adam@cbmvax.UUCP ( CATS) (06/07/89)
Remember those story-telling animated toys that were popular last season?
Two of them, Teddy Ruxpin and his pal Grubby could be interconnected
to tell stories together. Teddy contained a cassette player, motion
control and an audio speaker. Grubby had just the motion control and
speaker. When interconnected, grubby would receive animation commands
and audio from Teddy. The connector used was a 4-conductor 1/8" audio jack.
Has anyone discovered the protocol Teddy uses to control Grubby?
Does anyone have a Teddy Ruxpin audio cassette (or Teddy himself)
I could borrow to study the encoding scheme?
I bought Grubby at a steep discount and would like to build an
interface box so he'll move to any audio input.
Thanks for any insight, Adam
--
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore-Amiga Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!adamtomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) (06/08/89)
adam@cbmvax.UUCP ( CATS) writes: ... > >Has anyone discovered the protocol Teddy uses to control Grubby? >Does anyone have a Teddy Ruxpin audio cassette (or Teddy himself) >I could borrow to study the encoding scheme? > >I bought Grubby at a steep discount and would like to build an >interface box so he'll move to any audio input. > >Thanks for any insight, Adam Hope this helps: we have a Teddy R., and I looked at the cassette audio. Put one in a stereo deck and you see audio out one channel, and a train of pulses out the other. The pulses appear to be very similar to those used in some radio control schemes, so an RC chip might be just what the Dr. ordered to decode or encode. I think there were groups of pulses, separated by a little time, and the pulse position of each pulse past the initial pulse appeared to control one of the "animation" functions: Teddy's jaw, his eyes, etc. I seem to remember six channels (seven pulses). If you e-mail me, I might be willing to look again and get some timing info for you. I presume that this pulse train is just fed off to the junior member of the partnership...but I don't know. Tom Bruhns tomb%hplsla@hplabs.hp.com
edw@wells.UUCP (Ed Wells) (06/15/89)
In article <7055@cbmvax.UUCP>, adam@cbmvax.UUCP ( CATS) writes: ... > Has anyone discovered the protocol Teddy uses to control Grubby? > Does anyone have a Teddy Ruxpin audio cassette (or Teddy himself) > I could borrow to study the encoding scheme? ... > -- > Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore-Amiga Technical Support > 1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180 > BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!adam I heard that Teddy uses a similar coding that is used for most of the TV remote IR units. I've never verified this, however, it stands to reason that this may be true. The IR chips are readily available for pennies and won't have required a "new wheel to be invented". Why do you ask? Are you trying to interface with Teddy or want to know for another project? If it's for another project, try to use the IR chips yourself. -- ========================================================================= Edward E. Wells Jr., President Voice: (215)-943-6061 Wells Computer Systems Corp., Box 343, Levittown, Pa. 19058 {dsinc,francis,hotps,houxl,lgnp1,mdi386,pebco}!wells!edw
tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) (06/16/89)
edw@wells.UUCP (Ed Wells) writes: > > I heard that Teddy uses a similar coding that is used for most of the >TV remote IR units. I've never verified this, however, it stands to >reason that this may be true. The IR chips are readily available for >pennies and won't have required a "new wheel to be invented". Not quite, I think. The encoding is as a 9-pulse train, repeated continuously, with longer gaps between trains for synchronization. The information is encoded as the analog pulse separation between adjacent pairs. Each of the eight adjacent pairs is assigned a channel: Teddy's eyes, Teddy's mouth, Grubby's ... etc. Teddy, at least, decodes it with some analog IC's and a 74HC164. Not the chips you mentioned, but still "pennies". > > Why do you ask? Are you trying to interface with Teddy or want to >know for another project? If it's for another project, try to use >the IR chips yourself. As the original poster noted, he bought a Grubby for "pennies" w/o a Teddy, and would like to get him walkin' and talkin'. (You did get my email with the details, didn't you??)