Works on Mac?

[spears312]

I'm trying to figure out some things before I get a laptop, but one question I have is will the FIRST software work on Mac OSX? I'm not in charge of that stuff for my team this year and I'm not sure where I can find that info.

[dubious elise]

i doubt it. if your mac is powerful enough/you don't mind running somewhat slowly, and you have the resources, try to get Virtual PC 7 or some other windows emulation software, it is a sound investment if you plan on using a lot of "made for windows only" programs. assuming that you had the time, i'm sure that a number of mac equivalents could be found online, but i would not risk that based on the time constraints and severe chance of incompatibility with the FIRST controllers.

[CJO]

I like linux (see my avatar), but, I dual boot windows for 3ds max and the Microchip IDE, however, when not about to compile, you can write code in other OS's, you just need Windows to compile and load.

[sanddrag]

Life may be easier with a Mac, but FIRST Robotics life will be much easier with PC. Also, for a laptop to run inventor well, you are looking at the $1800+ range. A good desktop for inventor can be had for as little as $600.

[Petey]

Originally Posted by dubious elise

i doubt it. if your mac is powerful enough/you don't mind running somewhat slowly, and you have the resources, try to get Virtual PC 7 or some other windows emulation software, it is a sound investment if you plan on using a lot of "made for windows only" programs. assuming that you had the time, i'm sure that a number of mac equivalents could be found online, but i would not risk that based on the time constraints and severe chance of incompatibility with the FIRST controllers.

http://darwine.sourceforge.net

Free, faster. Does require a good deal of coding competancy, i.e. I can't get it to work.

--Petey

[Nixterrimus]

One thing that does show a bit of promise of working with the Mac is the CMUcam. From what I've seen the code is written all in JAVA and should be able to work just beautifully with your mac, I think all that you would need is a USB to Serial converter. Then in would show in /dev/... and all should go well, but that's just to configure the camera and mess around with it. I feel your pain of being a mac user caught in a world of windows users... Like a jellyfish in the desert.

[MrToast]

Originally Posted by Petey

http://darwine.sourceforge.net

Free, faster. Does require a good deal of coding competancy, i.e. I can't get it to work.

That's because it's not completely done yet.

Dave

[Kyle Fenton]

Originally Posted by spears312

I'm trying to figure out some things before I get a laptop, but one question I have is will the FIRST software work on Mac OSX? I'm not in charge of that stuff for my team this year and I'm not sure where I can find that info.

What Software are you referring to?

If you are referring to the programming on the robot, then the answer is no. But there was an interesting comment from Woddy in the Kick-off saying that the new C-compiler will have Mac Libraries. Which might mean something or might not.

Inventor/3d Max also doesn't work on a mac.

Other than that, everything else should work.

[CJO]

Replying to that, there are third parties who make C IDEs/compilers for the microchip components which run on Linux, so, I think that if you were willing to shell out a few hundred extra, you could go all linux.