Posted by Nate Smith. [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Student on team #74, Holland FIRST Robotics, from Holland High School and Haworth, Inc…
Posted on 9/14/99 7:45 AM MST
For all of you who are itching to get ahold of the new controller, you can at least be appeased a little for now…information on the new Basic Stamp SX chip is available at the URL below.
Posted by Mike.
Student on team #175, Buzz, from Enrico Fermi High School and UTC - Hamilton Standard Space Systems.
Posted on 9/15/99 4:31 AM MST
In Reply to: New Controller Chip Info Available posted by Nate Smith on 9/14/99 7:45 AM MST:
I’m not sure you are looking at the correct microcontroller. FIRST says it’s the ‘Basic Stamp II-SX’. There is a controller on the Parallax site with that exact name. I looked at the specifications for the SX Tech controller and it is over FIRSTs head right now. However, I beleive the BS2-SX is a smart choice… it’s basicly a powered up BS2. Here’s the specs:
Processor: 50 mhz
Instructions: 10,000 per second
Program RAM: 16k bytes
RAM: 95 bytes (RAM: 32, Scratch Pad RAM: 63)
Posted by Nate Smith. [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Student on team #74, Holland FIRST Robotics, from Holland High School and Haworth, Inc…
Posted on 9/15/99 7:17 AM MST
In Reply to: Re: New Controller Chip Info Available posted by Mike on 9/15/99 4:31 AM MST:
: I’m not sure you are looking at the correct microcontroller. FIRST says it’s the ‘Basic Stamp II-SX’. There is a controller on the Parallax site with that exact name. I looked at the specifications for the SX Tech controller and it is over FIRSTs head right now. However, I beleive the BS2-SX is a smart choice… it’s basicly a powered up BS2. Here’s the specs:
: Processor: 50 mhz
: Instructions: 10,000 per second
: Program RAM: 16k bytes
: RAM: 95 bytes (RAM: 32, Scratch Pad RAM: 63)
: - Mike
: PS: The link below will get you to the BS2-SX
Yeah, that was an ‘oops’ on my part…I saw SX and figured they would only have one chip or set of chips with that name. Either way, we still have some information on the new controller…
Nate
Posted by Lloyd Burns.
Coach on team #188, Woburn Robotics, from Woburn Collegiate and Canada 3000, ScotiaBank, Royal Bank Financial.
Posted on 9/16/99 1:27 AM MST
In Reply to: Re: New Controller Chip Info Available posted by Mike on 9/15/99 4:31 AM MST:
: I’m not sure you are looking at the correct microcontroller. FIRST says it’s the ‘Basic Stamp II-SX’. There is a controller on the Parallax site with that exact name. I looked at the specifications for the SX Tech controller and it is over FIRSTs head right now. However, I beleive the BS2-SX is a smart choice… it’s basicly a powered up BS2. Here’s the specs:
: Processor: 50 mhz
: Instructions: 10,000 per second
: Program RAM: 16k bytes
: RAM: 95 bytes (RAM: 32, Scratch Pad RAM: 63)
: - Mike
: PS: The link below will get you to the BS2-SX
The program RAM spec is misleading, however - you can store 8 separate programs in it, but each program is about the same length as before. BASICally (:-)), we get 2.5 times faster execution (but we don’t know if the transmitter will send its packets any faster), and new instructions for read/write to the Eeprom. The new chip appears to drop into a BS2 socket, if your clone uses one.
Posted by Mike.
Student on team #175, Buzz, from Enrico Fermi High School and UTC - Hamilton Standard Space Systems.
Posted on 9/16/99 4:38 AM MST
In Reply to: Re: New Controller Chip Info Available posted by Lloyd Burns on 9/16/99 1:27 AM MST:
: The program RAM spec is misleading, however - you can store 8 separate programs in it, but each program is about the same length as before. BASICally (:-)), we get 2.5 times faster execution (but we don’t know if the transmitter will send its packets any faster), and new instructions for read/write to the Eeprom. The new chip appears to drop into a BS2 socket, if your clone uses one.
I saw that… and I kind of like it. Buzzs’s program for the 1999 season only occupied 39% of the ROM. I would have loved to bring the Artificial Intelligence out of that program and into a second that is a mirror of the first, but also does the AI. This would make for 1 fast program for simple driving and another one that you could drive the robot with but was slowed by AI.
Posted by Joe Johnson. [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.
Posted on 9/16/99 6:33 PM MST
In Reply to: Re: New Controller Chip Info Available posted by Mike on 9/16/99 4:38 AM MST:
Another cool thing you could do is to have a ‘set up/debug’ program that would zero joysticks exercise particular PWM’s etc. I suppose that the programs all have access to the same eeprom space so values could be passed from one program to another.
This would allow for killer loop times as you say, while having all the other stuff available if you need it.
How do you switch from task to task by the way?
Can the programs choose to switch between themselves? If so (and again, assuming eeprom space is common) then perhaps we could even set up a kind of subroutine structure.
I’ll take what I can get.
Joe J.
Posted by Mike.
Student on team #175, Buzz, from Enrico Fermi High School and UTC - Hamilton Standard Space Systems.
Posted on 9/16/99 9:28 PM MST
In Reply to: Or how about this… posted by Joe Johnson on 9/16/99 6:33 PM MST:
I like that idea of debug programs and joystick calibration programs. Last year our robot had a feauture where if you moved the thumb wheel on joystick 1 the joysticks would be auto-calibrated. It was a great feature but took away from loop time so it was abandoned.
You can switch from program to program by using the command 'run x'. Where x is the program number, 0-7 with 0 being the default on power-up. You can share variables globally, however they still must be initialised in each program. A word of caution to FIRST programmers: if you do not initialise variables in the same order as they were the first time they were initialised you will have many problems sharing correct variables.
: Another cool thing you could do is to have a ‘set up/debug’ program that would zero joysticks exercise particular PWM’s etc. I suppose that the programs all have access to the same eeprom space so values could be passed from one program to another.
: This would allow for killer loop times as you say, while having all the other stuff available if you need it.
: How do you switch from task to task by the way?
: Can the programs choose to switch between themselves? If so (and again, assuming eeprom space is common) then perhaps we could even set up a kind of subroutine structure.
: I’ll take what I can get.
: Joe J.
Posted by Jerry Eckert.
Engineer from Looking for a team in Raleigh, NC sponsored by New England Prototype/Brooks Automation.
Posted on 9/17/99 9:48 AM MST
In Reply to: Re: Or how about this… posted by Mike on 9/16/99 9:28 PM MST:
: A word of caution to FIRST programmers: if you do not initialise variables in the same order as they were the first time they were initialised you will have many problems sharing correct variables.
Can you elaborate on this problem, please? I can’t imaging how the order of initialization could possibly matter as long as each variable is initialized before it is used.
Or do you mean to declare them in the same order?
- JerryPosted by Thomas A. Frank. [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Engineer on team #121, The Islanders/Rhode Warrior, from Middletown (RI) High School and Naval Undersea Warfare Center.
Posted on 9/17/99 3:10 PM MST
In Reply to: Re: Or how about this… posted by Jerry Eckert on 9/17/99 9:48 AM MST:
Hello All;
From my reading of the spec sheet, it looks like we can have 8, 2K programs
in the chip (Program 0 is the master, and is the one that gets executed on
powerup). We can jump from program to program (gotta love goto’s, or in
this case ‘run x’), and variables can transfer between them in the 63 bytes
of common scratch pad RAM. All outputs are maintained during jumps.
This is very cool. Assuming the time it takes to jump from program to program
is not unreasonable (haven’t gotten mine yet to try it and see), I envision
Program 0 being the main, with 1-7 being subroutines as needed.
Of course, having 2.5x faster execution will be very nice.
Looks like it will still be limited to 26 bytes for variables, but then you
get the 63 bytes of scratchpad for constants and such.
I like it.
Only about 3.5 months until kickoff…
TAF
Posted by Kate. [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Engineer on team #190, Gompei, from Mass Academy of Math and Science and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Posted on 9/17/99 6:13 PM MST
In Reply to: If the spec sheet is right… posted by Thomas A. Frank on 9/17/99 3:10 PM MST:
: Only about 3.5 months until kickoff…
there’s actually 114 days til kickoff… 
-KATE-
A lifetime member of FIRST-a-holics Anonymous…
Posted by Mike.
Student on team #175, Buzz, from Enrico Fermi High School and UTC - Hamilton Standard Space Systems.
Posted on 9/19/99 11:08 PM MST
In Reply to: Re: Or how about this… posted by Jerry Eckert on 9/17/99 9:48 AM MST:
Sorry about that, I meant declare them.
: : A word of caution to FIRST programmers: if you do not initialise variables in the same order as they were the first time they were initialised you will have many problems sharing correct variables.
: Can you elaborate on this problem, please? I can’t imaging how the order of initialization could possibly matter as long as each variable is initialized before it is used.
: Or do you mean to declare them in the same order?
: - Jerry