Silverlight can be used to create interactive application that are visually rich and appealing. It provides an ideal environment to create interfaces for accessing and controlling physical electronics devices connected to your computer. There are, however, a few challenges to overcome before this can be done.
Silverlight applications are usually embedded in web pages running within a browser. For security reasons Silverlight is unable to access many of your computer's resources whilst running in the browser. Many physical devices, such as the Arduino open source electronics platform, connect to your computer using a serial port which is unavailable to Silverlight.
Microcontrollers used in devices such as the Arduino run code that has been written for the specific device and may communicate, or talk, to other devices in a variety of ways. The data it sends and receives may be organised in many different ways and formats.
How then can we get Silverlight connected to external electronic devices and how can we get it to 'talk the same language'?
This web site will explore the issues surrounding the use of Silverlight and Arduino and will explain how it is possible for them to connect and to 'talk' to each other using a common language.
The site has been organised into two sections - Beginners and Advanced.
This section will introduce you to some of the issues and challenges of getting Silverlight connected to and talking to electronic devices attached to your computer and will give a basic overview of how this can be done.
This section will give step-by-step instructions on how to set up Silverlight, your computer and the necessary support software to get Silverlight and Arduino talking. It will give examples of the coding needed in Silverlight and will explain how to make sure Silverlight and Arduino are talking the same language using a common protocol.
On the Links page you will find information about the sources for this project and links to related web sites.