Chief Delphi - 2004 Robot Controller

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- - 2004 Robot Controller (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22653)

Thanks for the clarification and cool pic!
I thought that may have been the reason that they chose the PICs...
So, if there are 4 total in the RC and OI, does that mean each radio has 3? Just wondering...

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave Flowerday
Here, take a look at this. It shows the inside of the OI and RC, and you can clearly see in the pictures that there is only 1 Stamp between the two of them (in the RC). The rest of the work is done by PICs.

I think this is what's throwing you off course. They do talk about having multiple microcontrollers in the system, however they never indicate that they're all Stamps. In fact, as I mentioned before, the only Stamp is the user-controlled one. Everything else is done with Microchip PICs (hence the reason they upgraded the user CPU to a PIC - they're already familiar with it).

First of all, I'd like to thank you for those pictures. I can't tell whether you're responsible for them, or not, so I'll thank you, and whoever took them, and whoever hosts them. I don't think I've ever seen them before, and even though they're deprecated, at this point, they're still very interesting.

Second, I just thought it was slightly humorous that InnovationFirst would choose to take the base components of a Basic Stamp, and license the programming software (the Basic Stamp IDE/Tokenizer/programmer) from Parallax. This would indicate that PBASIC was, at the time, considered better than any alternative languages (although there're other factors in such a decision). The Basic Stamp 2SX consists of maybe $15-20 worth of electrical components, so when you buy a Stamp, you're mostly paying for the right to use PBASIC.

Quote:

Originally posted by FotoPlasma
This would indicate that PBASIC was, at the time, considered better than any alternative languages (although there're other factors in such a decision). The Basic Stamp 2SX consists of maybe $15-20 worth of electrical components, so when you buy a Stamp, you're mostly paying for the right to use PBASIC.

I think that the main reason for choosing the Stamp line of processors at the time the initial IFI system was developed was mainly that a Stamp 2 was in the old control system that we used prior to IFI...

On a somewhat different topic, has anyone thought there may be more than just cost driving IFI to not have the Edu RC interface with the OI and Full Size Radios? It's been discussed here before that IFI has tested a new, smaller, radio system for use in years past(I know they were actually having some people try it in 2002 at Epcot), as well as possibility of an updated OI(remember the discussion about the OI with PlayStation controller ports?)...We'll just have to wait until January to know for sure...as an interesting aside to this, note that on IFI's documentation page(http://www.innovationfirst.com/first...umentation.htm), the only active link for the OI is the Installation Info, which is basically just a CAD drawing showing you where the mounting holes are...

Re: 2004 Robot Controller

Quote:

The Basic Stamp 2SX consists of maybe $15-20 worth of electrical components, so when you buy a Stamp, you're mostly paying for the right to use PBASIC.

Actually you are paying for assembly. Surface mount technology is rather expensive and complicated to assemble.