NQC Readme ---------- Please send bug reports to dbaum@enteract.com. Be sure to include details about what platform you are running nqc on and a sample file that demonstrates the bug if possible. For updates and additional documentation, visit the NQC Web Site: http://www.enteract.com/~dbaum/nqc Note to Windows Users --------------------- NQC is a command line based tool - normally you run it by typing an appropriate command into an MS-DOS window. There is no GUI for it and if you double-click the nqc.exe file an MS-DOS console will be created for you, NQC will run within it, then since NQC finishes almost immediately, the entire window will disappear. Some people prefer command line based tools because they allow you to use the text editor of your choice, etc. It also makes for identical behavior under Windows, Mac, and Linux. In order to use the command line version of NQC you'll need to do two things: 1) Use some sort of text editor (such as Notepad) to edit and save a source file for NQC to compile. 2) From an MS-DOS window type the appropriate NQC command. Its usually best to either put all of your programs and nqc.exe in the same directory, or make sure the directory containing NQC is in your command path. If any of the above seem either too confusing or too tedious, then you may want to try the RCX Command Center (RcxCC) by Mark Overmars which provides a familiar Windows style GUI on top of the standard NQC compiler. You can download RcxCC from http://www.cs.uu.nl/~markov/lego/ Getting started --------------- Download the appropriate compiler (nqc or nqc.exe) and put it where your shell can find it as a command. The IR tower should be connected to your modem port (macintosh) or COM1 (Win32/Linux). The IR tower should be set for "near" mode (small triangle). The RCX should also be set for this mode, and firmware must already be downloaded. Compile and download the test file using the following command line: nqc -d test.nqc The test program assumes there's a motor on output A and a touch sensor on input 1. It turns on the motor and waits for the switch to be pressed, then it turns off the motor and plays a sound. If you want to use a different serial port, you can set the RCX_PORT environment variable to the serial port name. Here are some examples: Mac/MPW printer port: set -e RCX_PORT b Win32 COM2 port: set RCX_PORT=COM2 Linux: The syntax for setting environment variables is shell specific. By default nqcc uses "/dev/ttyS0" as the device name for the serial port. If you are using the second serial port, then "/dev/ttyS1" should work. Other device drivers may or may not work depending on if they implement the expected ioctl's to setup the baud rate, parity, etc. New Features ------------ This section provides a breif overview of major features that have been recently added. For more complete version information see history.txt. * the "for" statement has been added * rcx1.nqh and rcx2.nqh are no longer supplied in the distribution. Instead, they can be generated directly from NQC (which contains ebmedded versions of these files). The -api option will cause NQC to emit the appropraite API file (normally the 2.0 api, unless 1.0 compatability mode has been selected): nqc -api nqc -1 -api * Firmware download supports large files (such as the RCX 2.0 firmware). Also fixed a bug in fast firmware download. * modulo operator (%) now supported for non-constant operands * A good deal of RCX 2 support has been added. See history.txt for details. In order to target RCX 2, use rcx2 as the target: nqc -Trcx2 -d text.nqc
