Okay, so just recently after checking my ROBOTC, it seems either there’s an issue or an update that happened in the config…
After checking my ROBOTC, it seems to be that the config’s Motor tab has 12 motors. Not just that, there is no analog or digital tabs, but instead devices. There is a config for 12 motors, and config for 12 “devices”. I believe this is an update for the new CORTEX, but I am unsure of that. Does anyone know what is going on? Pictures are attached below:
EDIT//: I’m stupid, it’s in VEX IQ mode ROFL
Check which platform RobotC is set for. Go to Robot->Platform Type. It’s probably set up for Vex IQ right now. It should be for Vex 2.0 Cortex.
Thank you xD
I feel like such an idiot for not seeing that it’s VEX IQ. But tbh, I got excited for like 5s thinking I got an easter egg for the future CORTEX…
New Vex Cortex release date confirmed…
Sunday April 16th, 2017_
TBH I’ll be a little upset if it doesn’t have 12 motor ports. I’d also like more digital sensor ports. Maybe an expandable thing like the power expander but for sensors?
@Brian_9605A Unfortunately I doubt that will happen because it would require a lot of changes as to how the cortex is setup. The current 3-wire cables can’t carry unique signals for multiple devices. There would have to be a separate 4-wire (kind of like I2C) that goes to the sensor expander. Nevermind the fact that this doesn’t make sense though, as the point of the expanders is to inject power not to give more ports. I’m not trying to be rude, just pointing something out. 
I guess I misused the reference to the power expander. I meant it only as another set of ports, not injecting power into sensors, that would be ridiculous. I get that it would have to work like the 12c, and that’s fine by me. I don’t know much about electronics, but I don’t see any reason why the new cortex can’t have something like this. I wasn’t trying to explain anything about how it might work in my previous post. Sorry for any confusion.
If we don’t get more ports, we could have a sensor expansion pack. It would need to use I2C or another serial communication protocol (it could use UART, I suppose). I think an increase in sensor ports would be nice, preferably directly added to a new Cortex.
Port expanders are very common in the embedded development world, and it’s simple to control one with the current Cortex. At the moment, you have to provide your own programming to drive it, but we’ve been doing that for decades on other architectures; this one has plenty of horsepower to accomplish it. Getting it directly supported in the official environments (RobotC, EasyC) would be the only issue. But those guys know how to do it as well. So, you can use one today, but they’re not competition legal, and you have to use a communcations library (or hand-roll a simple one) to talk to the extra ports.
That’s plenty of wires; the issue is in how you use them. Meaning how the wires are electronically interfaced, and how they are programattically driven. Four is simpler than three, but three is enough. In fact, if you use an open-drain architecture, you can get by with two. And if you ground through the metal frame of the robot, you only need one. A common way to do this is called “1-Wire” for obvious reasons.
With a typical port expander, you can add support for local power, so the main controller doesn’t have to supply it, or you can leave out the extra battery, and use the main controller power for everything. Either is possible in this scenario; no particular limitations.
So, they could extend and expand the existing cortex this way. But I assume they won’t, because they probably have a couple of problems they’d like to permanently solve, and a few capabilities they’d like to diretly support.