How important is Linux?

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Qbranch

I saw windows embedded at the Freescale Technology Forum 2007 this summer. It was pretty cool, but they had it running on i.MX processors... pretty fast. I think it might run on some of Microchip's big dsPIC24 processors but i'm not sure.

However, the cool thing about Windows XPe/CE is that they run the .NET MicroFramework .... which can run code from Microsoft Robotics Studio. For those of you who havent played with Robotics Studio it has a pretty neat system where you can target your code to an on-computer physical simulation of your robot then turn right around and target it to your MicroFramework compatible controller. It includes drivers for heavy hardware (like Sick scanners n such)....

Really after writing this i think this is way too overkill for doing FIRST robotics. The controller's cost would get way out of hand to have enough hardware to run XPe... plus I think the simplicity and close proximity to the hardware that MCC provieds is a great experience for FIRST programmers.

-q

Oh Noes!!! you can't possibly like the microsoft product that is trying to take over FIRST!!!

/end sarcasm

Microsoft Robotics studio is actually pretty cool. I've programmed in MpLab a lot and it wasn't necessarily hard, I just didn't like how constrained it was. The MS studio isn't the most open thing out there, but it definitely has the support behind it to make it grow and work.