How to upload large (2 blocks) orbBasic program to Sphero using Mac SDK? - sphero-api

Question

I explore Sphero with children in the computer club. We develop simple orbBasic programs that do interesting things. I did gave up with orbBasic app on mobile devices because it is next to unusable for programming (tiny fonts, hard to edit on mobile). I found Sphero Mac SDK and we now use its orbBasicLoader to upload programs from Mac. But when our programs become larger, we found that they won't load to Sphero this way, probably because they have to split to two blocks of Sphero memory, which isn't correctly handled by Mac SDK. It is handled by orbBasic app on a device, so it is possible.
How to upload large orbBasic programs to Sphero using Mac SDK?
This is one of our programs - Snake like game for Sphero, written in orbBasic that suffers from this problem. In the space 4*4 meters (sphere is in the center of the space at program start) there is hidden 'food' and your objective is to 'eat food' by driving Sphero near the 'food' using its brightness as a guide. You end game after 5 'foods' eaten. Double shake Sphero to restart.
10 locate 0,0
20 E=0
30 X=200-rnd 400
40 Y=200-rnd 400
50 C=xpos-X
60 D=ypos-Y
70 L=sqrt(C*C+D*D)
80 if L>200 then L=200
90 O=255-L
100 RGB O,O,O
110 if L<10 then goto 140
120 delay 100
130 goto 50
140 E=E+1
150 RGB 0,E*51,0
160 delay 1000
170 if E<5 then goto 30
180 LEDC 1+rnd 7
190 delay 100
200 if dshake > 0 then goto 10
210 goto 180

Answer 1

I figured it out!
You have to manually upload fragments to Sphero and fragment should not be near the limit of 253. Max size of fragment of 200 works well. Is is very simple.
Here is the code of separating fragments from program:
-(void)setProgram:(NSString *)inProgram {
NSArray *lines = [inProgram componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet newlineCharacterSet]];
if( fragments != nil ) {
[fragments release];
}
char buffer[1024]= {0};
fragments = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:2];
NSMutableData *data = [[NSMutableData alloc] init];
for( int i = 0; i<[lines count]; i++ ) {
NSString *currentLine = [lines objectAtIndex:i];
//strip comments - lines starting with apostrophe
if( [currentLine hasPrefix:#"'"] ) continue;
if( (data.length + [currentLine lengthOfBytesUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding]) > 200 ) {
[fragments addObject:data];
[data release];
data = [[NSMutableData alloc] init];
}
if( [currentLine getCString:buffer maxLength:253 encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding] ) {
[data appendBytes:buffer length:strlen(buffer)];
[data appendBytes:"\r" length:1];
}
}
[fragments addObject:data];
[data release];
}
Here is sending code:
Function must be called each time Response success received from Sphero until loaded is set to YES.
If you try to send all the fragments at once - response code -2 will be returned and program won't load.
-(void)loadToSphero {
if( loaded == YES ) {
[self abort];
[self erase];
curFragment = 0;
}
if( curFragment < [fragments count] ) {
RKOrbBasicAppendFragmentCommand *appendCmd = [[RKOrbBasicAppendFragmentCommand alloc] initWithStorageType:RKOrbBasicStorageTypeTemporary fragment:[fragments objectAtIndex:curFragment]];
[appendCmd sendCommand];
[appendCmd release];
curFragment++;
}
else {
loaded = YES;
}
}
and here is other program commands:
-(void)execute {
if( loaded == YES ) {
RKOrbBasicExecuteCommand *execCmd = [[RKOrbBasicExecuteCommand alloc] initWithStorageArea:RKOrbBasicStorageTypeTemporary startLine:10];
[execCmd sendCommand];
[execCmd release];
}
}
-(void)erase {
RKOrbBasicEraseStorageCommand *eraseCmd = [[RKOrbBasicEraseStorageCommand alloc] initWithStorageType:RKOrbBasicStorageTypeTemporary];
[eraseCmd sendCommand];
[eraseCmd release];
loaded=NO;
}
-(void)abort {
RKOrbBasicAbortCommand *abortCmd = [[RKOrbBasicAbortCommand alloc] init];
[abortCmd sendCommand];
[abortCmd release];
}