Oh man, robots! I've already polled the Hero robot owners group about what modern batteries a Hero 1 can use, both for VCFed's Hero 1 as well as the one I'm about to reassemble in the coming future. We will see what suggestions turn up, so we can get a working Hero 1 for y'all.
"People don't mock babies for being toddlers"But I do mock Hero Jr. for being a terrible navigator and bumping into walls, because it's funny. Side note: Hero Jr. lives! The problem he experienced seems to be localized to his RS232 system, and the associated power regulation. All he needed was a fresh battery, a new fuse, and the rest of him checked out in diagnostic mode. Robert Doerr just gave me a few suggestions of areas to check that most likely would have the fault. I will have to see how the repairs progress...
If someone brought a TOPO from Nolan Bushnell's ANDROBOT company, or any of their robot products be it Androman, F.R.E.D. etc. that would be mighty impressive. Getting your hands on one seems to be either a matter of luck or deep pockets. Another random side note: there was a gentleman at VCFMW10 who brought along a homemade replica of Dr. Who's K-9 that was controlled by a VIC-20 under the hood. Here's the link I had to his stuff, http://snarpco.com/k9 if someone is curious. Little one-off robots like these seem to be a common approach for fledgling robot enthusiasts. -Alexander 'Z' Pierson On Tuesday, April 26, 2016 2:17 PM, Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
Can't believe I forgot about that! Read about it many times. My first computer exposure was turtle * graphics * on a VIC-20, but I've definitely read about the earlier versions. Wonder if we can make something like that....
PS. I'm not seriously suggesting that we try. As noted on the site Dan linked, it's controlled "via a radio transceiver attached to a teletype terminal connected to a remote computer." Sounds just slightly complicated to build between now and HOPE. :)