Subject:
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Re: Spybotics - A great disappointment
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Fri, 26 Jul 2002 04:23:16 GMT
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Viewed:
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1025 times
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In article <Gzs7w7.Kpx@lugnet.com>, "John Barnes" <barnes@sensors.com>
wrote:
> As support for the new device grows - mainly thanks to Dave Baum who, I
> assume, must have been working on this for a while - we will see how well it
> integrates into the Mindstorms family even if it isn't initially targeted
> there. I am having a difficult time trying to discover what the actual
> hardware resources are which the new API definition in NQC describes.
> Perhaps someone knows how many actual input and output ports are really in
> there and what they do?
I haven't spent much time with Spybotics yet. It was pretty much a
one-evening project to get program download working, then a few tweaks
such as task numbering, sub numbering, etc.
Three inputs: touch sensor, light sensor, and battery voltage (I think)
Three outputs: left motor, right motor, and the VLL light (I think)
>
> The most crucial aspect of the specification is if it can communicate its
> sensor readings to an RCX via any of its photonic based systems. If it can,
> then its IR direction finding capability may be very useful as an
> enhancement to the RCX while retaining 100% Lego parts purity (as opposed to
> using any kind of 3rd party devices).
I was able to get Spybotics to transmit an RCX message. I couldn't get
any default settings to work, but the serial I/O seems completely
configurable, so you can setup a custom preamble, enable/disable the
complement scheme, and configure the style of checksum. Then you can
build any sort of RCX message you want (up to 13 bytes when using a
custom preamble, perhaps 16 bytes if there was some way to use a
built-in preamble of 55 ff 00).
In theory you can also receive IR messages, although I haven't tested it
out yet.
>
> I have been observing the posts concerning the available user memory and
> cannot make much sense of it yet either.
>
> It is common when discussing EEPROM capacity to refer to total bit capacity
> rather than byte capacity. If this is true, and based on some of the
> lego.direct posts, it may be, then the program storage device has 4k
> capacity. If that is a standard 4k EEPROM, then that's only 512 bytes.
> That's not much, especially if they take 1/4 of that for saving firmware
> variables.
I'm fairly certain it's 4k bytes, not 4k bits.
Dave
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Spybotics - A great disappointment
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| I had a perfect opportunity to speak with Brad Justus, Jake McKee and Jeff Ardis at BrickFest on the subject of Spybotics. First of all, it was pointed out that the box says its being aimed at 9 year olds and that it doesn't say its a Mindstorms (...) (22 years ago, 25-Jul-02, to lugnet.robotics)
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