Humane Informatics is a one-man project in the field of Information and communication technologies for development

Information and communication technologies for development

Information and Communication Technologies for Development is a general term referring to the application of Information and Communication Technologies within the fields of socioeconomic development, international development and human rights...

 led by Braddock Gaskill. As of October 2010 the project introduced two open-source hardware devices - the Humane Reader and the Humane PC. Both devices are based on Arduino

Arduino

Arduino is an open-source single-board microcontroller, descendant of the open-source Wiring platform, designed to make the process of using electronics in multidisciplinary projects more accessible. The hardware consists of a simple open hardware design for the Arduino board with an Atmel AVR...

 design.

Humane Reader

The Humane Reader is a low-cost electronic device with TV-out

TV-out

The term TV-out is commonly used to label the connector of equipment providing an analog video signal acceptable for a television AV input. TV-out is different from AV-out in that it only provides video, no audio....

 that can hold a five thousand book library (e.g. offline Wikipedia compilations) on a microSD card. The reader could be produced in quantity for about $20 per unit.

Humane PC

The Humane PC is an extended version of the Humane Reader - it has an extra micro-USB port and infrared port.

Hardware

• open source design
• 3 Atmel
  Atmel
  Atmel Corporation is a manufacturer of semiconductors, founded in 1984. Its focus is on system-level solutions built around flash microcontrollers...
  
   ATmega328P microcontroller
  Microcontroller
  A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit containing a processor core, memory, and programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of NOR flash or OTP ROM is also often included on chip, as well as a typically small amount of RAM...
  
  s - for video, USB and general computing
  • main microcontroller is serial programmable via USB
• NTSC
  NTSC
  NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
  
  /PAL
  PAL
  PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
  
   composite video
  Composite video
  Composite video is the format of an analog television signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. In contrast to component video it contains all required video information, including colors in a single line-level signal...
  
   output for display on any TV
• black and white 38x25 character text or simple graphics display
• PS/2 keyboard
• microSD card reader
  Card reader
  A card reader is a data input device that reads data from a card-shaped storage medium. Historically, paper or cardboard punched cards were used throughout the first several decades of the computer industry to store information and programs for computer system, and were read by punched card readers...
  
  
• micro-USB port
  • allows USB slave devices
• USB powered
• 4 input buttons
• PWM
  Pulse-width modulation
  Pulse-width modulation , or pulse-duration modulation , is a commonly used technique for controlling power to inertial electrical devices, made practical by modern electronic power switches....
  
   audio output
• infrared LED and receiver
• VT52
  VT52
  The VT52 was a CRT-based computer terminal produced by Digital Equipment Corporation introduced in September, 1975 . It provided a screen of 24 rows and 80 columns of text and supported all 95 ASCII characters as well as 32 graphics characters. It supported asynchronous communication at baud rates...
  
   + H19 video terminal emulation

Software

• programmable using C/C++ libraries, or via Arduino
  Arduino
  Arduino is an open-source single-board microcontroller, descendant of the open-source Wiring platform, designed to make the process of using electronics in multidisciplinary projects more accessible. The hardware consists of a simple open hardware design for the Arduino board with an Atmel AVR...
  
  IDE
• use of Tellymate Project code for VT52 video output
• use of AVR V-USB firmware to implement a USB device