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All,
I'd like to announce that I have FINALLY had a free
day this weekend and managed to add DCC capability
into pbForth!
Thanks to Mark Riley for showing me his early DCC driver
in assembler and to Dave Koudys for lending me a DCC equipped
motor and some track.
With DCC functions, you can do simple stuff like:
HEX 0048 DCCPacket ! ... read this as DCCPacket store
Which puts the 0x0048 packet out on the DCC on Motor Port A
and sets Dave's little DCC train motor to half speed
on the loop he generously lent me.
HEX 0068 DCCPacket !
Slows the motor down, and reverses it at half speed.
You can run the other motor ports and sensors, display, etc
normally. I plan on having a power booster module available too.
The neat thing about pbForth is that you can do control
system-like things.....
Things like detect when a train is close to either side of
a station, then slow down and stop in the station. Wait for
(programmable value), then slowly accelerate and pull out
of the station.
Sure, you can do this with brickOS, but with pbForth you
can change that programmable value _interactively_ from
your laptop by typing:
10 StationWait ! ... the ! means store
With a DCC sound module, you can even have it blow the
horn or make other appropriate choo-choo sounds. :-)
Now, I'd like to ask some quesitons of the train-heads before
I finalize things and release the first cut...
1. How important is multiple DCC channels? If unimportant, is it
OK to just use Motor Port A as the default or should the port
be programmable?
Bear in mind that one DCC channel is optimal because it leaves
more CPU cycles for things like sending out IR messages :-)
2. Are there any things you would like to do with a DCC capable
RCX that are difficult with a brickOS system?
3. Can you describe some things you would typically want do on
a train layout that you can't do at all now?
I'm really excited about a second alternative firmware that can
do DCC, and as I've pointed out before, folks like Eric Sophie
might be interested in this becasue you can control a HUGE number
of motors from one RCX port.
Ralph Hempel
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Check out pbFORTH for LEGO Mindstorms at:
<http://www.hempeldesigngroup.com/lego/pbForth>
Buy "Extreme Mindstorms: an Advanced Guide to Lego Mindstorms"
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1893115844/hempeldesigngrou>
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: pbForth Does DCC!
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| (...) Excellent! (...) This depends on how many trains will be running, but IMO should at least be programmable (ie the ability to use 1, 2 or 3 ports depending on load). Because you can plug LACC[1] boosters into the output, and drive extra motors (...) (21 years ago, 29-Sep-03, to lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto, lugnet.trains)
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| | Check this out
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| Hey guys, I have just finished totally refurbishing my website. My goal was to make things cleaner and improve the layout. All of the pages have been fixed up, and I have added several new pages for my latest robots. Have a look and tell me what you (...) (21 years ago, 27-Sep-03, to lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto)
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