elua/doc/en/news.html

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<h3>eLua Project News</h3>

<h2>##TODO ?? November 2009</h2>
<p>Version ##TODO is released. The main changes are described below and the
full list can be seen in our Version History page:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Added support for STR-E912 board</li>
  <li>More PT content</li>
  <li>Added the Lua EGC (Emergency Garbage Collection) patch</li>
  <li>Please check our <a href="versionhistory.html">Version History page</a>
  to see the full details of the changes.</li>
</ul>

<h2>06 October 2009</h2>
<p>Version 0.6 is (finally) released. Here is the changelog:</p>
<ul>
  <li>License changed to MIT</li>
  <li>Web page and documentation completely redesigned</li>
  <li>Documentation available offline</li>
  <li>Added support for AVR32 CPUs</li>
  <li>Added support for STM32 Cortex-M3 CPUs</li>
  <li>Added ADC module with support for moving average filters</li>
  <li>Added support for multiple toolchains</li>
  <li>Added an ls (or dir) shell command</li>
  <li>Added new examples: pong, tetrives, spaceship (games), logo (graphics), adcpoll, adcscope (ADC operations)</li>
  <li>Added the LTR (Lua Tiny RAM) patch</li>
  <li>ROM FS content can be specified per board now</li>
  <li>API semantic revisions (old code might not be compatible)</li>
</ul>

<h2>27 July 2009</h2>
<p>We would like to invite all eLua users to the Lua Workshop 2009. This
will be the first one to be held at PUC-Rio, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on october 6-7 2009.
Bogdan and Dado will make a presentation and show demos on the first day of
the event. eLua demos will also be presented in the second day of the event.
The activities on October 7th will be dedicated to the use of Lua in games,
as part of Lua Games 2009, a pre-event of SBGames 2009.
We will also proudly offer a "little surprise" for the <b>eLua comunity</b>.</p>

<h2>02 February 2009</h2>
<p>We know that we haven't had an official release in a while now, but
there's a lot of stuff going on with the project. The next release will
definitely happen before the end of February and it will come with a
lot of interesting new features, including support for two new
platforms, a completely redesigned documentation system, and a few
surprises that I won't mention just yet :) So stay tuned, we're working
hard to make eLua better for you.</p>

<h2>01 November 2008</h2>
<p>Version 0.5 is released! Among other goodies, it brings TCP/IP support to eLua. Here's the changelog:</p>

<ul><li>Added support for STR7 CPUs from ST </li><li>Added TCP/IP support using the uIP stack </li><li>Added support for console and shell over TCP/IP besides the previous serial link</li><li>Added the "net" module (eLua's interface to TCP/IP functions) </li><li>Added the "cpu" module (eLua's interface to the target CPU) </li><li>New samples: morse.lua (Morse code encoder), lhttpd.lua (Lua scripting HTTP server) </li><li>Added support for cross-compiling Lua code (compile on PC, run on target)</li><li>XMODEM can now receive Lua bytecode in addition to Lua source code </li><li>The XMODEM buffer is now dynamic (grows as needed) instead of fixed size</li><li>Project documentation updated</li></ul>


<p>Also, there's a new tutorial about <a href="installing_str7.html">how to use eLua with STR7 CPUs</a>. The rest of the project page was updated to reflect the current project status, most notably the <a href="faq.html">FAQ</a>, <a href="examples.html">examples</a> and <a href="status.html">status pages</a>).</p>

<p><strong>IMPORTANT NOTE:</strong> you'll need to update your binutils to version 2.19 to use this release with Cortex CPUs. The <a href="tc_cortex.html">Cortex GCC tutorial</a> was updated with this information.</p>

<p>Enjoy this new release. The next one will be focused on reducing the
memory footprint (both Flash and RAM) of eLua, and (hopefully) will
also come with a nice surprise :)</p>

<h2>16 October 2008</h2>
<p>The <a href="tut_openocd.html">OpenOCD tutorial</a> was updated with a new section about how to use OpenOCD with a STR7 CPU from ST. Also, the <a href="overview.html">about page</a> was updated with more information about the authors of eLua. Expect a new eLua version towards the end of October.</p>

<h2>10 September 2008</h2>
<p>Version 0.4.1 is released! This is a minor release, its main purpose
is to "keep in sync" with Lua, thus eLua now has the latest official
Lua version (5.1.4). You probably don't need to upgrade to this version
(since 5.1.4 only fixes some minor/exotic bugs in 5.1.3) so I'm only
providing the source code, without any binaries. Here's the changelog:</p>

<ul><li>Changed the file system structure; now you can build both Lua versions (floating point and int only) from the same directory</li><li>Made the math library configurable using the existent 'platform libraries' mechanism</li><li>The
"os" and "package" modules are no longer loaded by Lua, since they
can't be used anyway. Because of this, the code size of eLua was
reduced.</li><li>Project documentation updated</li></ul>


<h2>02 September 2008</h2>
<p>Version 0.4 is released! Here's the changelog:</p>

<ul><li>Added support for LPC2888 (preliminary)</li><li>Added PWM module</li><li>New
samples: TV-B-Gone (power off your TV), piano (play piano from your PC
keyboard), pwmled (fade led on/off), all based on the new PWM module</li><li>Added
support for multiple memory spaces (this can be used to take advantage
of both the internal CPU RAM and external RAM chips on boards that have
external RAM)</li><li>Autorun: if "autorun.lua" is found in the filesystem, it is executed before starting the shell</li><li>Added "pack" (binary data packing/unpacking) and "bit" (binary operations) modules</li><li>Build system updated, easier to use, now it knows how to handle "boards" as well as CPUs</li><li>Modified the existing platform modules to take less RAM and to report an error when an unavailable resource is requested</li><li>Project documentation updated</li></ul>


<h2>02 September 2008</h2>
<p>The eLua site was updated in anticipation of the new 0.4 release, which will come soon (very soon, in fact). Now there's a <a href="faq.html">FAQ page</a>. Also, the <a href="status.html">status and roadmap</a>, <a href="building.html">building eLua</a>, <a href="examples.html">example programs</a> and <a href="tut_openocd.html">using OpenOCD</a> pages were updated. And there's yet another new page on <a href="installing_lpc2888.html">how to use eLua with LPC2888 CPUs</a>. Expect the 0.4 release later today.</p>

<h2>09 August 2008</h2>
<p>OK, this took less time than I expected :) The page on how to use eLua with STR9 CPUs is available <a href="installing_str9.html">here</a>.</p>

<h2>09 August 2008</h2>
<p>Version 0.3 is released! The project page was updated, with more
sections to come soon, including a tutorial on how to use eLua with
STR9 CPUs. Here's the changelog for the 0.3 version:</p>

<ul><li>Now you can play hangman directly from eLua :), thanks to the new  "term" module that handles ANSI escape sequences</li><li>Added support for ST STR912FAW44</li><li>Added support for Cortex LM3S6965</li><li>More intuitive and flexible build system (new syntax, component selection at build time)</li><li>eLua examples are now part of the repository</li><li>Project documentation updated</li></ul>


<h2>06 August 2008</h2>
<p>The web page was updated with an <a href="tut_openocd.html">OpenOCD tutorial</a>
that will continue to grow as more and more targets are added. This
update is also an informal announcement of the soon to come eLua 0.3
release, which (among other things) brings support for the <a href="http://www.hitex.com/index.php?id=383">STR9-comStick</a>.</p>

<h2>29 July 2008</h2>
<p>eLua has a new home at BerliOS. Besides the new menu system on the
home page, the biggest news is that the code repository is now based on
SVN (as opposed to CVS until now). If you're a developer, this is
probably good news for you. If not, check the download page to learn
about the new eLua download locations.</p>

<h2>28 July 2008</h2>
<p>I got a report that compiling a simple C++ program for a Cortex CPU with a compiler built after <a href="tc_cortex.html">my instructions</a>
failed with a linker error. I checked and I found out that the gcc's
C++ library (libstdc++) wasn't even build properly for Cortex-M3. My
bad. I updated the tutorial page. The only modification is in step 4,
where you need to give more flags to the "make" commands, not just the
CFLAGS. Thanks for reporting this.</p>

<h2>27 July 2008</h2>
<p>Version 0.2 is released! Also, as you probably figured out by now,
the project page was seriously updated. Here's the changelog for the
0.2 version:</p>

<ul><li>Added support for Cortex LM3S8962</li><li>New platform modules (UART, SPI, Timer, platform data)</li><li>First release of the eLua shell</li><li>Lua source files can now be sent to target with XMODEM</li><li>You can download binary file images from the "files" section, so you don't need to compile eLua yourself</li></ul>


<h2>25 July 2008</h2>
<p>Project page updated to reflect the current eLua <a href="status.html">status and roadmap</a>.
Now there is a separate status and roadmap page. Also, version 0.2 is
about to be released soon, with many new features, improvements and
support for a new platform. More documentation is on the way, too.</p>

<h2>15 July 2008</h2>
<p>Added a <a href="tut_bootstick.html">tutorial</a> on how to make your own eLua USB bootable stick! Get it while it's hot! :)</p>

<h2>11 July 2008</h2>
<p>eLua version 0.1 is finally out! Be sure to check the <a href="downloads.html">download page</a>,
and also the project page. The build instructions are included in the
eLua archive. Also, new tutorials (building cross compilers for ARM and
i386) were added, and the <a href="tut_bootpc.html">boot into Lua</a> page was updated to reflect the fact that you can build the eLua ELF file yourself now!</p>

<h2>07 July 2008</h2>
<p>I'm still "brushing" the source code and adding more documentation
before commiting the first version to CVS. Meanwhile, I prepared a
(hopefully) nice surprise for all of you who showed interest in eLua
(and for those of you who didn't, hopefully this will make you curious
:) ). So, if you ever wanted to boot your PC directly in Lua, take a
look <a href="tut_bootpc.html">here</a>.
That's right: no OS, just GRUB loading a multiboot compliant ELF file!
The ELF file is build from the exact source tree I'm using to build
eLua for embedded devices, I only needed to change the platform layer
(more about this after uploading the sources and adding some
documentation).
I hope you'll enjoy this at least as much as I do. While this is only a
proof of concept, I am not going to abandon the "standalone Lua on PC"
idea, because it could have some very interesting applications (think
"BIOS scripting with Lua", <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware">Open Firmware</a> with Lua instead of Forth, educational applications and many others.)</p>

<h2>05 July 2008</h2>
<p>The web page is up! For now you can only read the <a href="overview.html">project description</a>. Also, a tutorial about how to compile a GCC toolchain for the Cortex architecture is available <a href="tc_cortex.html">here</a>.</p>

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