keep the serial port out of the common code or

surround it with #if MF_FRAMEWORK_VERSION_V4_3 #else

I thought serial port would be in System.IO?  

In any case, writing common code for a serial port between two different hosts may be pushing it, but I guess it could be done. I have mixed feelings on the utility of this. I would tend to write more robust code where resources are not constrained (error handling, longer messages, bigger buffers), but I have no idea as to your reasons to not want to do that.

Ok, I give. Ive spent weeks and $100s getting no where.

Ready to pay someone who can make it work ... any takers?

I am disappointed in all of them at the moment.

How long have we been hearing of new MF support coming real soon?

Either people can not estimate things, or they intentionally underestimate. In either case these are the same management teams doing the work, so I have to assume their product is as solid as their estimates, or best case as over sold.

Or is there intentional under funding? 

Either way, it does anything but inspire confidence.

Good find! Something to try and keep in mind.

You had my curiosity peaked so I tried your program (on 4.3.1).

It ran as expected .... but

I will say it acted weird(er) than other programs. I don't know if you triggered some bug with a variable name or what, but there is a big delay when it starts (4-5 seconds).

I have 2 N2+ now, and they work differently as far as debugging, how many times they reboot when starting. The newest one consistently usb disconnects 3 times, then starts loading symbol tables. The previous one was a random number how many disconnects/reconnects it goes through.  The moral is I doubt if there is consistency among units at the moment.

I'll contrast this with the Galileo which feels rock solid as far as debugging (which also uses the ethernet connection not USB). 

When you say "I can deploy the Blinky program, but  ..."

How do you mean deploy?  If you deploy by right clicking on the project and selecting deploy this does not start the program. It simply downloads it to the device. Press the onboard reset button and it should run.

On the other hand, you can deploy AND start the program by pressing F5 (as long as the project is selected as the startup project).

Otherwise your code looks fine and should work.

I'm thinking I'm going to need to add stuff to the firmware myself, although it is way out of my comfort zone I don't know what else to try.

Is there any updated info I missed about a current procedure to do this?

I see the notes on doing it for 4.2.X in the wiki, step one is obtain some compiler that has been retired, so obviously that is out of date.

So that would be a problem for Windows and Linux then? As in a hardware limitation?

I'm really starting to get the impression none of these devices are going to satisfy the needs from a hardware standpoint. If you want to play in the IoT space you better have a SMC soldering pencil ready (metaphorically).

After a week of trying to make it work, I'm going to the FPGA board now.

The amazon one is supposedly gen 1. I read somewhere that WIndows required gen 2 BUT I was told that was not the case, and that is confirmed here; 

http://ms-iot.github...ghtAGalileo.htm

So that Amazon buy should be good.

Is there anything that can be done to reduce the multiple reboots that occur when debugging?

My netduino sometimes reboots 12-15 times before the debugger load symbol tables and begins debugging.

Then there are those rare occasions (1 in 50?) that it works with just one reboot.

I generally have control and can force some sort of orderly shutdown if that helps start the next session, I just have no idea what it would be to do that.

You have to watch how names of pins get passed around.

I define a variable like such

RegulatedMotor M0 = new RegulatedMotor( PWMChannels.PWM_PIN_D5, Pins.GPIO_PIN_D9, Pins.GPIO_PIN_D10 );

but the function is defined

public RegulatedMotor(Cpu.PWMChannel pwmPin, Cpu.Pin encA, Cpu.Pin encB) { ... }

https://webchat.free...indowsondevices

I don't know if I will do any thing with PSoC, but the break-away USB-Serial Controllers will prove useful.

lol. yeah for $4 what the heck.

I made some progress on my project. I was able to get 'good enough' stuff from the Netduino, which is great as it is the environment I am more comfortable with.

So I'm closing in on a LEGO NXT like Netduino component for my robot.  Dual encoded / regulated motor control, with ultrasonic sensors tightly coupled. The component will be implemented as a Pilot (move/steer), similar to those found in LeJOS and other Robot software.

I will still look at the FPGA eventually, as I always wanted to explore them.

Take a look at Seattle Robotics, aka SRS; http://www.seattlerobotics.org/

There is a large maker / IoT community there, also at JigSaw Renaissance, Metrix, and other places around here.

http://www.jigsawrenaissance.org/

http://www.metrixcreatespace.com/

http://www.makerhaus.com/

Not that I'm steering you away, I just think they will have more resources at the moment than I do in those areas.

What sensor(s) are you using? Curious if you could 'charge' all 3 at the same time to save some time.

There is no doubt and Arduino without any sort of firmware will be faster than a .Net managed device, but my experience is my Netduino can always be fast enough for me. 

I had pretty good luck with a 9 DoF IMU, which was 3 i2c devices with 6 bytes of data each - similar data size to your application. I ended up switching to an mpu6050 that does all the math on chip, and lowered the complexity immensely. In the end it took like 2 real lines of code to do 3D rendered AHRS.

I want that Galileo board! Submitted my application by have not been selected. Oh well, I will keep playing with my Netduino / Arduino for now. 

Suggested course of action. Come up with a specific cool idea to use it for.  

Join the IRC channel and talk about it, You might get noticed <wink wink>

Excellent!  The group is getting lots of members, but no one is signed up for the current meeting.

I am hoping that is just a matter of it being nice weather, and people have better things to do.

Hopefully attendance will pick up up as Seattle weather moves in.

So, what kind of learning event would interest you?  I would like it to be a step beyond,in a robotics direction, what you can get at the many existing Arduino(Netduino) / make groups.

BTW this month I am presenting my robot, as it is so far.  I had a small breakthrough tonight, so it might actually be moving on its own by the meeting.

Nice nickname by the way

Chris, embarrassingly, I started 6 years ago with the intent to learn SLAM.  I am very much not a person to copy/use other code without understanding it completely, so my hesitation to just plug in a ROS module and say I know it now. I had stroke, and that put everything on pause for 2 years or more.

I started with a LEGO, which I still hold high in robotics education regards, but never could get satisfactory LIDAR on it, although I did find one project where someone had achieved pretty decent results, I felt like I was always fighting 'not enough compute power' and to a career professional developer, the development environments were not friendly (looking back they are way better than some current ones).

My first home design/built robot, had several, first design/built mistakes. And when the top panel cracked, I decided it was time to start a new one.  That is this one, my second design/build,  and it still has some rough edges, but at least it looks cool

So as soon as I am confident it can roam around a room without running into things and breaking, I start digging deep into heavy math (SLAM).

Just an update; indeed the robot did acquire a LIDAR.  It is the Robo Peak LIDAR as was intended.

I think the device is good so far, although you can find hack'd neato version on eBay now for < $100. I'm not sure how good the drivers are for them.

The drivers that came with the RP weren't the highest quality either.  C++ only and everyone seems to just copy the original code because no one can understand it.  The data sent from the device doesn't match the documentation exactly, but it's close.

sidenote: the right hand sonar is not mounted because it is broken. This is what happens when you say 'go forth' and don't have working collision code :|  

Someone I have respect for uses PSoC a lot, so I ordered their dev board - $25ish. 

http://www.cypress.com/?rID=77780

I'd figured it would be a starting point.  I downloaded that PDF and will check it out. Thanks.

That's great new.  Chris, when will support for this be added?

I know nothing about that. So, cant use or comment on something I do not know about. Apparently it is a secret?

As far as I know .Net in general checks every array access to make sure your index is in bounds.

Making some of your data a plain byte, versus new byte[1]   may help quite a bit.

Well that is certainly in the right direction, but a ways off from what I want to do fully.

So im guessing (sorry im a software guy) this is a chip I add externally? and it eliminates the need for tying up interrupt pins on the Xduino (x=ar or net)? which would be helpful since the Arduino only has 2 from what I've read, and the Netduinos cant really depend on accurate timing.

I still would like to add accurate hc-sr04 reading to the mix. Im guessing this does not do that?

BTW amazon and spark fun has never heard of a LSI7366.  But I see a data sheet on it (LS7366). 

Then I need to figure out SPI ? And use a select for each encoder chip I assume?

Is this easier than using a FPGA?

"Doing fast rates with something like a kalman filter can be very hard to implement in a micro-processor."

Which is why I am constantly amazed that over 8 years ago (July 2006) LEGO was able to build it into a kids toy, for $99, and nothing has been able to touch it yet that I have identified (as in available and working out of the box).  3 servo motors fully synced with PID control from encoders, while running an interpreted but multithreaded user programs, on an ancient ARM. Oh, and 4 sensors of about any connection type.  Sigh.

So I ordered a cyprus FPGA to explore this aspect of the hobby, not having any luck making the Netduino or an Arduino do what the 8 year old LEGO can do.  Any pointers to learning FPGAs?