Taurus Cycle Specification
Cycle is a small, neat, programming language based on Java (or C/C++) syntax and is specifically designed to be a slot in replacement for the graphical programming language introduced in Programmer 03 on CD2 of Ultimate Real Robots. You should be able to achieve everything you can in the graphical language using Cycle, but it is expressed in the form of a compiled textual language, which is much easier to read, cut and paste, and swap with your friends.

The Cycle Compiler is written entirely in C for portability. It makes uses of the Flex lexical analyser generator and the Bison parser generator. In theory it should run on almost any platform, but as the downloader, which is part of the Real Robots stuff, only runs on Windows, it is currently only available for Windows and Cygwin.

Features
The features for the first release are:

• Support for all the block types in Programmer 03
• Support for loops (while, for and do/while) and conditions (if)
• Support for inputs using switch
• Support for arithmetic and variables
• Ability to split code accross more than one file
• Expandable system of classes to define aspects of a robot, allowing for new sensors to be added to Cybot

• The use of more than one procedure - this is because Programmer 03 does not support subroutines, and will be rectified when the next version of the Programmer becomes available on CD3

Example
The following program will produce graphical output similar to that shown in Figure 1:

include "cybot.cyc"

proc main()
{
    for( a = 0; a < 4; a++ )
    {
        antennae.on();
        delay.wait( 1 );
        antennae.off();
        delay.wait( 1 );
    }
}

Availability
The compiler is available for Win32 (i.e. Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2K/XP) and Cygwin (see status page for more information on the project status). The Taurus Cycle Compiler is provided under the GNU Public License.

Obtaining a copy
Win32 and Cygwin - The Release Notes are available online. The Win32 and Cygwin versions can both be freely downloaded from here.

Sources - The sources to the freely downloadable from here. A Makefile is provided for Cygwin users and a Visual Studio Workspace for Win32 users.

System Requirements
The compiler should run on any machine no matter how small, however a sensible specification would be a 90MHz Pentium with Windows 95 and 32MB of RAM.

Contact
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, offers of help, or simply want to send a cash donation, please email cycle at tsac.co.uk