Subject:
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Re: Brainstorms
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Sun, 11 Aug 2002 22:02:43 GMT
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Viewed:
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742 times
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In lugnet.robotics, John Barnes writes:
> Ok. I've seen a similar ebb and flow of ideas for modularization in this
> newsgroup before. The difference, is that now, most people who are reading
> this a probably well familiar with the RCX, Mindstorms, etc etc.
>
> The subject of this post is intended as an invitation to anyone who would
> like to contribute their ideas, wants, wishes, desires for a new direction
> for managing a microcomputer controlled Lego creation. As far as I see it
> there are only two real candidate architectures, modular and monolithic. I
> regard the RCX as a monolithic structure in the sense that is the entire
> core entity into which you plug motors and sensors. A modular approach, in
> this context, would split that monolithic central "thing" into a number of
> constituent entities, like power source, CPU, memory, sound making devices,
> displays etc etc.
What you want... surely must depend on what you can reasonably expect to
get. I have no expectation that LEGO will come up with a major revision
that has the breadth and depth of the wonderful suggestions in the responses
to John's post. Neither do I expect a competing company to interfere with
LEGO's robotics market. The volume is not there (initially) and patent
infringement exposure might be an issue.
So I'm hoping for 'transition'. The first step has already been
accomplished: to decrease the price of the RCX.
Next step could be by LEGO or anyone else: have a better way for several
RCXs to communicate, thereby multiplying the I/O capability and processing
power. It could be a LEGO-looking block with 4 I/Os to connect 4 RCXs. It
could be a 4-sided IR tower, so to leave all the RCX I/Os free.
That way, we preserve everyone's LEGO inventory, allow the various software
gurus to massage existing NQC, pbForth, RoboLab (etc) to evolve into more
powerful systems, rather than having them redesign everything from scratch
for entirely new systems. That could take a couple of years!!
Jerry
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Brainstorms
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| Ok. I've seen a similar ebb and flow of ideas for modularization in this newsgroup before. The difference, is that now, most people who are reading this a probably well familiar with the RCX, Mindstorms, etc etc. The subject of this post is intended (...) (22 years ago, 8-Aug-02, to lugnet.robotics)
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