an update and a post i just posted at dreamviews:
here’s a second version of the goggles:
and here’s a small program i wrote to do what’s been mentioned earlier in the thread (signaling at 90 minute intervals):
hybrid.concordia.ca/~victord/FLASH90.BAS
HOW IT WORKS
it will ask you for the port settings (888, 956, etc)… see the hackcanada.com instructions page for how to get the number (mine is 956).
then it’s going to turn all the leds on.
it will then ask you for a number of variables, and i’ll explain all of them:
SETTING UP THE SIGNAL
turn LEDS on for (seconds): - here you have to specify for how long do you want the leds to be on… you can say 0.1 seconds to… whatever, 30 if you want. experiment with that.
turn LEDS off for (seconds): - this is where you say for how long the leds should be off (same value, or different than above, if, say, you want the leds to be on for one second and off for half a second)
number of led flashes: - this is how many times to repeat the on-off signal (say you want the leds to flash 5 times for one second on, half second off, this would be 5).
At this point you’re done setting up the way the lights will flash.
SETTING UP THE TIMERS
Number of signals: - if you want the signal to be repeated more than once after each cycle, this is where you specify it. I’ll explain how it works after i explain all the timers.
Delay between signals(minutes): - this is the delay between the signals… NOT the delay between the cycles, keep that in mind.
Repeat cycle every (in minutes): - THIS tells the program when to repeat each cycle (once every 90 minutes for instance, in which case this would be 90)
How many cycles?: - 4 for instance will repeat the entire loop 4 times and then exit.
so the way the timer works is pretty simple. say you want the signal to be given every 90 minutes, but at the same time you want 2 signals at 5 minute intervals every 90 minutes… this is where the number of signals and the delay between signals comes in, repeating the signal and the time delay between the second signal. if you just want one signal every 90 minutes, you just have to put 0 in these two fiels (number of signals and delay between signals)
i know it may sound complicated, but it’s really intuitive. if you try it once you’ll see it doesn’t take that long to set up and it’s really not complicated at all.
so possibilities of signal are:
start<----------x minutes------------->XXX(flash)<-pause->XXX(flash)<-pause->XXX(flash) go back to start and count x minutes again
or just
start<----------x minutes------------->XXX(flash) go back to start and count x minutes again
(keep in mind if you add a 5 min delay between signals and you repeat that 3 times, the 15 minutes that makes will ADD to the 90 minute cycle, so the REAL cycle will be 105 minutes, even if you entered 90 minutes for the cycle… so if you add the delay between signals, be sure to take it out from the cycle timer… if you want 3 signals at 5 minute intervals every 90 minutes, be sure you enter 75 for the “Repeat cycle every (interval in minutes):” value.)
the good thing about the little program is that it’s all variable based, so it’s very customizable. the bad thing is that it takes some time and you can’t save/load the settings (yet). another bad thing is that the signal only uses 2 leds (using all 8 leds was WAY too bright) and this is not customizable (unless you change the program yourself). Also, there may be bugs in the program (if you use 0 values here and there, or smaller than acceptable values or stuff like that, i’m not yet sure where these are)… so yeah, keep in mind i wrote this last night pretty quick and i didn’t consider exceptions and all that.
in the future i might try to set up a load/save function and maybe use preset signals (where you’d control the frequency of the signal in times/second but not how the leds light up).
anyway, i don’t know how to make an exe out of it, so you’ll have to use qbasic to run this 
it’s easy for me cause i use an old laptop running dos, but i don’t know how well this will work in say windows xp so i’m sorry about that, i know it’s a pretty nasty issue.
if anyone decides to use this let me know if it works for you.
i used it last night and the signals worked perfectly… the only problem being i take off the glasses while i sleep, so it so happened that every signal sent the glasses were probably on the floor (i’d wake up, see the timer had signaled, see the glasses on the floor and then put them back on… and the next time it would be the same thing, the glasses would be on the floor and i’d put them back on and fall back asleep) …
what i’ll probably add is also a key function that cuts the time of the next loop down to 5, 10 or 15 minutes or so… so if you wake up at 6 in the morning and there’s 60 minutes till the next signal, you can just push the button and fall back asleep, knowing the mask will signal in 15 minutes instead, when you’ll probably be in REM.
so yeah… i’m talking too much for nothing, the program is really small so i’m making it sound more complicated than it really is.
