wampner@next3 (Eric Wampner) (06/05/91)
In article <1991May17.201040.28205@athena.mit.edu> ttrueger@athena.mit.edu (Timothy T. Rueger) writes: > Hi, > > I've been away from my C64 for a few years now, but I'd like to recycle > it and do some hardware hacking. I'd like to control some DC Lego > motors I have using my C64, and possibly be able to receive sensor > information as well. > > I presume this should be done over the parallel port. (Or not?) > Ideally, I'd like to just be able to send/sense logic high and low > signals and let my motor power supply system and sensors handle the > rest. > > Any advice or pointers to good documentation? Or is there something > simple out there I could buy that would do this for me? <sig deleted> Well, I am with the UCF Robotics Society, and we run our robot with a C64 (upgrading to the amiga, better developement env). In the beginning, we used a Fisher-Techniques (I don't know the spelling, wasn't my baby). I think it was a serial port job. I don't know if they are still avail, may be expensive. They produce lots of put together robot packages (education, i guess) Currently we have this horrible memory mapped hardware. Works great ( most of the time ), amazing thing we haven't blown a 64 yet. Hmm, simple description-> When you access memory in a computer. you cause address lines to go to a particular number, ie, if you want 38420, then the address lines correspond to that byte in memory. So on the cartridge port are 2 ports which correspond to blocks of memory ( I don't remember which ones) You set up your hardware to look like memory, ie your hardware has to have ports which read/write info, then you can just peek and poke your information. The address lines tell your hardware which byte is being read/write, and then your hardware either places information on the data lines, or reads them. Sounds simple? Well if so, I can provide some sample schematics and a more detailed description. If you are lost and don't understand, well, I am afraid it would take a couple of digital design courses to help you. i am just a CS major, with an annoying tendency to end up with a soldering iron in one hand. (and a piece of robot in the other). I hope this doesn't deter you, it is fun, but it certainly isn't easy. As for good docs, well i don't know of any, make sure you have the Commodore Programmer's manual, you need it for addresses and such. Eric Wampner eww@engr.ucf.edu wampner@next1.acme.ucf.edu