But there is a misconception that newcomers to hobby robotics are often mislead to believe that having C++ or java is what will make this thing fun.
These robots have a CPU that doesn't have the MIPS or RAM to be able to run an operating system. This means that the programmer has to deal with interrupts and I/O at the lowest level (have you written device drivers lately?). In turn this means that the coolness of C++, Java or Ruby is out the window within 10 minutes into programming these things because the big bulk of work is dealing with ports, timers, interrupts, a/d and in fact the most useful tools are not the C++ compiler but rather: pre-cooked C/Assemly libraries (AVRLIB etc), tools like Atmel's Algorithm Builder and one's newly found intimate friend called the 400 page manual of Atmega128.
Don't want to discourage you but there's enough fun to be had with the Robonova's standard Basic-style fluffy programming environment before venturing into the abyss of firmware re-flashing.
Statistics: Posted by limor — Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:22 pm
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