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The StrongARM would be the exactly wrong chip for a robot controller. And there's a simple reason for that: the StrongARM doesn't have the components built in that we need. There's no PWM controller on a StrongARM. There's no serial input/output controller. That's just off the top of my head. The StrongARM is a microprocessor. What is needed for FIRST is a microcontroller. Adding extra chips just increases the cost and complexity of the system.
Again, the reason for sticking with PBasic is not the size of the user base, but instead the ability to accomplish some programming with minimal knowledge of PBasic. It requires quite a bit larger knowledge of Java to accomplish much in Java than it does in PBasic. Java probally is the superior programming language. It is much more powerful. However, because of that, it's harder to learn the basics of the language. It's that simple.
Matt
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