No-Frills Ada/Mindstorms 2.0 for Windows Installation Page

Maintained by Barry Fagin (barry.fagin@usafa.af.mil)

Professor of Computer Science

US Air Force Academy

Colorado Springs, CO USA

Disclaimer:  This is not an official USAFA web site.  --BF

To install Ada/Mindstorms 2.0 on a PC running Windows:

(If any of these links are broken, please let me know).

1) Download and run this executable (20M) to install the GNU Ada Translator (GNAT). GNAT is a command-line Ada compiler.
2) Go here to download and install AdaGIDE. AdaGIDE is a GUI front end to GNAT.
3) Download and run this executable (2M) to install Ada/Mindstorms 2.0. This adds the Mindstorms functionality to your copy of AdaGIDE, and installs the NQC system on your machine.  Accepting the defaults for all these files will result in correct installation, but should you change anything the files installed in #2 and #3 above must be in the same directory.

To test your installation:

1) Start -> Programs -> AdaGide

2) File -> Open -> test.adb

3) Compile -> Select Target -> Lego Mindstorms -> OK

4) Compile -> Compile file (should return the message "Compiling ... Completed successfully.")

5) Compile -> Build (should return the message "Building ... Completed successfully.")

6) Now plug the I/R transmitter into the appropriate port of your computer, and turn on the RCX.

7) Run -> Execute

You should see:

Downloading ...

Downloading Program:..........complete

Battery Level = x.x V

Completed successfully.

 

The RCX should also play a series of rising tones.

Once you have made it this far, the Ada/Mindstorms manual is available from the help menu in AdaGide. 

Source code for Ada/Mindstorms 2.0 is available, please email me first.