This document explain how to build and load an Not eXactly C program for the [1] Lego Mindstoms NXT Robot under Debian GNU/Linux.

Introduction

Lego does not provide tools for building programs for the NXT under Linux.
I don’t like [2] Bricxcc, because :

• It looks like Visual Studio ;
• runs only on Microsoft Windows ;
• I’m more familiar with VIM, make and GCC ;0)

Install the compiler

Ths NXC compiler can be downloaded on the [3] Bricxcc web site. The compiler is writen in Pascal.

You need to install the [4] FreePascal Compiler and build the compiler :


$ wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/bricxcc/nbc-1.0.1.b34.src.tgz
# apt-get install fp-compiler fp-units-fcl fp-units-base
$ mkdir nbc
$ tar xzf nbc-1.0.1.b34.src.tgz -C nbc
$ cd nbc/nxt
$ make -f nbclinux.mak
$ ./nbc
Next Byte Codes Compiler version 1.0.1.b34 (1.0.1.34, built Thu Jun 12 21:21:22 CEST 2008)
Copyright (c) 2006, John Hansen
Use “nbc -help” for more information.
# mv nbc /usr/local/bin/


Hello world

Let’s try to build and send a simple hello world program to the robot :


$ cat > hello.nxc < task main() {
TextOut(0, 0, “Hello world!”);
Wait(1000);
}
EOF
$ nbc hello.nxc -O=hello.rxe


USB Transfert

In order to send the program to the robot, you need the Talk 2 NXT program : [5] T2N.

Warning: on amd64, you need to patch the source code.


# apt-get install g++ libusb-dev
$ wget http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~raymond/edu/lego/t2n/t2n-0.2.src.tgz
$ wget http://www.csquad.org/wp-content/t2n_amd64.diff
$ cd t2n-0.2.src
$ patch -p1 < ../t2n_amd64.diff
patching file src/usbmisc.cc
patching file src/usbmisc.h
$ make
# mv obj/t2n /usr/local/bin/


Now you can plug, turn on your NXT and send the program via the USB port.


$t2n -i
#### NXT INFOS ###############
protocol version=1.124 firmware version=1.1
NXT Name: NXT
Blutooth address: 16:53:06:37:ffffffbc:00
Blutooth signal: 0
Free user flash: 44416
$t2n -v -put hello.rxe
nxt brick found, usb initialized
testing for existing file “hello.rxe”
deleting for existing file “hello.rxe”
upload hello.rxe (376 bytes) from /goinfre
that’s all folks…


That’s all folks…