CAN from scratch

[ygd]

My primitive Google-fu has failed me, and searching Chief Deplhi has proved futile. So I'll ask the question that so many beginners have asked before.

My team is in its second year. Last year, we controlled our (brown) Jaguars through PWM. This year, having acquired two black Jaguars, we want to try using the CAN bus to control drivetrain.

The only problem is, that we have no idea where to start.

First of all, how do I start the CAN bus? Is that port on the Digital I/O sidecar a CAN port? Or do I need a serial-CAN cable? Can I have brown Jaguars on the bus?

How do I interface to the CAN bus? Do I need to flash the cRIO with a new image? Does WPILib support CAN out of the box?

Any help will be immensely appreciated.