RS232 (Serial) Communication To OI

[bglass]

Hey Everybody,

I am working on a project that is not FIRST related, but figured I would come here for help as I am using the IFI Control System (that you all seem to be so good with). I scoured the forums to try to find some answers to my questions, but as it's not legal in the FIRST competitions, couldn't find much of anything.

What I would like to do is essentially emulate the joysticks (and other input devices that plug into the OI) through my laptop. It seems impractical to hook 4 joysticks and other switches up so that I have enough buttons to perform tasks. Unfortunately, my background in programming is primarily in Java. After doing some research, I decided that programming in C would probably allow me more flexibility and be a bit more universal. I don't need to send extremely complex things to the OI, just the values that would normally be sent via the OI (0-254 for the axis, 0 or 1 for the buttons). I read through some forums on Serial Communication in C, but they seemed far more complex than what I need to do for this project. If somebody would be willing to give me the commands to do this, I would appreciate it. I also don't know some of the information that I anticipate that I will need (Baud Rate, etc).

I imagine that this would also be able to help with FIRST during the off-season. It seems there is always a shortage of joysticks, and this would allow for some easy debugging. Look forward to your responses.

Bryan