Both might accomplish the same "function" or "results" (perhaps a lift of some kind), but there are clear differences in simplicity, in cost, in maintainability, extensibility, and several other "ilities" -- which are a staple of engineering evaluation criteria. - msd [more]
You can easily generate a PWM signal to drive a Victor, Jaguar, or Talon using the RTS & DTR pins of the RS232 serial port on an old junker laptop with an early Pentium or 486 processor.
This paper describes a simple method of logging diagnostic data through the Robot Controller’s second serial port. The concept is to add a FLASH memory based serial logger to the RC, and provide a simple software macro for sending data to the logger.
Both might accomplish the same "function" or "results" (perhaps a lift of some kind), but there are clear differences in simplicity, in cost, in maintainability, extensibility, and several other "ilities" -- which are a staple of engineering evaluation criteria. - msd [more] 
