To LUGNET HomepageTo LUGNET News HomepageTo LUGNET Guide Homepage
 Help on Searching
 
Post new message to lugnet.roboticsOpen lugnet.robotics in your NNTP NewsreaderTo LUGNET News Traffic PageSign In (Members)
 Robotics / 14153
14152  |  14154
Subject: 
Re: CM-RCX comm
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Wed, 31 Jan 2001 12:59:54 GMT
Original-From: 
Steve Baker <SJBAKER1@AIRMAILstopspammers.NET>
Reply-To: 
sjbaker1@airmail(avoidspam).net
Viewed: 
770 times
  
"Marco C." wrote:

At 22:30 30-01-2001 -0600, Steve Baker wrote:
"Marco C." wrote:

2) My first tests with the two pBricks (CyberMaster and RCX) prove that
it's possible to communicate using a (ten times) slower version of VLL
protocol (I call it SlowVLL for short). *It works*, and it transmits data
very accuratly (I'd thought it would suffer some variations in timmings but
no, the Wait() value on the OUTPUT pBrick is exactly the measured Timer()
value on the INPUT pBrick.

Wooaahhh!  That can't be true.  Both machines are running some kind of
(hopefully) crystal oscillator to generate the clock that drives the
Timer() and Wait() commands.  No two cystal oscillators generate the
*exact* same timing - so your two clock could easily differ by one
part per million or so.  Hence, once in a while, you'll find that
you either miss a bit or drop a bit.  That may be quite rarely or
quite frequently depending on the quality of the oscillators that
Lego used for the RCX.

That's exactly what my common sense made me believe.
But various tests I did, using a dump of a Datalog with the timmings
measured by the RCX, proved me wrong.

Every Wait(10) was correctly measured as a Timer(3)==1, and every Wait(50)
as a Timer(3)==5 and so on...

Well, yes - but then crystal oscillators are quite accurate (but crucially,
not 100% accurate).  You might have to run as long as one or two MILLION
attempts before you see an error - but you *will* see an error if you do
it for long enough.

If your code does one test per second (say) and the clocks differ by one
part per million (which I believe to be a reasonable figure) - then it
might take as long as 11 days for you to see a problem....or it might happen
on the very first try.

--
Steve Baker   HomeEmail: <sjbaker1@airmail.net>
              WorkEmail: <sjbaker@link.com>
              HomePage : http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
              Projects : http://plib.sourceforge.net
                         http://tuxaqfh.sourceforge.net
                         http://tuxkart.sourceforge.net
                         http://prettypoly.sourceforge.net
                         http://freeglut.sourceforge.net



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: CM-RCX comm
 
(...) That's exactly what my common sense made me believe. But various tests I did, using a dump of a Datalog with the timmings measured by the RCX, proved me wrong. Every Wait(10) was correctly measured as a Timer(3)==1, and every Wait(50) as a (...) (23 years ago, 31-Jan-01, to lugnet.robotics)

20 Messages in This Thread:












Entire Thread on One Page:
Nested:  All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:  All | Brief | Compact
    

Custom Search

©2005 LUGNET. All rights reserved. - hosted by steinbruch.info GbR