I think QNX is free now... not sure about open source, though.

On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 7:06 PM, PICdude <picdude3@narwani.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm doing some science/engineering/robotics projects with a handful of
> high-school students and for our current project, we're looking for a
> "controller" -- a hardware platform, with OS and programming
> language/environment, so I'm seeking suggestions.
>
> This controller will/should...
> - Have a keyboard and video interface (like a PC),
> - Talk to stepper motor drivers and servos,
> - Have a USB host interface (so we can transfer files using USB flash dri=
ves).
> - Have a high-school-student friendly programming
> language/environment. =A0C is probably okay, but Basic or Pascal would
> be less cryptic for them. =A0Also, I'd prefer a common (well-known)
> language as they can learn something that makes them more marketable.
> - Be stable (as bug-free or crash-free as possible).
>
> So far this is pretty much a PC, but to control the steppers & servos
> (PWM), we'd need to use a real-time OS, or use a fake-time (???) OS
> and build an intermediate hardware piece to take parallel/serial/USB
> signals and convert them to real-time signals for the stepper drivers
> and servos. =A0The latter I can do with a PIC, or use a USB-to-I2C or
> Serial-to-I2C interface and build a PIC-based hardware device to
> convert the I2C signals to stepper and servo signals. =A0Or perhaps
> there are low-cost USB to stepper devices already available...?
>
> I have a not-currently-in-use Mini-ITX mobo here (with PS, RAM, etc),
> and really want to use that, unless someone can talk me out of it, but
> need to find an O.S. for this. =A0A decent low-cost real-time Linux O.S.
> would be nice, or a regular Linux distro if I use the hardware
> interfaces for the stepper/servos. =A0But I don't know what the current
> offerings are for programming languages/environments on that -- any
> decent/simple IDEs? =A0Windows seems to have many user-friendly
> programming environments, but is not real-time and is less stable.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Cheers,
> -Neil.
>
>
>
>
>
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