few issues regarding NXT

[amitbr]

Thanks.

So I would go for the 8547 (NXT 2.0). It costs in Ebay around 350$ (strange, since in LEGO website it is 279$).
Does the robot comes with the NXT-G language with all help needed inside? Should I buy separately something in order to start learning it?

Now Can you tell where I can get in addition the ROBOTC software? Also will it fit (plug-in) to the NXT? Does it has "blocks" or ready procedures to support NXT?

Sorry for the tons of questions but I am really new to that topic.

Thanks,
Amit

[mightor]

Hi Amit,

I am not sure where on this planet you are, but if Ebay is more expensive than the Lego store, then I would definitely not buy it from that Ebay store

Strictly speaking you don't need to buy anything else besides the box, but I can recommend buying Laurens Valk's book. Check it out here: [LINK]

As for ROBOTC, it's a text-based language and doesn't have blocks. It has lots of special functions for the NXT. You can download it here: [LINK]. You can try it out for 30 days, after which you must either buy a license for $30 US -or- uninstall it.

- Xander

[h-g-t]

"I am not sure where on this planet you are, but if Ebay is more expensive than the Lego store, then I would definitely not buy it from that Ebay store"

Off-topic I know this is not uncommon, NXT 1.0 (new and s/h) was advertised regularly ebay at around £200 - £220 at a time when Amazon was selling it at £180 including postage! You can't always assume it is the cheapest place to get things.

And I have seen competing bidders push the price up to twice what they would have paid down the High Street.

[muntoo]

The "collectible" one at Amazon is $239.99.

Jus' sayin'.

[No, seriously, I'm not trying to sell anything, although, you could always tell the seller it was me, and they might give me a little tip. Even though I'm not a waiter.]

[amitbr]

guys,

Can you also recommend on the needed device for the USB BT?
Amit

[h-g-t]

There is already a thread on this under 'hardware'.

I am far from being an expert on computers, but my personal opinion is that the procedure and having the right drivers is more important than the hardware. I get the impression that the native Windows drivers are better than some provided with the dongles so I would suggest installing under Windows and only use the supplied drivers if that does not work. Even if you buy a Lego BT dongle, from what I have seen on the 'net you are not necessarily going to avoid problems.

Best to start here :- http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/bluetooth/default.aspx

I put the dongle in the computer and get the drivers loaded. When that is complete, I switch the brick on, make sure it is 'visible' and get the BT program to search for other BT items. When it has discovered the brick, I press 'connect' on the brick then enter the passcode number when prompted. After that, it works OK (so far!).

[amitbr]

Sorry for my ignorance on that LEGO issue.
I though that the brick need to have additional hardware to support BT.
Do you mean that the brick support BT without external hardware? (of course the PC should have it)

thanks,
amit

[mightor]

There is a Bluetooth module in the actual NXT brick, yes. You don't need anything special attached to it, to make it work. You will need a dongle or built-in Bluetooth tranceiver on your laptop or computer to be able to talk to it from your computer, though

- Xander

[amitbr]

Xander,

You recommended the book for beginners (http://discovery.laurensvalk.com/home). It indeed seems good but uses only the NXT-G.
I will buy it just for the first steps, but i really like quickly to go into robotC (it seems strange to me to program with drawings).
Can you please recommend on a good book that will guide me using the robotC language?

Another thing: I read in one place that there may be some issues between robotC and the robot NXT-2.0 (download problem, etc ...). Is that correct or an old irrelevant information?

Thanks,
Amit

[HaWe]

why RobotC and not NXC?
NXC is Freeware, I don't see any advantage of any of both APIs compared to each other (the NXC BT connection is even more powerful: 1 master + 3 slaves, RobotC supports only 1 master + 1slave), and the only RobotC advantages (regarding BT stream reading and function overloading) will be achieved by NXC in one of the next releases too (IIRC). And last but not least: Both NXC and NXT-G work with both the standard lego and John Hansen's enhanced firmware.

So why not choose NXC and purchase John Hansen's book about NXC?

(exactly C to the ANSI C standard essentials is neither NXC nor RobotC: no pointers, no recursion, no stack, no heap, no stdio)