[apalrd]

What does the FPGA do right now?
It handles all of the IO directly. This includes:
Reading analog channels when you poll them
Reading digital channels when you poll them
Integrating gyros/accelerometers (there are only 2 in the current FPGA code)
Counting encoder clicks/determining rate

It also includes more dangerous stuff, like:
PWM output generation
Relay output generation (not directly, but it controls the chips on the DSC that actually do generate the relays)
Solenoid output


And most importantly...
The enable line. This is a single digital channel on each of the DSC's which, when disabled (due to loss of cRio or watchdog trip or the field disables you), will prevent the DSC from passing the digital signals to the PWM and Relay ports.

This seems like stuff we don't want to mess with. IF they do open it up, they will not open the code which handles this action. Guaranteed.



What they have done is released the source code for the Cypress board, so we can read the communication protocol between the Cypress board and the DS (assuming they don't modify the protocol, it would be trivially easy to modify the code in the board to use whatever it contains that you want, and feed it into the existing datatypes). Since they have done this, I would expect that they will open up the Cypress board next year, now that they gave us the code for it (and the tools to modify it), it seems difficult to expect nobody will change the code. Being that it is on the Driver Station, has limited current sourcing potential (USB power is not much), and has to go through the common protocol to communicate with the robot, it seams reasonable for them to open this up.