RoboEmu for Linux (PBASIC emulator)

[rbayer]

Well, I just finished porting RoboEmu over to Linux/Gtk+. It includes all the functionality of the Windows version, plus it is a little more stable and doesn't have some of the nasty quirks of Windows.

Anyway, to build it, follow the instructions in the file INSTALL after untar/ungziping it. If you need a binary, contact me and I'll see what I can do.

Assuming you people don't find all sorts of errors/problems with it, I'll start working on a PBASIC IDE for Linux this weekend. If all goes well, it should be done by Monday morning...maybe.

As always, it's available at my website:
http://FIRSTprograms.tripod.com/Programs.htm

While you're there, check out gDash, a Gtk+ based dashboard viewer for Linux.

--Rob

P.S. Glade is amazing!

[Neal Probert]

I just checked out your RoboEmu. I'm impressed with your programming
skills and you're still only in high school. I will be eagerly awaiting
your PBASIC IDE.

I had been thinking of how to take advantage of the Parallax Tokenizer
yet combine it with an existing editor or IDE. Doing so will take your
PBASIC IDE to a higher level. Some that I have found:

Anjuta http://anjuta.org/
Eclipse http://www.eclipse.org/
KDevelop http://www.kde.org/
Scintilla http://www.scintilla.org/

[rbayer]

Thanks for the feedback.

I've run into two problems so far, and if anyone knows how to fix them, it should make everything go much faster:

-Setting DTR: for some reason, I always get I/O errors when trying to do it with ioctl.

-Setting break condition: is there any way to do this in non-asyncronous mode? tcsendbreak documentation says it only works in async mode and that's not what I want to use for the rest of the program, but I suppose I could if need be.

Right now, I'm just trying to get RoboIDE to work from a command line, but as soon as that is working, I'll add a GUI (possibly finding a way to integrate with KDevelop, etc). Everything is written except for the "reset sequence" with the BS2sx, which requires the DTR and break signals to be sent and I REALLY don't want to do it with assembly by setting individual I/O bits.

Anyway, hopefully I'll figure this out sometime before the season starts...

[Neal Probert]

I know it can be done, but assembly isn't necessary. You might have to do everything in raw mode. Direct port I/O is frowned upon, though it is possible. Use the ioctl if you can.

Check out these web sites:

http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Serial-HOWTO.html
http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Serial-Programming-HOWTO/index.html

And especially this site for anything Unix and Linux related:

http://www.stokely.com/unix.sysadm.resources/

[Morgan Jones]

I'd be your biggest fan if I could program 578's robot in Linux. I'm not a big fan of Windows. Good luck, and I eagerly await anything!

[rbayer]

Originally posted by Neal Probert
I know it can be done, but assembly isn't necessary. You might have to do everything in raw mode. Direct port I/O is frowned upon, though it is possible. Use the ioctl if you can.

Check out these web sites:

http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Serial-HOWTO.html
http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Serial-Programming-HOWTO/index.html

And especially this site for anything Unix and Linux related:

http://www.stokely.com/unix.sysadm.resources/

Thanks for the links! I was working off an old version of Peter Bauman's Serial Programming HOWTO that didn't include the link to the POSIX standard stuff, which ended up being the most helpful. As soon as I get a charged battery (the one in the robot I have at my house is dead and I stupidly forgot to grab a charge), I'll be giving it a try.