Question About Robot Controller

[Peter Matteson]

IFI designs the controller so they would be responsible for the update to USB.
I believe if F.I.R.S.T. asked IFI to change the controller, within reason, it would happen like any other specified component. However I wouldn't assume you'll see USB this year. There are a lot of cost of production, ease of programming, and power management issues involved in this type of change.

I would be pleasantly surprised if we did see the change though.

[Kingofl337]

Don't think you will see the serial port replaced any time soon. IFI would just be dropping on the board a USB-to-serial chip if they add USB. Then we would loose a serial port. Which means no co-processors, no LCD's, or anything for that matter that would normally talk via serial. All we would have is the single TTL serial port and if we keep using the camera we would be stuck. They could always replace the PIC with a USB integrated but then you would need a drivers disk for the RC. Which of coarse people could loose see (2006 CBOT Disk). Not to mention the R&D of totally redesigning the RC and writing new master code and user code.

Serial is not the enemy is very good standard that works well with everything. People need to buy better serial ports. Go look for PCMCIA Serial Ports not USB your downloads will scream.