Bricx Command Center 3.3

Bricx Command Center (BricxCC) is a 32-bit Windows program commonly known as an integrated development environment (IDE) for programming LEGO MINDSTORMS robots from all generations of the MINDSTORMS family, including the third generation EV3, announced in January 2013 at CES. BricxCC runs great and is fully supported on all versions of Windows, including 64-bit Windows 7 and 8 along with server versions of Windows OSes.

BricxCC includes support for programming the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick using Not eXactly C (NXC), Next Byte Codes (NBC), and a simple on-brick programming language called NPG using the NBC compiler. You can also create RIC graphic icon files using the RICScript programming language. Support in BricxCC for programming the NXT in Java using the leJOS alternate firmware is also coming soon in 2013.

BricxCC supports programming the RCX (all versions), Scout, Cybermaster, and Spybot programmable bricks using Dave Baum's Not Quite C (NQC) language. And it supports programming the Scout, RCX2, and Spybot using The LEGO Group's MindScript(tm) and LASM(tm) languages via the Mindstorms 2.5 SDK. It also supports programming RCX bricks in Forth, C, C++, Pascal, and Java using cygwin along with the pbForth, brickOS, and leJOS alternate firmwares.

Version 3.3 of BricxCC is an enhanced revision to Mark Overmars' original program. See his web page for an overview of the basic functionality upon which this release was built.

Downloading

BricxCC latest version.

The very latest and best versions of BricxCC are found in the test releases folder along with the most recent test builds of NBC, the enhanced NBC/NXC firmware, and other programmable brick utilities.

The most recent version of BricxCC uses NQC 2.3r1 or later. NQC version 2.4r1 or later is required for full USB tower support - downloading programs will not work with earlier versions of NQC. NQC version 2.5a1 or later is required for NQC Spybot support. NQC 3.1r5 is included in recent BricxCC releases so you do not have to download it separately from the new NQC website.

Donations

Installation

To install Bricx Command Center, perform the following simple steps:

• Run the Bricxcc setup executable. Follow the setup wizard instructions. If you choose a custom install you can select whether to install the NQC Tutorial (written by Mark Overmars with a few minor revisions by John Hansen). You can also choose whether to install the NQC Compiler. If you already have NQC installed you may wish to deselect this option. To enable full support for MindScript and LASM you should choose to install the LCC32 command-line compiler (this is installed by default).
• (Optional but recommended) To get the very latest features and support for the newest LEGO programmable bricks you should download and extract the latest test release of BricxCC. Make sure the directory structure in the zip is maintained when you extract the files.
• (Optional) To enable WinHelp support under Vista you will need to download and install the Microsoft WinHelp viewer.
• (Optional) Download and extract the latest version of NQC. The NQC executable (nqc.exe) must be in a directory on your PATH or in the same directory as BricxCC.exe. The LCC executable (lcc32.exe) must be similarly located.
• (Optional) Download and install the LEGO Mindstorms SDK 2.5 to enable MindScript and LASM compile and download support for RCX2, Scout, and Spybot bricks.
• (Optional) To enable RCX brickOS C/C++/Pascal support and leJOS Java support you can now download an all-in-one setup executable which installs a small subset of cygwin along with pre-built H8 tools. NOTE: If you get an error when you try to run the installer that it is missing BricxCCSetupCygwin.002 that means the download did not complete successfully. Please try to download it again during off-peak hours or using a download manager utility of some sort. Once you have successfully downloaded and installed the cygwin configuration and H8 compiler tools then install the minimal brickOS and leJOS for BricxCC and you are ready to go (except for leJOS, which still needs to have a separately installed Java Developers Kit).

See the History page for a history of the enhancements found in BricxCC revisions.

FAQ

See the FAQ page for answers to frequently asked BricxCC questions.

Source Code

I firmly believe in the power of the Open Source movement. Because Mark generously made his source code available I've been able to make the enhancements that are in BricxCC 3.3. So I'm similarly sharing my revised BricxCC source code for all to benefit thereby. BricxCC is written in Delphi. It is a rather extensive program so don't start working on it unless you are an experienced Delphi programmer. The source code is distributed under the Mozilla Public Licence. Since I am actively enhancing BricxCC I'd like to receive a copy of any bug fixes or enhancements.

Links

Dave Baum's NQC

Next Byte Codes

Not eXactly C

Programmable Brick Utilities

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