[Coco] [Color Computer] Turning my coco III into a robot

[Andrew]

> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 14:46:01 -0000
> From: "vacuumboy1" <vacuumboy1 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [Coco] [Color Computer] Turning my coco III into a robot
> To: ColorComputer at yahoogroups.com
> Message-ID: <gvbmj9+slrj at eGroups.com>
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> Hi! I was browsing around on Google, when I spotted a neat diagram. The Diagram represented ROBART II. I knew there had to be a ROBART I. So I googled it and came up with a very cool robot! I researched it for a little while. I found it used a KIM-1 computer! The robot was capable of driving itself, patrol for unusual conditions, and TALK!
> So, if a KIM-1 could do this, why can't my Tandy do this? I was also thinking of making it use a homemade laser mapping device.Also, I am kind of worried about how much memory this takes up. Any input would be GREATLY appreciated!
> 
>                          Kyle
>                      [end of line] 

Well, technically your CoCo can do this. I know for a fact that there
was a series of articles in the Rainbow that detailed something called
the CoCo ROS (Robot Operating System) - it was a bit of hardware (that
plugged into the cartridge slot) and some software to enable easy
interfacing of the CoCo bus to motors and sensors. Look at Dec 1986-Feb 
1987 - it was a three part series by Dennis H. Weide. I only got parts 2 
and 3, unfortunately.

With a single CoCo, you could do quite a lot (just look at some of the
robots being made with 8-bit microcontrollers).

Your best bet would be to hunt down those articles, if you want to take
this path, first. Then, you would want to hunt down as many of the
old-school 8-bit single board computer books and robotics books out
there from the 80's as you can (nearly all of them by TAB books, it
seems). Da'Costa, Safford, and Heiserman are your authors (oh, and Tod
Loofbourrow, how could I forget?).

To do more, you would need to integrate several CoCos together, each 
controlling a basic function of the system, and communicating together - 
the ROBART system was probably done like this (I seem to recall that it 
was also controlled remotely via an IBM-PC and an RF modem).

So, you would have CoCo handling sensors (likely only sonar, IR, and 
other simple things - you might also be able to hook in some of the 
smaller cameras - like the CMUCam - meant for 8-bit microcontrollers), 
one handling motor control, and maybe one acting as a 
coordinator/master. You could potentially communicate over the bus, or 
via the bit-banger serial port.

If you wanted to simplify it a bit (and you weren't a stickler for "it 
must be CoCo only") - use a CoCo with RS-232 cartridge (and maybe the 
Cloud-9 SuperIDE or something), communicate with one or more 
microcontrollers (it would be dead easy to do with an Arduino), each of 
which serve to handle motor control, sensor reading (including advanced 
sensors like GPS modules), sound generation, etc. Let the CoCo be the 
master, but use the microcontrollers to perform the interfacing (the 
nice thing about this is that it would be easy to use the bit-banger to 
communicate with the microcontrollers as well, if you didn't have the 
RS-232 cartridge).

Hmm - this might be a fun way to use my old Color Computer 2, provided I 
could bypass the power supply without destroying the mobo (should be 
possible) - if I wanted it to be more interesting, setting things up to 
use a tape drive for storage and such would be fun, too. Go old-school 
and make the body out of a garbage can, maybe a pringles-can arm...

Good luck!

-- Andrew