interacting with the world. More updates and details will of course be posted in a future post here on our blog.
Community
Do you have questions? Want to get in touch? Our Discord community is growing, if you want to get the latests updates, ask questions and see what other community members are up to please join us!