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Subject: 
Re: Mindstorms 3.0 Wish List
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Wed, 5 Nov 2003 18:48:35 GMT
Viewed: 
2280 times
  
I think you are right on...

Rand

"Chris Phillips" <drvegetable@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:Hnvw3v.23z3@lugnet.com...
In lugnet.robotics, Rand Krakora wrote:
I think we're starting to cross the boundary that lego faces, they want • this
thing to be used by kids ( and I guess adults now also ). If they jam a • ton
of I/O in the controller, the cost goes up, parents may tend not to buy • it
for their kids. But if they don't add more I/O, the adults will look
elsewhere for a more powerful controller.

Reading this thread, I am struck by one thought: who would actually pay • for a
souped-up RCX with intelligent sensors and BlueTooth in every sensor?  I • could
see BlueTooth in every RCX, but it would be overkill for talking with • sensors.
A stand-alone sensor with its own microcontroller, watch battery (to go • dead)
and a BlueTooth chip would cost $50 at least.  The RIS 3.0 set would be • $500 if
it included a set of components that was comparable to what 2.0 offers.
Besides, could you imagine your typical hacker trying to build a custom • sensor
if they had to imitate all of this functionality just to hook it up to the • RCX?

Be careful what you wish for- you might actually get it.

I think it would be better for them to stick with hard-wired sensors, but • to
scale down the RCX and make it smaller+cheaper so that you could afford to
combine several RCXes in a single robot.  This would give us the I/O • expansion
capability that we (sometimes) desire.

Even the concept of adding a Compact Flash slot seems misguided.  Adding • an
empty CF slot would probably cost as much or more than simply adding a • couple
megs of memory right into the RCX, which is what you really want anyway.

I do like very much Paul Kleniewski's axle electrical connector • replacement for
the 2x2 electrical brick.  It is much more compact (allowing for a smaller • RCX)
and has the advantage of allowing a wire to be passed through a Technic • pinhole.
Of course, I would hope that they would also create an adaptor brick to • convert
one type of connector to the other so the old stuff would work with the • new.

The most important feature in my mind is to keep the system open so that
hard-core fans can continue to create our own programming tools, sensors, • and
actuators.  Maybe they could even sell a reference manual that documents • all of
the internals so that we don't have to wait 3 weeks for Kekoa to
reverse-engineer the brick.

Just my less-than-humble opinion.

- Chris.



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Mindstorms 3.0 Wish List
 
(...) Reading this thread, I am struck by one thought: who would actually pay for a souped-up RCX with intelligent sensors and BlueTooth in every sensor? I could see BlueTooth in every RCX, but it would be overkill for talking with sensors. A (...) (21 years ago, 5-Nov-03, to lugnet.robotics)

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