So in theory I can, with the use of Vertigo or some other HDL, make the cRio "multi core". The FPGA can be split into seperate "modules" that can be used to do some pseudo parallel processing. Now I think that probably is a waste of time since I can put together custom cuircuts and use in on the robot. Im looking into PS3 homebrew, may be its a bit of a stretch, to use it on the robot to handle the image processing. Might seem redundent since a small micro controller like the CMUs can handle images fine, the Cell Processor might be an over kill. I was thinking that since I would be killing 2 birds with one stone, or more like killing a stone with 2 birds. Since the cRio and the PS3 are both PowerPC based, they both use the same assembly language and I can program both in C++ fine. I been poking at the idea for programming on the PS3 for the longest time ever since I gotten it like 3 years ago, I had the chance to but never really took the chance because the Linux on the PS3 was too slow for my liking. But now it has homebrew, and Im still running linux on that baby. I think the challenge this year is going to put a fire under my butt and force me to explore things out of my comfort zone, like Assembly, programming the Cell Processor on the PS3, Cocurrent Programming.
I just started viewing thelectures from
Programming Pardigms class at Stanford posted on youtube. It coverd from the ideas of procedural (C), Assembly, Object Oriented (C++), then into cocurrent programming, scheme and python. I think this will greatly benefit me with my "quest".