Re: Dashboard
 

Have you looked into using sockets? That's what I'd use for inter-process communication.

Re: Dashboard
 

Why??? Creating a file then deleting it doesn't take long; Even in VB, Open a file, writting to it, and closing it doesn't take long.

Re: Dashboard
 

its the princaple of the thing. at least use scrachpad ram or something. it works, but that doesnt meen its the right way to do it.

Re: Dashboard
 

I wrote a small dashboard interface program in QBASIC, which read the data from the serial port, mangled (processed) it, and stored the output in text files.

Then I wrote a program in Java, which read those text files and displayed the data on screen in a fancily-formatted window. I used the AWT for graphics, 'cause I don't know how to program Swing yet.

Btw, to improve the speed of text-files for communication, I created a RAM disk. The output files are outputted from BASIC into the RAM disk. I find the speed to be no problem.

Re: Dashboard
 

lol exactly. thats what im talking about. except theres a way to do it WITHOUT a ramdisk... its called direct access...

but anyway have an old OI and RC (yes i know its diffrent but the princaple is the same) and i have a program in c++ that gets the data realy well. there is an obscure class that lets me write to ram, but getting it from anythign else was a problem.

i may have it use a ramdisk if i cant figure out anything else before richmond.

btw if you wana post your QBASIC it may help some people that dont know the language and need somewhere to start.

Re: Dashboard
 

I would post both my BASIC code and the Java code if I still had it. However, it is currently in a location where I won't have access to it for approximately a month. So its not of much use to anybody...

Re: Dashboard
 

Perhaps that's what I was told we could use last year, I'm not sure.

I've been looking into how easy it'd be to change the dashboard from file I/O to sockets (which is the right term for what I want, I think). I think it should be easy, but I'm still looking for a nice class to do all the hard socket work for me :p.

Re: Dashboard
 

Did you create a ramdisk under Windows or Linux?

I know how to do it under Linux (well, not exactly, but I know where to look to find out), but I have no idea how to do it under Windows. And for the dashboard program I'm using Windows to appease the rest of my team :p.

Re: Dashboard
 

My Ramdisk is running under Windows.

The easiest way (for Windows 95/98) is to place a line for RAMDRIVE.SYS in your config.sys files. PM me if you need help doing what I am talking about.

Under Windows NT, 2000, and XP, you must download a driver from Microsoft. The driver is a sample driver, demo-ing NT-based drivers. It is neither stable nor debugged, but it works for what I am doing.

Re: Dashboard
 

Incase anyone was wondering, Im currently porting the reciever code into a visual basic control (ocx) so anyone can just slap it into their own dashboard nice and easy, with this you could make a dashboard interface and a skilled coder could have it up and running in an hour or so. Im still testing and optomizing it and I would like to have a first release by next week. I will release pre-compiled binarys, the source for them, as well as an example app that shows how it would be used. It will differ from other dashbord control moduals in that I WILL be releasing the source and I WILL be parsing all of the data frames allowing for every single bit of usable data to be utilized.

Re: Dashboard
 

*big hug* :D

Re: Dashboard
 

:):):):):) I LIKE YOU!!!!

Re: Dashboard
 

Thanks a lot. That will be a lot of fun to play around with, not to mention a great time saver. :):):):)

Re: Dashboard
 

Is there a way to tell (in code) what year's dashboard stuff your getting? Especially post-season, I'm sure we're going to be playing with both (may be in the same thing!), so 1 program would be nice.

Re: Dashboard
 

This year isnt compatable with previous years, the packet format is different