Re: GNAT GPL for LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT

[Jeffrey Creem <jeff@thecreems.com>]

tmoran@acm.org wrote:
>> GNAT GPL for LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT
>>
>> http://libre.adacore.com/libre/tools/mindstorms/
>   Last Thursday I registered so I could download this.  Haven't received
> a "here's your code" email yet.  Are they just slow?

Not normally. Sounds like it got caught in the spam blocker someplace. 
My son signed up on Friday I think and had the activation email in a few 
minutes.

I was pretty excited to get him going on this but it is still pretty raw 
and not quite ready for prime time. Still I think it is good to get it 
out there early.

Install process is a bit confusing and I don't quite understand all of 
the actual prerequisites. The direct link to on file in nxtOSEK makes 
you think that is all you need (perhaps it is) but nxtOSEK itself has a 
rather a number of prerequisites that you may or may not also need.
The documentation talks about going to the examples directory and doing 
a make but the AdaCore Mindstorms install (while somewhat complete in 
that it bundles GPS and the compiler in one installer) does not include 
make.

I fear that if you are using Vista you will be out of luck given the 
current limitations with the nxtOSEK USB driver...Or maybe not. there 
are several options for that OS but it is not really clear if you have 
to use the one that requires libUSB with the AdaCore stuff.

I'd really be interested in hearing if anyone gets this going who has 
not already spent a lot of time with nxtOSEK. Looks like a good first 
effort to build on. Hopefully the effort is not wasted because a new 
mindstorms is coming out in the fall. It would be a shame if the new 
mindstorms obsoleted all of this before it ever got working in a 
semi-turnkey manner.