Subject:
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Re: RCX & RIS, a fading glory?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Sat, 1 Feb 2003 08:10:00 GMT
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Original-From:
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Mike Payson <mpayson@dawgdayz.#stopspam#com>
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Viewed:
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1681 times
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> If Lego designed a SMALL computer which had an external bus onto which could
> be plugged ROM chips (packaged in - say - a standard 2x2 brick), then they
> could sell the computer with a ROM that has "play value" (makes the robot
> play 'tag' with a flashlight or something). There could be a whole range of
> ROM chip bricks with different and "interesting-to-kids" programs in them - and
> a Flash-ROM chip that you could program yourself as an optional extra (presumably
> with some kind of a PC interface and a CD-ROM full of Lego-esque programming tools).
>
> This would allow kids an easy entry into robotics - collecting pre-programmed ROM's
> that do fun things - then an upgrade path to something just like Mindstorms.
>
> If you got a little smart about it, I bet you could design ROM-bricks with
> flow-chart elements printed on them that could be stacked to build programs...
> then progress to a CD-ROM that let you stack 'virtual' ROM-bricks to generate
> programs that could be downloaded into a Flash-memory-brick. Kids would be
> able to slide from a physical programming metaphor into a virtual version of
> the same thing.
This is an interesting idea, but I think a bad one. The software should
stay where it is now, in the software. Putting the software in hardware
just creates the need to buy even more bricks. On the surface, that
seems like a good think for Lego, but it would have the same result as
the limitations that the Spybotics line has now-- it would wear out it's
play value as soon as you've built the first model. The average consumer
doesn't want to have to go out & buy expansion packs every few weeks to
add more capabilities.
In addition, you have (very reasonably) complained about the size of a
multi-RCX robot, but imagine how big a moderately sophisticated program
would be using rom bricks like these? And I don't even want to think
about how difficult it would be to debug such a creation!
Instead, they should go with the modular capabilities you've suggested
(ie. seperate the CPU, memory, batteries, controls, & IO, and allow
arbitrary expansion either by offering more powerful single CPU's, or
better yet, allowing some sort of clustering capabilities.), but keep
the programming on the computer. For simple things like Spybotics, they
could include ROM bricks that contain the full program, but otherwise,
the parts would be the same as standard Mindstorms. Simply switch out
the ROM brick for a EPROM brick & you can program your robot yourself.
Mike
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: RCX & RIS, a fading glory?
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| (...) That's pretty depressing - if Spybotics don't make money, Mindstorms is doomed - and if Spybotics does make money Mindstorms *is* Spybotics...so we're still doomed. (...) What I wanted to see happen would have solved that problem quite neatly. (...) (21 years ago, 29-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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