Subject:
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Re: RCX simulator ?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Sun, 15 Sep 2002 06:29:41 GMT
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Viewed:
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1155 times
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In article <H2FzCp.DB@lugnet.com>, Stef Mientki <s.mientki@ids.kun.nl>
wrote:
> Steve Baker wrote:
> >
> > According to his notes, David hasn't released a new version of this
> > code since 11/19/2000 so I suspect this is as good as it'll get. However,
> > it appears to be OpenSourced so anyone could pick it up and work on it.
I stopped working on it because there wasn't much demand. I never
intended to write a full-blown simulation environment. I hoped other
people would write appropriate front ends (GUIs that might let you
interact with the RCX's sensors, or perhaps even set up a virtual
environment for the simulated RCX to move around it, whatever). I could
then focus on the core of the bytecode simulator, which was something
that leveraged my existing knowledge of the RCX bytecodes.
Anyway, there were a few efforts to build something bigger around the
simulator (mostly class projects done by students), but nothing caught
on, so I haven't touched the code.
If a new project gets started to build something cool, I'll do my best
to maintain/enhance the simulator core.
>
> A few hours + a few evenings = 2 hours + 2 * 4 hours = 10 hours.
> Total code size (including documentation) = 74,000 characters.
> That's an average keystrokes/minute of (74,000 / (10*60))= 123
> keystrokes/minute.
> I think that's very fast, .....
> even for a writer who knows every in and out of the RCX ;-)
It was fast, but not quite that fast. I wrote that blurb on the web
page after perhaps 12 hours of work on the simulator. At that point it
could simulate some interesting programs, but was missing a lot of RCX
2.0 features.
A lot of new code had to be written (and some new abstractions created)
to get it to version 1.0 a2. I wasn't keeping track of time, so I don't
have exact numbers. However, this wasn't hundreds of hours of work. It
was probably around 15 additional hours, certainly less than 40 hours.
Now allow me to step up on the soapbox for a moment...
I think an important point is that incremental projects are more likely
to get off the ground than the "big bang" project where you spend
hundreds or thousands hours before getting to any meaningful release.
There's a lot of positive feedback when you can quickly get to something
that is useable.
NQC was an incremental project...the first version was basically a
weekend hack using some C preprocessor code that I had written
previously. Over time I added more and more features, and have put in
many, many hours. But it was useful right after that first weekend.
Same thing for the simulator. The first few hours produced the skeleton
of something that could work, the next two evenings got it to the point
of being useful on a small set of problems. After that it was just a
matter of adding features one at a time (and occasionally refactoring
the design when needed).
Another important point is that programs are easier the second time you
write them. In this case, I had previously written CPU simulators, and
knew the RCX bytecodes very well, so writing an RCX bytecode simulator
was rather straightforward. It wouldn't have been nearly so easy if I
didn't have that experience.
Dave
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: RCX simulator ?
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| Dave Baum wrote: > I hoped other (...) That's clearly the next step - the question is - does anyone want it badly enough to do it? Personally, I'd rather just run my programs on the real RCX. It seems to me that RCX programs are generally simple (...) (22 years ago, 15-Sep-02, to lugnet.robotics)
| | | Re: RCX simulator ?
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| hi Dave, (...) I see your simulator every half year, searching the web for one. But maybe I'm very stupid, everytime I download the sources (all there is) and then I don't know what to do with them (my computer doesn't know either). Because I've a (...) (22 years ago, 15-Sep-02, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: RCX simulator ?
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| (...) A few hours + a few evenings = 2 hours + 2 * 4 hours = 10 hours. Total code size (including documentation) = 74,000 characters. That's an average keystrokes/minute of (74,000 / (10*60))= 123 keystrokes/minute. I think that's very fast, ..... (...) (22 years ago, 14-Sep-02, to lugnet.robotics)
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