blueeyedpop wrote:
Funny way to look at it.
I'm not sure where you are heading
As a the basis of the device yes.
As I have always said, if you have a well defined task, a microcontroller could be useful.
Exactly. No problem at all, a cheap well defined task.
Obviously.
Yes, we know all this.
[snip]
A good PCI I/O card on a PC will do just as well.
And how much other processing can you do? vision, dead reconning? navigation? Speech recognition, speech synthesis?
Not at all. Each task is its own self contained process. Simple to understand, easy to develop.
The $500 price is a maximum. Anyone should be able to do it with easily available parts. If you add multiple micro-controllers, you have to also expect the end user to program the micro-controller. If everything runs on the PC, then everything can be done with one tool set.
Many people have complained that the learning curve is too high.
Actually, I'm not getting an ulcer, this is fun. I have actally laughed out loud at some of the things asserted.
People assume I don't like micro-controllers, that's wrong. They just need a very well defined task. It would be silly to base the robot on one.
http://www.newmicros.com/cgi-bin/store/order.cgi?form=prod_detail&part=ServoPod-USB
Funny way to look at it.
I'm not sure where you are heading
As a the basis of the device yes.
As I have always said, if you have a well defined task, a microcontroller could be useful.
Exactly. No problem at all, a cheap well defined task.
Obviously.
Yes, we know all this.
[snip]
A good PCI I/O card on a PC will do just as well.
And how much other processing can you do? vision, dead reconning? navigation? Speech recognition, speech synthesis?
Not at all. Each task is its own self contained process. Simple to understand, easy to develop.
The $500 price is a maximum. Anyone should be able to do it with easily available parts. If you add multiple micro-controllers, you have to also expect the end user to program the micro-controller. If everything runs on the PC, then everything can be done with one tool set.
Many people have complained that the learning curve is too high.
Actually, I'm not getting an ulcer, this is fun. I have actally laughed out loud at some of the things asserted.
People assume I don't like micro-controllers, that's wrong. They just need a very well defined task. It would be silly to base the robot on one.
http://www.newmicros.com/cgi-bin/store/order.cgi?form=prod_detail&part=ServoPod-USB