jrichard@hawk.ulowell.edu (MacGyver) (01/15/91)
Well,
I did receive a number of replies on the robotics/parallel port issue.
In summery:
- It is better to use the serial port to limit transmision errors.
A UART chip and a baud rate generator will be needed to receive
serial transmissions. This seemed to be the general consensus.
- The parallel.device on the amiga requires handshaking on the
pulse and ACK pins (and logicly enough it latchs its data).
Amazing Computing for the amiga is currently running hardware
project articles where the parallel port is used as a communications
device (this proved to be quite a boon).
- cheap radio equipment doesn't seem to work very well according to
those with first hand experiance.
Some helpful books I found on the subject of robotics (with a students
budget) are:
"The Handbook of Advanced Robotics" by Edward Safford Jr.
"The Robots Builder's Bonanza" by Gordon McComb
I've found that a lot of robot books tend to be cheezy or old (~1970's)
but these are the best I could find in a non-text book format dealing
with the actual circuits needed to build interfaces and such.
For a low res camara a Fisher Price cam-corder will fit the bill. I don't
have the plans for this but I intend to find out though the manufacturer
or from the chap that introduced me to this idea.
So what are we going to do? Use the serial port for one thing. Beyond
that I'm not sure. I need a transmitter/receiver and I don't need the
FCC on my back. We have not built the robot yet so any more information
can and will be used.
Anyone who would like more detailed information just mail to me and I'll
get back to you with all I know on the subject.
Thanks a million for all those who did respond !