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Bots / The Ultimate Palm Robot/ Mukhar & Johnson / 222880-6 / Chapter 8

200 The Ultimate Palm Robot

I n much of this book, we’ve been covering both the original PPRK built with the
Pontech SV203 controller and the PPRK built with the BrainStem controller.
This is the second of two chapters that focus on just one of the versions. In the
previous chapter, we explored various languages for programming the SV203. In
this chapter, we will focus exclusively on the BrainStem controller.
We will first look at writing programs in a language named TEA (Tiny Em-
bedded Applications). Using TEA, you can write programs for the BrainStem
that look very much like programs written in the C language. This is not sur-
prising, because TEA is a subset of C. So, if you’reaCprogrammer, you
should find TEA simple to use. You can also use TEA to write programs in a
different mode. Acroname calls this mode “Reflex,” and as you will see, it pro-
vides a powerful toolset for writing programs that can react to stimuli.
Finally, we’ll look at writing Java programs for the BrainStem. Java is one of
the major programming languages today. We will see how to use Java to-
gether with some Java classes developed by Acroname to write programs for
the BrainStem controller.

The Robot Geek Says

So You Want to be a BrainStem Hacker
In this chapter, we assume that you already know how to program
in at least one computer language. This chapter will not be a tutorial
on how to program, but rather how to use what you already know to
program for the SV203 or BrainStem controller. If you want to learn
how to program, there are many other books you can try. Here are
a few suggestions:
✖ Java 2: A Beginner’s Guide, by Herb Schildt, from McGraw-Hill/Osborne
✖ Teach Yourself Java, by Joseph O’Neil, from McGraw-Hill/Osborne
✖ Thinking In Java, by Bruce Eckel, from Prentice Hall
✖ Beginning J2EE 1.4, by Kevin Mukhar, from Wrox Press (No robot
information whatsoever, but lots of Java programming. Since we plugged
one of Dave’s books in the previous chapter, this time it’s Kevin’s turn.)

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Monday, May 12, 2003 1:16:44 PM