IFI Controllers For 2004

Ok, as this is the Rumor Mill (Lathe?), don’t take anything I say to be 100% true, in any circumstance. That little disclaimer said, here’s what I’ve heard…

One of the tech teachers who will be on my team for the upcoming year (he wasn’t last year, due to issues regarding him keeping a job at the school), called me up last week and told me something that may or may not be true, but is at least a matter of interest to everyone here.

He told me, first of all, that the new programming language would probably be C (or some embedded variant), and second, that his “sources” (he apparently talked to someone at IFI, not too sure if I believe that or not) said that there may be a problem involving availibility of the new controllers for the 2004 season, meaning that we may not receive the new controllers when we were expecting them (I forget exactly when this was to be).

Now, keep in mind, I don’t entirely trust my teacher, as he’s given me some completely bogus stuff before, but in anycase, this seems like it could very well be true. The part about the programming language, I think we’ve already more or less decided will be between C and Java, this may give another point to C. The part about not being able to make enough controllers fast enough, I’m not too sure, because every team needs a new controller, unless we’re all to destroy last year’s robots :confused:.

As one last thing, remember, this is the Rumor Mill, so while this is probably false, no one can say for sure (unless you work for IFI :)). And no, I’m not trying to pull everyones’ leg, I’ll leave that to the pros ;).

*Originally posted by Ian W. *
** said that there may be a problem involving availibility of the new controllers for the 2004 season, meaning that we may not receive the new controllers when we were expecting them (I forget exactly when this was to be).
**

Maybe in the pre-season kit?

C programming language would be interesting.

If it is an IFI controller, i’d be happy. I like the IFI control systems.

As far as the “not recieving the controllers when we expected” perhaps that just means they are coming in the regular kit in January, rather than the pre-season kit.

Ryan, that’s what I thought, but my teacher didn’t give me any specifics (which leads me to believe he didn’t know what he was talking about, but since the rest sounds plausible, well, yeah).

As for the controllers being from IFI, I’m more than certain that they will be, as FIRST is the reason they began (InnovationFirst). Hopefully they’ll be better than what we’ve had previous years, but I guess as long as we can make a robot move with it, it’s better than nothing :p.

Since you brought it up in the Rumor Mill I’ll toss in what I’ve heard. Also second hand but a pretty good second hand.

New chip (not sure what one)
No more 25 pin screw in connector. All .1 inch pins like the PWM’s
Programming in C

I think that was all. Sounds like it matches what has been heard other places.

I just want more memory, the ability to take the Sin of an angle, and maybe neg numbers and decimals.

Killing time until the kick off…

As long as IFI makes it I’m happy. I spent 2 years learning that thing (I’m sure that many other teams have spent a lot of time trying to master it as well). It doesnt seem logical that FIRST would change to a totally new system, so thinking logically, it should be IFI. If they did something different, they might get a few complaints because we would have to spend more valuable time learning a new system.

Here is what I have heard.

The processor will no long block for the radio, which will make the processing speed much faster. The current Basic Stamp will wait until the radio receives a message, then allow the processing of the message. The new processor will take the values last message that the radio received if the radio did not receive something new.

The user processor will have direct access to the Robot Controller Inputs. They will not be read through the serin (or serin type of command), they will look more like the Operator Interface LEDs, where writing a bit to OUT8 will turn on the light.

I’m hoping the direct access to the Inputs will mean that we can use two of them for software interrupts. The interrupts can be used to poll encoders to tell how far the robot has gone.

I’ve also heard the language is going to be C as well. The processor will probably be a Microchip PIC chip with somesore of boot loader so that the firmware code can be written to the chip without a hardware programmer.

-Jim Wright
Team 949

First of all, I’m 99% sure that IFI will be designing the new control system for next year. The main reason for this is that I’ve seen what I was told what was the field control system for next year. We were using it at the Maryland State Fair Competition and it was made by IFI and is very similiar to last years system. I’m not sure what that tells you but that’s all I could tell just from looking at them.

Matt

I read online somewhere that IFI said they were redesigning their main control system to use C, and it would be out by the Fall.

Wetzel

I <3 the internet.

*Originally posted by Wetzel *
**I read online somewhere that IRI said they were redesigning their main control system to use C, and it would be out by the Fall.

Wetzel

I <3 the internet. **

Hey Jeff did you mean IRI or did you mean IFI, because both are 2 different items when it comes to FIRST.
~Mike

with all this talk about converting to C and C++ im starting to think it’d be a good idea to learn some new languages… Can someone recommend some good resources (preferrably free) to learn either C or C++… My programming expierience currently consists almost entirely of pbasic (I learned it for robotics of course).
thanks

*Originally posted by Jferrante *
**with all this talk about converting to C and C++ im starting to think it’d be a good idea to learn some new languages… Can someone recommend some good resources (preferrably free) to learn either C or C++… My programming expierience currently consists almost entirely of pbasic (I learned it for robotics of course).
thanks **

The internet is a great resource, in general.

If you want to learn C, DJGPP is a Windows port of the Gnu C Compiler ( gcc.gnu.org ), and is free. I also recommend picking up a copy of The C Programming Language, Second Edition, by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.

I just searched a bit, and the first few links I looked at seemed pretty good.

*Originally posted by dez250 *
**Hey Jeff did you mean IRI or did you mean IFI, because both are 2 different items when it comes to FIRST.
~Mike **

Mea Culpa.

Fixed.

Wetzel

o Could this be true? A new type of IFI controller to plug a faulty dongle into and watch it go boom? (i can smell the magic smoke already)

O the possibilites (and not to mention fun of watching C’s head spin:ahh:):cool:

A new programming language? There goes my job as the backup-backup programmer, owell still got electronics and the electrical system :stuck_out_tongue:

4 those of u not on my team u probly didnt understand this rant, ask and ill gladly explain:]

Hm…redesign the whole system to accomodate C when there is a Java stamp available that would just plug into the existing design?? I have my doubts. We’ll see.

Eric.

Keep in mind though, Motorola is a huge sponsor of FIRST, and they have many chips that run some sort of embedded C (I’ve never used them, but I’ve heard bits and pieces about them). Plus, I wouldn’t mind a redesign of the controller, as they might then change the Dashboard Port output, which would make me happy, because there’s a much better chance of more than 9 bits of user-controllable information coming back from the RC.

You should check the other thread about the new IFI controllers.
It’s longer and contains info we’ve gained from IFI and other places.

The current RCs use PIC16C84s, which are very similar to other Microchip PICs, except that these are programmed with a basic interpreter. This slows them down (normal PICs have an instruction execution time of 200 ns, and operate at about 20 MHz.) Replacing these with another PIC would allow users to program them in assembly, C, Basic, Pascal, C++, and even Java (there are several free compilers available that would take any of these languages and output assembly). It would be a small transition to make (just take the current PIC out of the socket and put in the new one), since they have the same pin-out and form-factor, and would also be the easiest transition for programming. I guess we’ll see in a week.

*Originally posted by vladg12 *
**The current RCs use PIC16C84s, which are very similar to other Microchip PICs, except that these are programmed with a basic interpreter. This slows them down (normal PICs have an instruction execution time of 200 ns, and operate at about 20 MHz.) Replacing these with another PIC would allow users to program them in assembly, C, Basic, Pascal, C++, and even Java (there are several free compilers available that would take any of these languages and output assembly). It would be a small transition to make (just take the current PIC out of the socket and put in the new one), since they have the same pin-out and form-factor, and would also be the easiest transition for programming. I guess we’ll see in a week. **

Uh. The first few sentences of your post contain at least one technical fallacy. The PIC16[F/C]84 can be programmed in BASIC (PicBasic), but it’s not interpreted. The PicBasic compiler generates hexcode from BASIC-style source. You can write programs for the 84s in C and ASM.

I won’t even get into the rest of the post, right now…

looks like the fine folks at IFI are cruising these boards right at this very minute… (09-26-2003 05:43 PM EST)

Maybe they will clue us in on the (possibility of) a new OI and RC and programming language if we ask very nicely???

:smiley:

edit: and then again, maybe not!! I think I scared them away!!
Not cruising the boards anymore @ 09-26-2003 at 06:00 PM EST