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Subject: 
Re: lack of interest in basic stamp and basicx
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Tue, 23 Nov 1999 19:17:58 GMT
Original-From: 
Jonathan Perret <JPERRET@CYBERCABLE.saynotospamFR>
Viewed: 
470 times
  
I can answer part of your question. There are those amongst us
who are pretty good with a soldering iron but who are not as
familiar with software tools.

Yeah, that's what I suspected in fact. My training and experience
as a software engineer made me forget what it was to be faced with
an unknown, complex programming language. I've been assuming
everyone would be fluent in C ;-)

On the other hand, I wish I knew how to even hold a soldering iron -
I'm still trying to understand what a resistor is used for in a
circuit.

I may be biased but I feel it's not too hard even for a total
newcomer to learn programming by oneself. Every bookshop has
literally thousands of books aiming at the beginning programmer.

But I have yet to find a book that will explain to me the basics
of electronics (past Ohm's Law I mean). Does any of the
circuit-heads round here have a book (or a website) to recommend
for those like me who are willing to understand how to build
simple circuits ?

My personal interest in replacing my RCX by a handyboard in a lego
compatible enclosure is driven by the knowledge that I can easily
program the HC11 in assembly language and download the code into
the chip by well documented functions in the CPU. And straightforward
68 family assembly language is so simple compared with the arcane
pbForth which is touted as the "assembler" for the RCX.

Hmm, the assembler for the RCX is just H8k assembler, which granted
is not as well known as 68k assembler, but I don't expect it to be
really more complex. But if you already know 68k of course...

The advantage of pbForth (as I see it) is that it allows one to
build programs that are as almost as close to the hardware as
assembler would allow, while not having to learn yet another
assembly language.

I agree though, definitely not Basic! Anything but that!

Basic is fine for prototyping. Even for writing the programs.
But having the microcontroller *interpret* a Basic program
seems like a total waste of time and RAM to me. Why can't
the Basic programs be compiled and then downloaded to the MC ?

Cheers,
--Jonathan



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: lack of interest in basic stamp and basicx
 
(...) Go to Radio Shack and get "Getting Started in Electronics" by Forrest M. Mims. Its easy, accurate, and quickly usable knowledge. The book is 8.5"x11" and about .25" think with a green cover. After that look at any of his topical books (...) (25 years ago, 23-Nov-99, to lugnet.robotics)
  RCX --> miniBoard(was: lack of interest in basic stamp and basicx)
 
(...) Is anyone here thinking about going the opposite way, i.e replacing the RCX with a Mini Board? I am contemplating such a switch for essentially two reasons: cost and size. For the price of a Rcx you can buy two mini board kits, and they are (...) (25 years ago, 23-Nov-99, to lugnet.robotics)

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