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Unread 02-01-2007, 22:02
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Sparks333 Sparks333 is offline
Robotics Engineer
AKA: Dane B.
FRC #1425 (Wilsonville Robotics)
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Location: Wilsonville, Oregon
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Re: 2007 Robot Controller

I wouldn't count on USB-anything at this point. USB is hot-swappable, and is a real pain in the neck to code a good firmware driver for (I know this from experience), and without a good operating system managing the devices, I seriously doubt that we're going to see anything except our lovely DB-15 and -9 ports. Besides, the DB-15 ports on the OI are excellent for custom-built controllers (you don't have to screw around with protocols), and I doubt they'd ditch that. I DO hope they fix the temperature-variant oscillatior problem (Popularly known as the '8.2v error')... it caused my toes many a pain over the build season.
DB-9 is very robust, and not bad to interface with. Most microcontrollers support it natively via USART, while USB in a microcontroller is more of a rarity - Microchip has five or so that support it - so, I'd buckle up and grab your USB-Serial converters for another year, and pray for a Linux system sometime in the future.
On the programming side, there is a whole other set of issues with moving away from C. Currently, there is only the C18 C compiler for the Microchip products, plus an assembler (if there is a team out there that actually uses the assembler, please, I'd like to shake your hand). Some chips support Java natively, but it would require a complete architechture shift (Atmel's Jazelle core), which I can't see happening after so many years of Microchip support. There are a few third-party compilers that support languages other than C for the PIC, but it would require a re-code of FIRST's operating system, which the field controller may not like. It's very risky when moving from such a proprietary system. In the end, the number of work-arounds and time committed to making the system work with another language is offset by the acessibility of a more complex language.

Sparks

Sparks
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ICs do weird things when voltage is run out of spec.

I love to take things apart. The fact that they work better when I put them back together it just a bonus.

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Last edited by Sparks333 : 02-01-2007 at 22:08.
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