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I haven't looked at programming the RCX with Visual Basic or other MS Win
languages via the spirit.ocx control, but someone (sorry -- I'm terrible
with remembering names!) at the NELUG meeting asked me why people seem to
like NQC when they could be using Visual Basic. [1] For me, the answer is
simple -- I use Linux almost exclusively, so spirit.ocx isn't even an
option. And there's the other obvious issues of cost and "got-there-first".
But beyond that, it's my impression that the spirit OCX API is meant to
allow one to write programs like NQC (albeit not cross-platform). In other
words, when writing a VB program to control the RCX, one is writing a
program to output firmware opcodes -- effectively programming in RCX
"assembly language". Am I mistaken?
So, an advantage of NQC is that it allows you to generate programs for the
RCX using a relatively high-level language, whereas with VB, while you're
using a high-level language to write your UI, the guts of what runs on the
actual brick is done at a low level.
(There are of course some advantages to coding at an ASM level. But that's a
different issue...)
[Followup-to lugnet.robotics]
[1] I don't want to get into a language flame war with this -- I bring up
the issue because I want to make sure I'm not incorrect in my answer. If I
am, I'll have learned something. :)
--
Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org
Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Mindstorms spirit.ocx programming = RCX ASM coding?
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| (...) Correct. IMHO, calling this "programming the RCX in VB" is very misleading. None of the familiar VB features (variables, control structures, etc) will run on the RCX. For example, in order to construct an "if" statment, you don't use the VB (...) (25 years ago, 23-Dec-99, to lugnet.robotics)
| | | Re: Mindstorms spirit.ocx programming = RCX ASM coding?
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| (...) Not at all. I doubt that LEGO would depart too far from their opcode protocols when writing their SDK, especially as it's designed for advanced users, and the syntax of the language seems to mirror assembly. From what I've seen, the Spirit OCX (...) (25 years ago, 23-Dec-99, to lugnet.robotics)
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