#EV3Basic Great news: EV3 Basic 1.2 now available

Great news today, Reinhard Grafl has released EV3 Basic 1.2.

This update adds some new functionality and also fixes some known issues. It also brings the numbering in line with the Small Basic versions.

Last week, I spent some time testing a preview build of EV3 Basic 1.2 that Reinhard sent to myself and Nigel Ward (creator of the EV3Basic.com website).

Now you might have heard that Small Basic 1.3 is now available, but this release is currently only available as a Microsoft Store application. As a Store app, it is not possible to install extensions, such as EV3 Basic, so we need to keep using Small Basic 1.2 (download link) for now. Once a standard installer version of Small Basic 1.3 is available, Reinhard will create an updated EV3 Basic installer for it.

What’s new in EV3 Basic 1.2?

New Motor Steer Commands

Commands to provide the same functionality as the EV3-G Move Steering block. It allows a speed and turn value to be specified for a pair of motor ports.

• Motor.StartSteer (ports, speed, turn)
• Motor.MoveSteer (ports, speed, turn, degrees, brake)
• Motor.ScheduleSteer (ports, speed, turn, degrees, brake)

New I2C Communication Commands

Commands to simplify communication with I2C devices that are simpler to use that the previous Sensor.CommunicateI2C() function. You can now read or write a single register byte, or read or write a specified number of registers.

• Sensor.ReadI2CRegister (port, address, registernumber)
• Sensor.ReadI2CRegisters (port, address, registernumber, readbytes)
• Sensor.WriteI2CRegister (port, address, registernumber, value)
• Sensor.WriteI2CRegisters (port, address, registernumber, writebytes, writedata)

Fixed compiler error

You no longer get an error when trying to compile a While A <= B language construct. Previously, While A = B or While A < B would work, but While A <= B would give an error. This has been fixed.

Go download EV3 Basic 1.2 now from the GitHub repository and install it.

Note: You will need to uninstall the previous EV3 Basic install before installing EV3 Basic 1.2

Thanks Reinhard.

Enjoy

David

PS: I will be reposting some of my examples using the Sensor.CommunicateI2C() command to use the new I2C commands. See the Robotics Portal for other articles.

This article was originally posted on http://www.winthropdc.com/blog.