On Robots & BASIC:
I’m reading through the Hero Jr. BASIC manual right now, and I’m finding it to be suitably powerful to handle a great many tasks. It’s an integer BASIC, with no support for floating point but for a robot, that seems just fine. It has no graphical needs, so why bother? Wintek BASIC looks like it will be plenty capable and fun.
One thing I’m glad it includes are GOSUBs, which I happen to like. I listened to years of GOTO bashing, followed by folks making fun of BASIC because it had to rely on the GOTO statement for subroutines. Then I discovered that the GOSUB command existed, and while it doesn’t carry along function variables, or return values, it is plenty powerful. After that, BASIC became far more user friendly in my mind. For imperative programming, one can survive surprisingly well without the luxury of modern function system.
Speaking of other BASIC controlled robots, I’m having no luck getting sufficient current to pass through my relay to allow the glow plug to heat up. The odd thing is that all measurements of the resistance through said relay indicate it shouldn’t be adding any noticeable resistance. So what the hell am I doing wrong? The voltage drops from 1.5V down to 0.3V which means I’m probably making a mistake I don’t even realize.
