2 bit question on the 8 bit machine

[prolog]

Hi again

@Mark - thanks for that. As daft as it sounds I never thought to look through the Wikipedia page. I understand that WP is now more accurate than Encyclo Brit. I am having a play with the PIC16F - I shall see where that takes me.

I am going to work through the wiki talk page, there seems to be lots of interesting stuff in it - and it's not all retro-talk!

cheers for that

Jeff

[sirmorris]

Have you got a PICKit? If you are playing with PICs you _need_ one. They're fairly cheap too. You don't need the full kit, just the dongle. Also you should sign up at MicrChip and request some samples. They're a very generous company. I must have had CA 100 chips off them in my time and I've never had any contact with their sales team...

C

[PokeMon]

Good hint. I am also a MicroChip customer (even did not buy something but have an account) and will try in feature to get some samples.

[Christopher]

Have you looks at HEBOT?

Here is a link:

http://www.zx81.nl/dload/hardware/hebot_zx81_robot/

I know its a bit dated, but from a zx81 standpoint, it gives a foundation to start with. I am using this for my bots too.

[prolog]

Hi good people

Thanks or the info (I love the way people share tips here!). Just to say where I at: I am currently building the original real robots Cybot, and am getting to the programming stage. Though I know that people who've already done this have hacked the Cybot PICs and re-programmed in C (or related). So, I'd like to get into that once I've put together the 2 Cybots and TOM.

To get me into PIC-land I thought I'd go down the PIC16F84 route as there's loads of tutorial/ experimenter board support for it. Programming looks a little on the laborious side. I googled and got PICkit 3 (is that the one?) a debugger with graphics interface? Sounds more up my alley! I'll go for easy interfaces everytime! I'm sure I'll be wanting to pick more brains here when I get to that stage. Currently I've wired up only the processor in the Cybot to various sensors - I've got another 3 boards to add.

HEBOT, yes, Moggy put me onto that. have to say I was astonished I missed this first time round; don't know what I was doing that year (1985 was it?) I was a DINKY that year if I remember, but HEBOTs didn't register. Funnily enough it was partly looking at how far down the road HEBOT had got in the 80s that prompted my first question on this thread - after all, the Cybot (2002-4) is not really much further on than the Hebot as far as I can tell, and then I went on to see how far contemporary robot stuff is very recognisable from a 1985 perspective. I suppose neural networks are further developed now, but well within the range of a ZX81 - no reason why a zx81 based robot couldn't learn stuff!!...

Well I need something to do when I retire

[Moggy]

Hi Jeff.

Can't remember if I mentioned before that a former contributor to Our forum and the now defunct TS1000 forum, was none other than robotics genius Wilf Rigter.

Some interesting links here.

http://www.beam-wiki.org/wiki/Wilf_Rigter


Regards.

Moggy

[prolog]

Hiya Moggy! how are you doing?
Hey that looks very interesting! I'll be exploring his page for sure!

By the way, I was going to mail you to say I am going all DivIDE (once my CF etc. arrives). The Spectrum Forth is happening and I found a copy of the original book! So, all is brulliant!! many thanks! The micro-prolog loads, but as you say it looks like there might be issues with the expected loads on different sections of the program. But I imagine there is a genius here who knows how it might work with a divide.

Yes, I'll have to get up to speed on the neuron business - back in my day neural networks were just little statistical programs... I am just reading Kevin Warwick's new book on AI and this seems to be where a lot of the happening stuff is.

cheers
Jeff