What kind of computer do you use for programming?

[UrsaMNet]

We were lucky enough to have had two 2.4 Ghz P4 (512 mb RAM) Dell Laptops donated to our cause. They're plenty fast enough to use for your everyday robotics programming and portable enough to take anywhere!

And, more perfectly, they're just old enough to still have serial ports built in.

That said, sometimes we're short machines... there are 5 of us in our department, and while 3 of us have our own pc laptops, sometimes they're forgotten.

[Rohan_DHS]

Originally Posted by UrsaMNet

We were lucky enough to have had two 2.4 Ghz P4 (512 mb RAM) Dell Laptops donated to our cause. They're plenty fast enough to use for your everyday robotics programming and portable enough to take anywhere!

And, more perfectly, they're just old enough to still have serial ports built in.

That said, sometimes we're short machines... there are 5 of us in our department, and while 3 of us have our own pc laptops, sometimes they're forgotten.

wow you guys have it lucky! lol 5 for 3 is still pretty good...if we cant find another couple of comps, its going to be about 5 people and 1 computer

[Mike AA]

I typically use my 2002 HP XH555 running XP Home
AMD A4 1ghz
512MB
20GB HD

Often, pending this year on if I get networked at the new school we're at, I usually log into my servers at home to store backups of each program I write. MY laptop might not last through another year but I am hoping it does, I will likely buy a new one for next year but buy new parts to keep this one going because it has all the ports I ever use.

-Mike

[1075master]

for anyone who is this old we're hoping to use a nice old 486 compaq our school had lieing around.. for you people who don't have working cdroms and what not.. try having no cdrom just a floppy drive! yes slow but like someone said before if you do it right it'll only have to be done once.. well thats not true no one could ever get autonomous perfect on one try but still.. the better u get it the first time the less your waiting for compiling and what not..

[Astronouth7303]

Originally Posted by 1075master

for anyone who is this old we're hoping to use a nice old 486 compaq our school had lieing around.

Would a 486 compile before ship date?

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by UrsaMNet

And, more perfectly, they're just old enough to still have serial ports built in.

If you've got a PC laptop, you can get a USB-to-Serial converter (with drivers) that will allow you to program the RC or communicate to it like you would any run-of-the-mill serial port. You can find ones that work a fair amount of the time for around $20, or you can get the USB to RS-232 Converter National Instruments sells for $150.

-Danny

[1075master]

we have the teachers laptop we've been using so if it won't we still have that.. he just doesn't like having it being run around at the competition for fear it'll get dropped and broken.. its worth a try to prove to everyone u don't need all that speed. we also don't use mplab or c18 we do code in notepad and our original programmer greg i(helped with open first) created a build program in dos that takes about10 seconds to build o our schools really really slow computers. so the only thing that will be on there is the code and the build program, which both can fit on a floppy togethor with lots of leftover space, and ifiloader which will fit on a floppy on its own. soo hmm thats what probably about 3-4 mb not gonna be that slow. this computer i'm on opens programs like word only a couple seconds faster than the 486 does. u just need to delete everything not needed.