can't use bluetooth with toolkit on Macintosh

[midmo]

I wonder if any one else has had trouble using bluetooth to communicate with NXT. I don't have any trouble with Mindstorms and bluetooth but the new nxt toolkit doesn't find the NXT. A connection with USB works fine. I'm using Labview 8 student edition. Thanks for your help.

[fuzwuz]

it only works in 8.2 on the Mac. I don't know why the Mac wasn't supported until 8.2 for Bluetooth since the ZMac has used Bluetooth far longer than the PC who has had BT support for several versions from what I hear. Imagine my disapointment after gettiong 8.0 student edition for just that purpose. Unbelievable, just as bad as embedded support for Safari, non existent in LabVIEW. Imagine my disapointment again when another .app had to show my LabVIEW generated Front Panel.html page.

[midmo]

Thanks. You saved me a lot of frustration trying to get it to work.

[fuzwuz]

Does anyone know why Bluetooth is not supported in the MacOS X LabVIEW 7.1 version but is supported in the Windows version of 7.1?

[John Field]

To get Bluetooth working on the Mac, we had to add a callback into LabVIEW from the driver. This was added to 8.2 since 8.0 and 7.1 had already shipped by this point. This callback wasn't needed for Windows.

There is an additional issue with Intel Macs. We don't have a universal binary of the MINDSTORMS driver ready yet, so even in 8.2, you have to run in emulation mode (using Rosetta) to communicate with the NXT. Unfortunately, Apple didn't put Bluetooth support into Rosetta, so there is no BT support on Intel-based Macs for now.

- john

[fuzwuz]

I am talking about LabVIEW BT support for the G5. Not all of us have the new Intel Macs. What does it matter if 7.0 or 8.0 has shipped? Updates or improvements between versions seem to be far and in between, if not at all. Why is this? Everyone can't afford to get the latest version when a $5 update would correct the problem. Why leave the users of 7.0 and 8.0 in the dust. We need update support as well without having to always upgrade for a feature that should have been there when the windows version received it.

[John Field]

Sorry to confuse the issue by bringing Intel-based Macs into the discussion. They have their own set of issues with Bluetooth, but we can set them aside for now.

Here is the problem:

When we were writing the code for the Bluetooth driver, it became necessary to change code in the LabVIEW executable in order for the driver to work on Macs (PPC or Intel). We needed to add an entry point to the application and some code to support it. We first added the code to MINDSTORMS (the software for the kids) and it worked great. Then, we started thinking about the toolkit while 8.2 was in development and so, we added the code into 8.2. Once NI releases a new version of LabVIEW we rarely (if ever) patch previous versions because even a small change takes a lot of other development (like a new installer that upgrades) and testing before it can ship.

On Windows, the interface to the Bluetooth driver (in the OS) is different and so we didn't need to use this modification to the LabVIEW executable, so all the versions work fine.

I understand your frustration. I work exclusively on Macs at work and home. Since I want to do block development from time to time, 7.1 is the version that I use most often with the toolkit. For now, we'll both have to miss Bluetooth and use USB instead.

- john

[madengr]

Can anyone confirm the student version of Labview (the one with book ordered from Prentice Hall) contains the Mac 8.0 version?  It does not specifically say so.

I have student version 7.0 for the Mac and it's frustrating to buy a new version for Mindstroms 2.0.  I wonder if there is a way to update the student 7.0 to 7.1, other than buying a used copy off Amazon.

How come NI does not sell the student version for Mac without the book?

I have 8.2 full development for Windows but I hate having to cough up $100 just to get it running on my mac at home.

[midmo]

I'm using labview 8.0 student version on my Mac. It works fine except for bluetooth support for NXT.

[madengr]

Did the Mac 8.0 version come bundled with the book or did you buy the software only from NI?

http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/0,1144,0131999184,00.html