erict@flatline.UUCP (J. Eric Townsend) (08/03/89)
It's nifty, it's keen and it's for sale. What it is: A couple or three years ago, Ideal (the toy people) got in on the robot craze with "Electronic Maxx Steele" (tm). It's almost waist-high, can drive around, and has a forward placed grasper/light unit that moves up and down and rotates. (Yeah, it looks kinda like R2D2. What a coincidence. :-) I got this, played with it for about 5 hours, and put it back in the box because I have a really small apartment. Since then, I haven't given it any use. (I did check it out a couple of days ago to make sure it works, however. Everything checked out just fine.) It is programmable: basic speech via 140 phonetics and word fragments; music -- your songs or preprogrammed ones; movement -- both repeat actions and semi-random or responsive to input; and light sensor -- "photo transistor", according to the docs. All of the controls are built into a remote control unit. It has a card-edge expansion slot -- "Coming in 1985: The eyes of Maxx Steele Sonar Unit; Expansion Module" (I don't know if these were ever produced). It is driven by a 65c02 w/ 2K ram and 8k rom. It has a "serial port on controler" and "expansion interface port" (the cardedge). It has a clock (that can be accessed from your programs or is used to "automatically" wake up Maxx). Basically, lots of fun for anybody who wants a big robot to hack around on. I originally wanted to turn it into an OS9 driven toy, but time and finances always got in the way. Caveat: I kept it in storage too long and the rechargeable batteries have croaked. I put together a bunch of non-rechargables and tested it -- everything seems to work just fine except it needs a new set of batteries. I don't know how much they'd cost, but they're like the ones I used to use with RC equipment. The buyer will get the old batteries, so they can just take them to various places and ask "Got some of these?" :-) I think I paid about $450 for this in 1984 or '85. I'm asking $250 or best offer by August 15, 1989 (*). Details about shipping can be worked out when somebody wants to buy it. It only weighs 35 lbs (according to a shipping statement I have), but it's 97.5 inches around it's longest girth. (fyi: I live in Houston, Texas.) (*) -- I'm willing to trade for any neat synth, electronic music, computer, or old VW Karmann Ghia stuff you might have lying around. Let me know what you have, and I'll give it a thought. I don't need the money as much as I need the *space*. :-) -- J. Eric Townsend Johnny Lydon *IS* the next uunet!sugar!flatline!erict incarnation of The Doctor.. com6@uhnix1.uh.edu 511 Parker #2, Houston, Tx 77007 EastEnders Mailing list: eastender@flatline.UUCP