A Java interface to the Lego MindStorms RCX
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<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage Express 2.0"> <title>RCXPort - Java Interface to the Lego Mindstorms RCX</title> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <h1>RCXPort - Java Interface to the Lego Mindstorms RCX</h1> <h2>Background</h2> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180129103223/http://www.slewis.com/rcxport/"> Link to original project website</a></p> <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/q/7562565">How to get javax.comm API?</a></p> <h2>Introduction</h2> <p>I recently bought the <a href="http://www.legomindstorms.com/">Lego Mindstorms Robotics Kit</a>, and decided that it would make a cool demo if I could interact with it from Java code. So using the information available on the <a href="http://www.crynwr.com/lego-robotics/">Lego Mindstorms Internals</a> sight describing the <a href="http://graphics.stanford.edu/~kekoa/rcx/opcodes.html">RCX Op Codes</a> and the RCX communication interface, I put together this Java interface for interacting with the RCX from a JVM.</p> <p>Specifically, I wanted to allow my replicated object system (<a href="http://www.slewis.com/projects/README.html">ROAPI</a>) to interact with the RCX. Using the <a href="http://www.slewis.com/projects/README.html">ROAPI</a> for code distribution and concurrency control, it's easy to do stuff like have multiple simultaneous remote users of the RCX (e.g. from within a multi-user application like a chat), allow code from remote participants to interact with the RCX, and even allow two remote RCX's to interact with one another in a real-time shared virtual space.</p> <p>The RCXPort interface sends requests and commands to the RCX via its IR interface. The RCX IR interface plugs into the computer's serial port, and my code uses the <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javacomm/index.html">Java Comm API</a> to send commands out to the serial port to the RCX via the IR interface. My code should work with any machine that has a serial port and is running the JVM (it's not platform specific).</p> <h2>Requirements</h2> <p>To use this code you must have the <a href="http://www.legomindstorms.com">Mindstorms</a> kit itself, and you must have the <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javacomm/index.html">Java Comm API</a> to communicate with the computer's serial port from Java. I've been doing development on the Java 2 platform, so that's what I've tested the code with, but I don't believe there is anything in my code that would prevent it from compiling/running on 1.1.X. If you try it out on 1.1.X, please <a href="mailto:slewis@teleport.com">let me know</a>.</p> <h2>Downloading</h2> <p>Click <a href="rcxport.jar">here to download the jar file</a>. It contains the classes, src, and a copy of this file.</p> <p>The license is open source, and the source is included in the package. If you find bugs or use this code for something please <a href="mailto:slewis@teleport.com">let me know</a>...I would be interested here what you've done with it.</p> <p>Documentation (javadocs) for the interface is available online here. To download the docs, click <a href="rcxportdocs.jar">here</a>.</p> <h2>Installation</h2> <p>Put the rcxport.jar file in your classpath, and make sure that the <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javacomm/index.html">Java Comm API</a> is also in your classpath.</p> <h2>Usage</h2> <p>See the usage for the test program in rcxport.RCXPort by typing 'java rcxport.RCXPort'. Also see the javadocs for the rcxport.RCXPort entry class.</p> <h2>Future</h2> <p>I intend to add a language parser sometime, so that I can parse and compile a high-level language for programming the RCX, and then use the RCXPort code to download the byte codes to the RCX. The obvious language choice for this is '<a href="http://www.enteract.com/~dbaum/lego/nqc/index.html">Not Quite C</a>' (nqc), a nice high-level language for programming the RCX by <a href="mailto:dbaum@enteract.com">Dave Baum</a>. Hopefully I'll have a chance to add a nqc parser sometime soon. </p> <p>For the time being, the easiest way to generate valid byte codes for the RCX is to use nqc itself with the -L parameter, and then remove everything except for the hex byte codes themselves, which are included in the file generated by the -L parameter. See the <a href="http://www.enteract.com/~dbaum/lego/nqc/index.html">docs on nqc</a>.</p> <p><font size="1">Copyright© Scott B. Lewis, 1999</font></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> </body> </html>
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