BricxCC with EV3 Sneak Peeks

[felix2ch]

Wow...
It's really COOL!

[HaWe]

John,
have you already got sth running on the EV3s, especially for daisy chaining?
(August is coming closer^^)

[mightor]

In the non LEGO VM library (the one that works with GCC, etc), there is no support for the daisy chaining at launch time. This is because it relies on too much stuff that is happening in the VM itself (and that part we've been working on cutting out). However, the EV3 NXC version may support it.

= Xander

[HaWe]

Daisy chaining is much more important than anything else to me, and without it the EV3 wouldn't help me anything at all (and so I wouldn't buy it either).
But John already mentioned this issue about C-compiled Linux executables, that's why Linux C is currently not interesting to me.

So my question was actually about daisy chaining by a C or pseudo-C compiler for the bytecode interpreter VM .

[mrblp]

Hello Xander,

In the non LEGO VM library (the one that works with GCC, etc), there is no support for the daisy chaining at launch time. This is because it relies on too much stuff that is happening in the VM itself (and that part we've been working on cutting out). However, the EV3 NXC version may support it.

Thank you for that info. Sadly I have to wait for the official launch of the EV3 to check all this out.

Where to get information about the ways to write programs with the EV3? Will that be available at 1st of August? Are there other ways than the "classic" Lego way via the LabVIEW based tools? Is there the option to use simply a cross-compiler (gcc) on the PC to write the programs? Will Lego make the libraries available for running the motor- and sensor-ports?

Thank you very much for any information or where to find it...
Bye Marvin

[HaWe]

John,
have you already got sth running on the EV3s, especially for daisy chaining?
(August is coming closer^^)

(i.e., for the VM)

[afanofosc]

If you have an EV3 and are interested in the progress of BricxCC support for this new programmable brick you should check out the latest test release zip at http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/test_releases/ (dated 20130730) and try it out via a USB connection to your PC. Other transport layers (i.e., bluetooth and wifi) are in the works.

No VM-targeting compiler yet. But some remarkable progress is being made toward native arm-linux executables compiled and downloaded using BricxCC and the CodeSourcery Lite and/or Free Pascal cross compilers for arm-linux. More news about native apps using BricxCC will be coming very soon. At the moment I will just say that with some simple step-by-step instructions you can use this build of BricxCC to compile and download native arm-linux apps to the EV3.

It will be a while before I have a VM-targeting compiler ready. Sorry it is taking longer than I had hoped. Doc, with your help, we could more quickly implement support for daisy-chain motor/sensor control with native arm-linux applications. I strongly encourage you and every other interested person to help out once the source code for the LEGO firmware is made public along with our currently in its infant state API library in C and Pascal for interfacing with/controlling all the EV3 hardware bits. We have a full suite of APIs for motor control on a single brick. We could use help implementing the multi-layer (i.e., daisy chain) communication that is provided by the VM. We also have working API library routines for buttons, LEDs, sounds, and timers. We are getting close to a functional library for the LCD. And we are getting close to a functional sensor API layer.

John Hansen

[HaWe]

I would love to help you but I am not able to program with gcc, eclipse, or Linux, and already I haven't got an ev3.
That's why or the future I needed to have a simple IDE like BCC where everything like compile, link, make, upload, and run can be done by just 1 mouse click or short cut

But I already mede some suggestions about how the API functions could look like:
https://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/mind ... f=3&t=1862

[mrblp]

Hello John,

thank you John

If you have an EV3 and are interested in the progress of BricxCC support for this new programmable brick

I am interested but the earliest date to get a retail set of the EV3 is september this year. And I am a linux user - are we getting another lib? I only found hidapi.dll which may be the EV3 dll...

... the CodeSourcery Lite and/or Free Pascal cross compilers for arm-linux.

May I use the "standard" gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi which is included in ubuntu?

It will be a while before I have a VM-targeting compiler ready. Sorry it is taking longer than I had hoped.

Are you writing that one from scratch? Or is the new VM somewhat like the old one so you can adapt the nbc compiler?

Doc, with your help, we could more quickly implement support for daisy-chain motor/sensor control with native arm-linux applications.

In contrast to Doc I am professional in embedded communication software so I would like to help you but... Well mindstorms is a private theme and I will buy one EV3 set, perhaps a second one but that's all. So it will be very difficult for me to try the communication with four robots.

I strongly encourage you and every other interested person to help out once the source code for the LEGO firmware is made public along with our currently in its infant state API library in C and Pascal for interfacing with/controlling all the EV3 hardware bits.

Do you know when this will be? I am very interested!

And to come back to the NXT: Will you ever publish the source code of the new firmware releases? I found the repository is still unchanged since 2012-02-somewhat and the test releases of the firmware are from 2013... OK, I am using leJOS for some time now but I am noisy

Bye, Marvin

[HaWe]

. @mrblp:
if you are able to help with embedded communication:
the biggest lack of NXC so far was missing a network protocol keeping off data corruption, data loss and providing transmission control and direct commands for all I/Os and to send/receive large data packets (up to 32760 bytes all at once) , peer-to-peer, even for large nets (like e.g., 32 NXTs by rs485), maybe requiring 1 brick as a dedicated net server.
If you could help to implement sth like an Aloha net or a quick Token Ring net or something else - that would be "a big leap for mankind" ;)