pic: The warranty, voided

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Amanda Morrison

Next, WFA winner Al Skierkiewicz will share with us the technological miracle of computer punchcards...

I was thinking of expounding on the nature of entering an eight bit binary bootstrap program manually using toggle switches on a DEC PDP-11 to get a paper tape reader going. Have any idea how hard it is to convert decimal to binary in your head and then load it using switches? BTW that was after a memory upgrade from 2K to 4K core (real core that is, wires and donuts) in a computer that was almost a full rack high with power supply and paper tape reader. Oh God, now I am going to have nightmares again! 00010011, 10111010, 1110101, no that was 11101101, oh darn where was I again....

Fortran IV?!?, yea they couldn't get it right in their first three attempts, what make you think it will be any better now?

Ok, the bootstrap is loaded, the paper tape is running, hopefully the program will finish loading before we get back from lunch.

Nice Amanda, now you have me started...Hit the "off" button someone, Quick!

[Daria Wing]

oooooooooo, preeeeetttttyyyyyyyyyyyy. I wanna play with it.

[pfreivald]

When I was an undergrad ('97-ish), watching my dad stare in impressed, crestfallen horror as Mathematica completed his PhD thesis in about ten minutes was pretty funny.

[Xanawatt]

What does it take to get one of those IFI boards working again? Have some sitting on our old robots and was wondering if they could ever be revived.

[DonRotolo]

Assuming it 'works', just find the old software; surely someone on CD has a set of those files. (They are probably also online somewhere). If it is 'broken' I would hesitate to recommend attempting a repair, unless there were obviously damaged (and still available) components.

All the other posts: Man, you guys are old!

[Alan Anderson]

Software-wise, what you will need is the MPLAB IDE (I think you want version 6.3) with the C18 compiler and the IFI Loader program. You will also need a copy of the default C code.

Start at https://kevin.org/frc/ for lots of useful files. Kevin Watson has always been a great resource for FRC teams.

[Jay H 237]

My first year in FIRST, 1999, we had the control systems that they provided. They had to be returned after the season and rendered the robot static display only. I don't remember what type of controller it was or what they called it. Somebody must know and why they wanted them back/what became of them?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Trouble_(FIRST)