[billbo911]

Originally Posted by ayeckley

I don't have access to an FRC-flavored-LabVIEW-installed PC at the moment, so I can't answer the question for myself: With the loss Enhanced I/O has quadrature encoder input to the DS been completely lost also? If so, that is a massive step backwards from my perspective. Especially in a game in which it might be useful to orient the robot via a large, multi-turn knob, for example.

Unless the performance of the DS-to-roboRio protocol has increased significantly relative to previous years, interpreting quadrature via DIO inputs (Cypress or otherwise) is not a viable option. I'm happy to be proven wrong by anybody that has successfully pulled it off. Use of a multiturn pot and analog input has some significant disadvantages in comparison (apparent to those of use that have used that approach in the past), but at this point it may represent the least-bad alternative [shudder].

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

The limitation is really in the custom hardware before the laptop, e.g., Cypress, Launchpad, etc. for processing the A/B transitions.

Why not use an Arduino or similar to handle your quad inputs and send the results to the laptop via USB?
You can write your own Dashboard code to take the input and optionally do additional processing or just send the results to the robot.

It requires more work, but it should be possible to implement your own interface to the old Cypress board if you desire.

An excellent example of this is available with the Teensy 3.1.

It can act as a HID device. In the code running on it, it is simple to add an encoder, or encoders, read and process function(s). You then just return the processed value as an "axis" value. The resolution of that value will depend on your processing algorithm.
It can also be set up as just a straight joystick with up to 32 buttons, although 16 is a more practice limit, 6 Axis and one Hat.