I am Lars Kristian Roland. I’m a technology enthusiast and evangelist with background from various companies in the telecom industry. I lived for 6 years in the UK while studying at Atlantic College and later Imperial College. Then I came back to Norway where I worked at Telenor and Colibria, and now at the University of Oslo. I work with mobile health IT systems in Africa and Asia, but also have a semi-professional hobby in DIY and electronics. I help some companies develop solutions by contributing my knowledge of wireless, electronics, firmware and software.
After having spent 16 years in professional software development, I felt I wanted to give something back to the community. So I’ve joined a research programme at the University of Oslo called HISP. This is a really great project that develops open source health information software for use in the global south.
The software project I work on is called DHIS2. This is an open source system for use in developing countries, for collection and analysis of health data. The system is chosen as a national standard in a number of african countries and states in India. I work on the mobile interfaces to the system, a sub-programme called DHIS Mobile. This includes plain SMS, java, mobile browser and some cheap smart phones. Our system is accessed and used by community health workers as well as health workers higher up in the health administration.
I also have my own independent consultancy company called Apus. Please contact me if you want me to participate in any of your projects.
I worked at Telenor Mobile between 1996 and 2000. In 2000 I co-founded Colibria together with Oddleif Westby, Lars Myhrum and Simon Sandoval.live in Norway with my wife and three great kids. I enjoy the outdoors whenever I’m able to go sailing, hunting or walking in the mountains. Indoor I spend my time mostly playing with my two boys, but also enjoy testing various home entertainment systems such as my MythTV and all the opportunities this offers.
My professional passion is for wireless technologies and electronics, concepts and services that are offered within this space. If you have some suggestions to some of these things I should look at, please let me know.
This blog is not meant to be a constantly updated site. When I feel strongly about writing something, I will, but in-between I have to work so it won’t happen so often.
My background is as follows:
- Born in Ålesund, a beatiful place on the west coast of Norway. Some of the pictures on this site are from around there.
- International Baccalaureate at Atlantic College in Wales. That was a great experience that shaped me as a person. Without those two years I’d be a different person.
- University (MEng) at Imperial College in London. Also 4 good years.
- Telenor – working mainly with value added services. The project that was most fun and most ground breaking was to develop a platform and service for an SMS content service in 1996. That was one of the first of its kind.
- Colibria – from 2000 until 2010.
- University of Oslo – from 2010. Mobile health information systems.
My private email address is lars at roland . bz. Please email me if you have any comments you don’t want to post below.
Nice page you have here, uncle Lars!!
I saw where you have done some interfacing of the TI Chronos watch with the cc1110
This is for a high school project:
I’m trying to duplicate a TI chronos project
http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/SafeBABI
I was able to load their code to the chronos
However the cc1110 code is incomplete and I don’t
know how to code it or link it.
If you can help me I would be very appreciated.
I can even pay you if your time becomes too involved.
I’ll send you an email and we can discuss. It shouldn’t be a very big job to do this type of code. It seems like simple code (but a cool app).
Hi Lars,
I bought one of your LCD screen for the MSP430. Thanks a lot for your work.
I just set it up and played with it. It work great.
There is some hickup in the big_0 font. Here is the corrected version:
const unsigned char big_0 [] = {
0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×80, 0xC0, 0xE0, 0xE0, 0xF0, 0xF0, 0xF8, 0xF8, 0xF8, 0xF8,
0xF8, 0xF8, 0xF8, 0xF8, 0xF0, 0xF0, 0xE0, 0xE0, 0xC0, 0×80, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00,
0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0xE0, 0xFC, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0x1F, 0×07, 0×07, 0×03, 0×03,
0×03, 0×03, 0×07, 0×07, 0x1F, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFC, 0xE0, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00,
0×00, 0×00, 0xFE, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00,
0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFE, 0×00, 0×00,
0×00, 0×00, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00,
0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0×00, 0×00,
0×00, 0×00, 0×01, 0x1F, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFC, 0xE0, 0×80, 0×80, 0×00, 0×00,
0×00, 0×00, 0×80, 0×80, 0xE0, 0xFC, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0x1F, 0×01, 0×00, 0×00,
0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×03, 0×07, 0x0F, 0x1F, 0x1F, 0x3F, 0x3F, 0x7F, 0x7F, 0x7F, 0x7F,
0x7F, 0x7F, 0x7F, 0x7F, 0x3F, 0x3F, 0x1F, 0x1F, 0x0F, 0×07, 0×03, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00, 0×00
};
A small glitch is also in the writeHex routine. Here is the correction:
void writeHex (char x,char y,const unsigned char out) {
unsigned char temp;
temp = out >> 4;
temp += (temp > 9) ? ‘A’ – 10 : ’0′;
writeChar (x,y,temp);
temp = out & 0x0f;
temp += (temp > 9) ? ‘A’ – 10 : ’0′;
writeChar (x+6,y,temp); //corr
}
again, thank’s a lot for your work, Daniel
Thanks Daniel,
Lars
Hi Lars,
to get warmed up with programming your LCD, I first made a font demo and then a small game.
I put the game on 43oh:
http://www.43oh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3048
If you are interessted in the source code for the font demo, please let me know.
cheers, Daniel
Thanks Daniel, font-demo-code would be great. Is it published somewhere? Very cool projects.
Hi Larsie,
please send me your private e mail address, I will gladly send you the code for the font demo.
cheers, Daniel
Hi Lars,
I’m trying to build a robot that can be controlled with MSP430. Although it may sound pretty simple, this is a hard project for me since I have no previous experience on programming a microcontroller. First, I need to control a DC motor with MSP430. I was wondering if you could give me some advice/suggestions on this?
Thanks in advance
Thanks John. I’ll make a separate post on the blog about motors and MSP430.
The post has link: http://lars.roland.bz/controlling-motors-with-an-msp430/