The Education NXT blog has put a nice comparison chart up today that compares the RCX to the NXT. Check it out here.
Comments
Anonymous said…
lol, 21 bits? That's clearly a typo of "32 bits" ...
Anonymous said…
Lego Education has a typo as the NXT brick is currently listed as "21 bit" ((micro-)processor) rather than 32 bit.
The second, 8 bit, processor/controller is not mentioned at all. Possibly to avoid confusion? I guess one reason this was added to the design was to provide the servo control for the servo motors, even if it does other stuff too. (Another possibility is that the micro-controller in the Bluetooth module is being referred to, but I would not expect that to figure in the NXT spec at all.)
As a techie I would like to see a fuller description of the NXT, something like this: 32 bit main processor, plus 8 bit support processor, helping with tasks such as servo control
As to my servo control guess: the "servo motors" appear to be DC motors with an incremental encoder feedback. The servo control has to be implemented somewhere that pays close attention to actual and target positions. It makes a lot of sense to implement this once centrally for 3 motors, rather than individually in each motor.
As you may guess I am eagerly awaiting my NXT arriving. :-)
Comments
The second, 8 bit, processor/controller is not mentioned at all. Possibly to avoid confusion? I guess one reason this was added to the design was to provide the servo control for the servo motors, even if it does other stuff too. (Another possibility is that the micro-controller in the Bluetooth module is being referred to, but I would not expect that to figure in the NXT spec at all.)
As a techie I would like to see a fuller description of the NXT, something like this:
32 bit main processor, plus
8 bit support processor, helping with tasks such as servo control
As to my servo control guess: the "servo motors" appear to be DC motors with an incremental encoder feedback. The servo control has to be implemented somewhere that pays close attention to actual and target positions. It makes a lot of sense to implement this once centrally for 3 motors, rather than individually in each motor.
As you may guess I am eagerly awaiting my NXT arriving. :-)
Ttfn,
Tony