Earlier I came across LibNxt, a project by David Anderson (one of the MDP’s). As I’m a Mac OSX user I tried to find out whether I could get fwflash to run on OSX, well: IT DID! What follows is a HOWTO.

Just a short article on thoughts for a Linux for Mindstorms NXT. How hard would it be to do something similar as iPod Linux with the NXT brick, ie a LEGO Mindstorms NXT running μCLinux? The Mindstorms NXT is based on the Atmel AT91SAM7S256, it’s a microcontroller. Jurgen Stuber already hints at programming for the Mindstorms NXT using a cross-compiler.

As far as I understand the latest generation iPod is also based on ARM7 processors.

With the help of something like SDCC it should be possible to then build C programs (or the like) for the NXT brick.

I guess it’s just time which will tell.

Today I received the 4481: Hailfire Droid from majewede, which I bought via eBay. As it’s a pretty old product (2003), it’s also pretty hard to get. It has these two great “wheels”, which I’m planning to use for the NXT.

Wednesday September 27th I received my Lego Mindstorms NXT kit, which I ordered from the Lego Shop. I got it pretty quick (3 days)! As far as I understood this is the first Mindstorms kit which supports the Mac. The bundled programming software runs on the Mac and the NXT brick (the micro-controller) supports the Mac perfectly. It speaks bluetooth as well as USB.

So far I’ve built the TriBot, Spike and this fellow.

Saturday I bought the 8285 set: Tow Truck, which is rather new and all over the shops in Holland. I bought this one with TOYS-R-US.

Here a small program to read the touch sensor value. Be sure to connect the touch sensor to port 1.

#include "NXTDefs.h"

dseg segment 
  dtArgs TDrawText 
dseg ends 

thread main

    dseg segment
        sensorValue byte
        sensorPort byte
    dseg ends

    setin IN_TYPE_SWITCH, IN_1, Type
    setin IN_MODE_RAW, IN_1, InputMode

Endless:

    getin sensorValue, IN_1, RawValue

    set dtArgs.Location.X, 1
    set dtArgs.Location.Y, 1

    // Clear entire screen
    set dtArgs.Options, 1 

    // Convert from number to string
    numtostr dtArgs.Text, sensorValue

    syscall DrawText, dtArgs

    jmp Endless

endt

NBC means NeXT Byte Code and is an assembler like programming language for the LEGO Mindstorms NXT programmable brick. It uses the default LEGO firmware. What follows is a tutorial on how to start programming using your Mac and NBC.