Quote:
Originally posted by Gobiner
Being able to get 250FPS on Quake 3 isn't going to allow your robot to do backflips on the field. Having a processor running that fast isn't going to help that much, because a decent programmer can do everything you could dream of in PBASIC with the sensory inputs that are available to us.
Also, you can buy a AMD Athlon for $50 including shipping (I just checked pricewatch.com) and there aren't too many teams who can't afford that if it really would help.
Which isn't to say I think that allowing teams to plug in their own chip is a good idea, but I wouldn't mind a hardware upgrade. Wouldn't mind it staying the same, either.
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I'm quite aware of this, and quite happy with the PBasic. My point is more advanced (electrically) teams would have an advantage in programming in more sophisticated languages on more advanced hardware, i.e. more advanced/accurate/capable autonomous mode, more precise controls, (if a robot can gather sensor data at 400 cycles per second on an 850mhz athlon as opposed to the 25-30 cycles persecond of a basic stamp with a heavy program, there is far more sensor data avaliable to process and react upon if it's gathered at a faster rate), and the like. This wouldn't be too fair to not-so-electrically-inclined teams who stick with the default hardware, incapable of operating with advanced hardware.