Hello,

I am new to RobotC and think about to try it. I have some questions about firmware upgrade.

Q1. Is it possible after upgrade to use NXT-G (original Lego software) and RobotC at the same time? Or NXT-G will not work anymore after upgrade? I would like to continue to develop some NXT-G programs and also try to develop some RobotC programs. Is it possible with the RobotC firmware?

Q2. Is it possible to use RobotC with the original Lego firmware if I need to use only some general function calls, and no any special advanced RobotC functions/methods?

Thank you!

Hey there,


Think of ROBOTC and NXT-G like two different pairs of glasses. You can't wear 'em both at the same time but switching between them is easy and painless. Reflashing your brick is a 20 second affair and is something I do fairly frequently. So, in short, no, you cannot use NXT-G with the ROBOTC firmware or vice versa.


No, this is not possible, but like I said, switching back and forth is a matter of a 20 second wait while ROBOTC or NXT-G do their thing to change the firmware on your brick.

Switching back and forth is totally safe and foolproof due to the fact that the NXT has a bootloader on board that will work, even if the firmware is corrupt, broken or otherwise disabled. If you find an upgrade didn't work, just do it again, there's no harm.

Regards,
Xander

Thank you very much for the quick reply!

Do I need to reinstall the usb driver in Windows after the reflashing of the firmware? I have read, the RobotC has some other driver, but I have not exactly understood which one.

Thanks a lot in advance.

Nah, they both use the same Fantom driver. However, the version that comes with ROBOTC is newer. You can rest assured, though, that NXT-G runs just fine with this new version of the Fantom driver. I have both NXT-G and ROBOTC on this laptop and have not run into any issues.

So, in short, you only need to update the firmware on your brick when you want go from NXT-G to ROBOTC or vice versa (although, you will soon not see the point of going back to NXT-G, hehe).

- Xander

Ok. Let's say, I have developed and compiled a program with RobotC. I would like to give the compiled binary file to other NXT user (with normal retail firmware).

I know it is possible to upload compiled binary files to the NXT-Brick with NXT-G software. But I don't know if it depends of the IDE the files compiled with (file format, startup code, syscalls, etc.)

Is it possible to upload a compiled RobotC program to the normal retail NXT-Brick and run it there?

Only if they are using the ROBOTC firmware. I believe you can make a custom firmware -with- your program on it, through ROBOTC. Then they could just flash that and they'd have the program and the ROBOTC firmware. They could do that from inside NXT-G. Afterwards, they can simply revert to the standard firmware.

- Xander