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TI-83+ Robot from Norland Research
Posted by Eric on 2 August 2000, 03:43 GMT

Kevin FitzGerrell sent in a link about a new Calculator Robot from Norland Research. This robot uses a TI-83+ for controls, and allows a user to easily construct a TI-BASIC program that calls an assembly program to move the robot around. Pretty nifty stuff.

 


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Re: TI-83+ Robot from Norland Research
Harper Maddox  Account Info
(Web Page)

That girl on the right is not hot. You can't really see her face in this picture, and I doubt most people who don't spend 23 hours a day looking at a calculator would want to. I can't tell whether the other (with that "whack" haircut) in the picture is a guy or a girl. If it is a she, then she is probably a dike, and if it is a he, then that dude is a skank.

     3 August 2000, 07:22 GMT

Re: Re: TI-83+ Robot from Norland Research
matt c  Account Info
(Web Page)

yeah good point about the he-she.
and thats some wack ass cleavage. i can't see nuttin. i see more cleavage walking down the street, whoever said those girls were hot must not get out much

     3 August 2000, 07:28 GMT


Re: Re: TI-83+ Robot from Norland Research
phireph0x

dude,
no one's saying she's Elizabeth Hurley or anything. Just an interesting departure from your standard geek fare (or whatever). The picture quality is shitty, so it's difficult to judge the um.. qualifications ;-) of this vixen. But she's not your average calculator ho, you must admit (at least not like any of the ones I've seen lately).

     3 August 2000, 08:57 GMT

ideas for a ti controlled robot
matt c  Account Info
(Web Page)

after seeing this and the older ti86 robot, and cus the lego mindstorm set is around 200$ im intrested in making my own ti86 controlled robot.
this is a quick idea i came up with for controlling the robot.
have an asm prog send signals out the like port, since there are 2 wires each wire could control 1 side. so you can have 1 on to turn or both to go straight or none on to stop.
i havent looked into this at all but if anyone has some critism it would be very appreciated.

     3 August 2000, 07:26 GMT


Re: ideas for a ti controlled robot
Kevin FitzGerrell  Account Info
(Web Page)

It's not quite so easy. The port is a serial port, not a parallel port. That means you don't have control over the state of each pin. What you need to do is have something at the other end to decode your serial signal (shift register and buffer or something similar). After you've turned your serial signal into signals on i/o pins this way, then you can boost the current to the amperage you need to drive motors using power transistors. Easier is to use R/C servos modified for continuous rotation (because each motor has it's own drive circuitry) and a servo driver chip with serial i/o. To make things more complicated, TI uses (I believe) a proprietary serial transmission method.

     3 August 2000, 17:21 GMT


Re: Re: ideas for a ti controlled robot
Dan Englender Account Info
(Web Page)

Actually you can control each line of the link port individually (so long as you do a read beforehand to check what the other one is, and keep it that way). But you're right that you need to send a serial signal for as many bits as you want (assuming you want more complicated transmissions than just on and off), then decode it on the other end. The Norland robot uses timed pulses on a single line for communication, one line used for each direction (I wrote the software). As for TI's transmission method, it is proprietary, but it isn't very difficult to decode, and you can just use some other method if you don't like TI's.

     4 August 2000, 04:16 GMT

Re: Re: Re: ideas for a ti controlled robot
Alan Rudolph  Account Info
(Web Page)

Couldn't you use a BASIC stamp?

     4 August 2000, 04:55 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: ideas for a ti controlled robot
Dan Englender Account Info
(Web Page)

Well, that would be more expensive, no? (I really know nothing about the hardware portion, that's just my guess).

     4 August 2000, 05:04 GMT


Re: Re: Re: ideas for a ti controlled robot
Kevin FitzGerrell  Account Info
(Web Page)

You're right of course, that's what I get for hitting "post" before I check over what I've written. A better response would have been "If you use both lines for motor signals, you can't read the state of your bump switches".

     4 August 2000, 05:35 GMT
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