The Definitive Guide to Building Java Robots by Scott Preston Ad

para6654

I noticed that Parallax is advertising this book for sale on Amazon.com.· I am curious if anyone has purchased this book and what their review was.·

I was interested to see in the table of contents the following topics:
1.· Serial communications
2.· Motion
3.· Sensors
4.· Speech
5.· Vision


I had hoped that this would be a comprehensive book on the Javelin stamp & board.· I was kind of disappointed that the following topics do not appear to be covered:

1.· Basic circuit design and breadboard development with the Javelin stamp
2.· Detailed documentation on the Javelin IDE
3.· The Javelin Stamp·packages
4.· The JIKES compiler
5.· The JEM bytecode process
6.· The differences between the Javelin JVM and the standard Sun JVM
7.· Tools and techniques to use with the Javelin Stamp like Javelin Direct
8.· 3rd Party Tools like serial port monitors and Basic Stamp Logic Analyzer
9.· Using the Javelin stamp with Windows and Linux

Also, I noticed that on page 4 of this book it says:

"
All examples in this book are in PBASIC because it's the most popular Microcontroller language at the moment.· You can also find many examples and sample code on the Internet and at the Parallax site.· At the back of the book, I've included a quick reference for PBASIC as well as a Javelin Stamp version of the examples.
"



·

bulkhead

I got this book a while back and attempted to go through it but had trouble getting Java comm(unication) classes to access my serial port. There are so many different versions of Java and so many different factors that can affect its run time performance (windows version, internet security programs, installation pathways), that it was too difficult (for me at least) to get it working. I also had a little trouble finding the source code for the Javelin, but eventually found it online somewhere. It appears to me that the book would be great if you could actually get everything working. However, I would say this book is more focused on the "Java" end rather than the "Javelin" end. The javelin just fits in because it is a microcontroller that happens to be programmed in a Java (like) language. The book mostly focuses on using the Java comm package and other Java classes to get speech/vision/etc working. Perhaps the book would better be titled "connecting to a microcontroller through Java and utilizing the Java class libraries for robotic applications(such as speech, vision, etc)."

That's just my experience with it, if anyone has got this to work, and could post the exact setup specifications (which version of java, their setup, etc), I would be happy to give it another shot...

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I'm new to the propeller!

Peter Verkaik

The source code is available here:
http://www.apress.com/book/supplementDownload.html?bID=10028&sID=3047

regards peter

para6654

Thanks for your replies.· I got the same impression about the book.· It seem more focused on Java communications than Java microcontrollers.

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para6654

It looks like this is the new link to download:

http://www.apress.com/book/downloadfile/2383

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