gbnewby@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Gregory B. Newby) (03/11/91)
In article <17996@milton.u.washington.edu> b5576879@rick.cs.ubc.ca (barry douglas ferg) writes: >This message is for Greg Newby, of the School of Information Studies > (...) >[It's of general interest, too. -- Bob Jacobson] I think this is of general interest... First is a response to why Barry is having trouble, and second is a description of how I got the stuff here at Syracuse U. A followup post includes a proposal I wrote for VR at Syracuse U. Please skip to about line 93 for a caution about acting on the information in this post (if you're not reading the whole thing). Thanks. >I read your message on sci.virtual-worlds of 5 Mar 91, and was both >surprised and amazed that you had managed to aquire a PowerGlove serial >interface box. > (...) >So how did you do it? I'd really like to hear from you [among others, >most probably]. Even though the term is almost over, we'd still like to >do some further development on our project. Wow, Barry.... I didn't realize at all that AGE and VPL were making it difficult to get the stuff. However, maybe you are right: it's very likely that they are concerned about people reverse-engineering the box, and are being restrictive about who gets it. The reason for concern is that the raw signals the PowerGlove sends out are their most crucial secret. Once someone figures out what the encoded data the glove generates is, anyone can build a PowerGlove. I guess the key is to generate a signal that Nintendo expects. (Where the BYTE information fits into this I don't know... is part of the secret already out of the bag?) The box takes the encoded data from the glove and decodes it, producing a stream of 9 bytes which is generated 30 frames per second. This signal is not for Nintendo: it's for programmers using a serial port for input. The packet I have says that the information on the data that comes out of the box is "confidential," although it would also be useless without the box anyway. I can tell you that the data is for the X, Y, and Z glove position, flex of thumb and first three fingers, rotation angle of the glove and signals from the transceivers (mounted on the monitor). The outdated list I have includes about 30 schools and businesses that have received at least a glove, and presumably a box, through AGE's coooperative education program. My advice, for what it's worth, would be to get someone official in your department or school to contact AGE about joining the program. A previous post includes their US-Mail address. Presumably, getting the box involves some sort of non-disclosure arrangement (as a matter of fact, I'm sure it does). You're not allowed to reverse-engineer the box, or pass it on to other institutions, or make profits from whatever is developed using the equipment (without a contract to do so). Part 2: How we got it at Syracuse U: Fairly simple: the inventor of the PowerGlove is an SU graduate. He's the co-partner in AGE. So, he's interested in getting some VR equipment and projects going at SU. I got involved because my dissertation involves spatial representation for information retrieval (imagine wandering through your library's card catalogue, and reaching out and grabbing the information you want...). I wanted to get the glove (pref. a dataglove) and some eyephones for the dissertation prototype system. A proposal was in the works to get some equip here on a loaner program, but one year (1990) passed with no equipment, except for the PG and interface box that the AGE guy had left up here in January 1990. I wrote my own proposal in January 1991, and things got rolling again. Finally, last week, I got my hands on that box. It had been sitting in storage, and was victim of beaurocracy. We hope to have other equip up here within the month, but who knows? I'm not sure what we'll get. In any event, most of it will be a direct contribution from the SU grad at AGE -- so this path probably won't be an option for most other places. Note that the reason we can do this is because Syracuse U. already has the necessary computational equipment, and all we need is the VR stuff. A followup post is a _proposal_ I wrote that finally got people off their butts and working on the VR thing. I managed to create a semi-competitive environment, where several players were all interested in controlling the equipment. My hope is to be the "VR contact" for the summer - I hope to have a real job and a real PhD for the fall semester. That's the story... I don't think I can provide a whole lot of information about AGE, without making them feel that I'm violating whatever agreement they have w/ SU... Like I said previously, they're a small company. So, please don't dial up and say, "Well, Greg Newby says ...." (mentioning sci.virtual-worlds would be fine, I suspect). One final tidbit: AGE is interested in getting output from their contributions. So, part of the coop. education program involves some sort of commitment that whoever gets them will have at least a partial mind towards developing marketable prototypes and ideas. -- Greg Newby School of Information Studies Syracuse University gbnewby@rodan.acs.syr.edu gbnewby@sunrise.bitnet "Curiouser and curiouser" - Alice BTW, Barry -- did you try the addresses above to reply to me?
nagle@uunet.UU.NET (John Nagle) (03/13/91)
What happened to "Gold Brick", the general-purpose device for interfacing
Nitendo peripherals to the Apple Desktop Bus?
John Naglewdr@wang.com (William Ricker) (03/16/91)
decwrl!well.sf.ca.us!well!nagle@uunet.UU.NET (John Nagle) writes: > What happened to "Gold Brick", the general-purpose device for interfacing >Nitendo peripherals to the Apple Desktop Bus? It lives. "Gold Brick (tm) The Cyberspace Interface (tm)" to quote the flyer. I saw a demo at Arisia, a Boston-area science fiction convention. It accepts 3D or tilt inputs from the Broderbund UFORCE, Nintendo Power Pad (floor pad), Enteractive Roll&Rocker, and the Mattel Power Glove. They supply software to translate controller input into motion & keystrokes on the Apple Desktop Bus (MAC SE etc and Apple ][GS). They expect to provide RS232 and other interfaces eventually. They also provide an open interface for adding your own slave or master devices using standard hardware interfaces. Address: Transfinite Systems Company, Inc., PO Box N, MIT Branch PO, Cambridge MA 02139 +1 617-969-9570 Disclaimers: Most capitalized words above are claimed as Trademark by someone. I am a social acquaintance of a/the principal of Transfinite, but have no business relationship. My nephew used the glove connection at the demo and was Awesumly Impressed. I have yet to get get these people talking with our sensor people, so I have not business relationship (yet). -- /bill ricker/ wdr@wang.com a/k/a wricker@northeastern.edu *** Warning: This account not authorized to express opinions ***