Subject:
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RE: Mindstorm/CyberMaster Swap
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Tue, 15 Dec 1998 15:09:35 GMT
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Original-From:
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Barfoot, William: <bbarfoot@tosco#IHateSpam#.com>
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Viewed:
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1108 times
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The "more advanced" I was referring to are the pistons, and gears, and
motors. I am going to London in a few days, can it be picked up there?
Say at like Harrods or the like?
Bill Barfoot
I.T. Analyst
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lugnet.robotics@lugnet.com [SMTP:lugnet.robotics@lugnet.com]
> Sent: Monday, December 14, 1998 5:16 PM
> To: lego-robotics@crynwr.com
> Subject: Re: Mindstorm/CyberMaster Swap
>
> > > completely hooked on Mindstorms, and the thought of a more advanced • set
> > > for "grown ups" is very exciting... Can someone enlighten me on this
> > > subject...
> >
> > Mindstorms _is_ the more advanced set for grownups. Cybermaster is • designed
> > with "play" in mind -- build the predesigned sets, and make them do
> things.
>
>
> It is but the Cybermaster does have some useful additions that I wish
> had
> made it into the Mindstorms RCX. The Cybermaster motors have built-in
> tachometers that can be used to report trip distance and rotational
> speed.
> The third motor output (and only this one) has the the ability to
> report
> motor current (in mA approx) which makes it possible to do stall
> detection.
> This can save using an additional touch switch to indicate
> "end-of-travel".
> And, of course, the real biggy is that Cybermaster communicates with
> the PC
> using radio rather than IR. This doesn't suffer from directional/line
> of
> sight problems in the way that the RCX system does.
>
> The downside is that the CM motors are built-in to the brick and so it
> is
> normally only suitable for making some sort of mobile robot. Neither
> does it
> have a communications mechanism to allow it to send messages to other
> CM
> bricks; the MS RCX can send simple integer messages to other RCXs
> using the
> infra-red port. It also only holds one program (cf 5) at a time and 4
> (cf
> 10) concurrent tasks. I also believe that the program space available
> is
> smaller but I'm not sure how significant this is.
>
> The two lots of supplied software are quite different but I don't
> think that
> really matters. The RCXCode "visual programming" language of
> MindStorms is
> virtually useless if you want to do anything anywhere near useful. The
> CM CD
> has a lot of multi-media stuff geared to kids but it is (for the first
> time,
> anyway) entertaining and does have a number of model plans included.
> Assuming you're going to end up using one of the programming methods
> prescribed in this newsgroup/list then I'd say the CM software was
> better
> (since the MS stuff is next to useless).
>
> The end result is that the choice between MS and CM is not a "no
> brainer".
> It really depends on the sorts of things you think you're going to
> want to
> do. My choice would be to buy both, but then I can afford to blame
> this sort
> of extravagance on my son.
>
> In addition to NQC there are a number of other "add-on" programming
> environments for both MS and CM. You can find quite a few on the
> MindStorms
> web ring:
>
> http://members.tripod.com/~ssncommunity/webrings/legoms_index.html
>
> My particular pet (because I wrote it) is Bot-Kit which can be found
> at:
>
> http://www.object-arts.com/Bower/Bot-Kit
>
> Best regards,
>
> Andy Bower
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Mindstorm/CyberMaster Swap
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| I am going to London in a few days, can it be picked up there? (...) Yes, but it will cost you a bit more than retail, as Harrod's is generally a rip-off. Best to try and go just outside of the centre, to say Brent Cross, where you can find it for (...) (26 years ago, 15-Dec-98, to lugnet.robotics)
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