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Re: Open-Source FIRST
Sigh. The point is about options, really. It's not disputed that most teams are perfectly happy with using MPLab and the C18 along with IFI_Loader on Windows. The rules don't state that you MUST use microchip's software to program the robot; the rules only state that you must use the PIC18F as the main processor. There are no restrictions on the software you can use, but there are no other options.
There may not be any teams that have all Macs, but there might be a team that can't afford to build a machine for a couple hundred dollars and buy a license for Windows XP for $100. They might want to take an old machine and use Linux or FreeBSD or Solaris.
Not only would this give more choice to teams, but team members can learn quite a bit through contributing to projects. To help with a compiler, they'd learn a lot about compiler design and the architecture of 8-bit PICs, and having a lot of centralized code will let them learn about all aspects of software development, not just embedded design (even though that is the primary goal of FIRST).
If you're not interested, that's fine. I just want to know if I can get developers that would be willing to help, that's all.
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One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs.
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The students that I have known in FIRST over my 8 years of involvement have been far more inspired by the competition and some of the jaw dropping creations of "elite" teams than by anything that we made ourselves. - MattB703 [more] 
24-01-2007, 19:50
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