Thread: IFI Critique
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Unread 08-07-2006, 20:52
John Gutmann John Gutmann is offline
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Re: IFI Critique

Hmmm.....I wonder when the AM control system will be shipped out

But seriously, the quatily and cost of the control system to me is outrageous. I have seen in many occasions where somebody has used a basic stamp to control something far more difficult that what we do in first. Go to the parallax website and look at the "Nuts and Volts" articles they have. They are hooking their BASIC stamps up to EVERYTHING you can imagine. Granite the programming languange is really easy to understand and it gives rookies an advangtages, it still held back more expirienced teams from acceling. I have seen manythings done in BASIC as we do in C. ALso that control system if bought direct from parallax is far cheaper. 2 BOEs and 2 transcievers with a few ADC chips and external circuittry and voila you spent only 300$ if that.

Not to bash anybody's control system but I have a development board sitting 3 feet from me that cost 80$ that can do EVERYTHING that the IFI system can do. Sure it may take a little more coding but it is cheaper and more raw (more room for development and expansion by individual teams) that the IFI and parallax solution.

<bashing>How hard could it possibly be to design a new control system?</bashing>

of course all IMHO