.NET Micro Framework for Card Sharps

Today was the day that Roger and I hit the stage to present the Micro Framework. I did the easy bit (the slides) and Roger did the hard bit (the demos). This arrangement worked fine for me.

Getting set up

We had a good sized audience, and they were polite enough to laugh at most of my jokes (I've never had anyone actually laugh at all of my jokes - and this is probably just as well). I did my bit and then Roger took over for the demo.

I didn't know exactly what he was going to do. We had rehearsed the timings and I knew he would be using two Micro Framework boards which he had managed to connect using the Zigbee wireless protocol. The only other thing I knew was that we would be playing poker with the boards. What he did though just blew me away, literally and in a card playing context too.

He had a very pretty program in which two C# programs were running, passing card data and plays between the two devices. So we played poker. I'm not very good at poker. If the money isn't real I just bet huge amounts and try to bluff every time. If the money is real I just leave the game out of cowardice.

Anyhoo, we started playing and I kept raising. Towards the end Roger decided that it would be really nice for him if the next card that was dealt was a six. So he stopped the program running inside his embedded device, tweaked the deck so that the top card was the six of hearts, and then continued the program. He got the six, and I got the shaft. This was a fantastic demonstration of the power of the embedded environment that you get with the Micro Framework, and a lesson to me never to play poker by computer.

Then we went off and reprised the whole session for a webcast.