Robotics with the Atari 800

[scitari]

I am curious whether anyone has attempted to control a Lego Mindstorms or similar robot with an Atari 800/XL/XE. I couldn't find any posts on this forum or through Google search. Wouldn't that be cool?

 

There is of course the Axlon Andy robot if you can get your hands on one.

 

I also ran across this post on robot programming in BASIC from back in the day.

 

Here is an article from Antic Magazine.

 

Any others?

Edited February 11, 2018 by scitari

[+CharlieChaplin]

Hmmm, not Lego Mindstorms, but regarding robotics I remember these two things:

- a robotic arm for your 400/800 Atari: http://www.retrobits.net/atari/armyouratari1.shtml

 

- a robotic arm from Fischertechnik controlled with the XL/XE and software bei Reitershan and various Fischertechnik interfaces:

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Fischertechnik_Interface

http://www.stcarchiv.de/hc1985/11/faszination-der-technik

 

Well, the robotic arm from Fischertechnik was available in the 80 for various homecomputers (C64, ST, Amiga, etc.) but not for the A8, since the software (drivers, etc.) was missing; M.Reitershan wrote software for the A8 in the early 90s and presented the robotic arm at an Atari show (Hobbytronic?), but the robotic arm was very expensive and there was not much (back then) you could do with it. I do not know where one can find the A8 software for this robotic arm nowadays. The old Fischertechnik kits can be found at ebay with a little luck... (newer kits are also available but mostly designed for the PC and/or Arduino boards).

[k-Pack]

Its been several years since the screen on my brick went bad and was never replaced. Some of this information may be dated.

 

HiTechnic use to produce an Prototype Board that would plug into the MindStorm. It had 6 digital inputs/outputs and 5 Analog outputs. The programing was done using NXT-G Blocks and was a breeze to program. Try getting information info at www.hitechnic.com. I hooked an Atari joystick to the inputs and controlled the robot.

 

Want to go wireless. Kind of depends how far you want to go with this but you can hook an Arduino Uno up to the 850 interface (RS-232) and then have the Arduino retransmitted the commands the BLOCK using Blue Tooth.

 

I have this list of literature on hardware projects with some reference to robots and servo motors and everything else. Might want to look through it for information on interfacing the Atari8

 

http://atariage.com/forums/blog/572/entry-13212-a8-hardware-project-literature/

[scitari]

Its been several years since the screen on my brick went bad and was never replaced. Some of this information may be dated.

 

HiTechnic use to produce an Prototype Board that would plug into the MindStorm. It had 6 digital inputs/outputs and 5 Analog outputs. The programing was done using NXT-G Blocks and was a breeze to program. Try getting information info at www.hitechnic.com. I hooked an Atari joystick to the inputs and controlled the robot.

 

Want to go wireless. Kind of depends how far you want to go with this but you can hook an Arduino Uno up to the 850 interface (RS-232) and then have the Arduino retransmitted the commands the BLOCK using Blue Tooth.

 

I have this list of literature on hardware projects with some reference to robots and servo motors and everything else. Might want to look through it for information on interfacing the Atari8

 

http://atariage.com/forums/blog/572/entry-13212-a8-hardware-project-literature/

 

Thanks! Looks like the Hitechnic page is now here.

[ricortes]

IMHO: There just isn't enough interest in robotics to reach critical mass on the Atari. Kind of divided between hardware and programming with a few crossovers. For something to be a moderate success it has to be a video or storage hack so enough people get interested because it serves all masters.

 

General population doesn't seem to be interested other then maybe some CNC types. We<enthusiasts> had the same problem with things like speaking computers. They have been around since the beginning but people didn't accept them except for things like Speak and Spell or computer games. Then came GPS and speaking cellphones guiding you to your destination. I know people that wouldn't think of getting in their car w/o a cellphone to guide them. Robotics is a solution in search of a problem.

[ClausB]

My avocation is coaching high school VEX Robotics Competition teams. I have thought about crossing it with my retro Atari hobby but never found a good reason to. The VEX EDR motors require PWM signals and sensors require I2C or quadrature inputs. The Atari has no hardware support for any of that so there would be an awful lot of bit banging needed. It might be a little cool to show off something like that here, but my students would just not appreciate it. I once showed them Star Raiders and it bored them.

[k-Pack]

My avocation is coaching high school VEX Robotics Competition teams. I have thought about crossing it with my retro Atari hobby but never found a good reason to. The VEX EDR motors require PWM signals and sensors require I2C or quadrature inputs. The Atari has no hardware support for any of that so there would be an awful lot of bit banging needed. It might be a little cool to show off something like that here, but my students would just not appreciate it. I once showed them Star Raiders and it bored them.

 

I am not familiar with The VEX hardware or it's capabilities but I found some interesting information and circuits in the book Your Atari 8-Bit Comes Alive. The link to Atarimania and the book: http://www.atarimania.com/documents-atari-400-800-xl-xe-books_1_8.html

 

Lately I've been sending MIDI data from Midi instruments to an Arduino and then the Arduino sends out data to the Atari through the joystick ports to set the sound registers. I've also used the Atari joystick port as outputs to trigger events on the Arduino.

 

I got the information to use a shift register with latch to control stepper motors(28BYJ-48 with driver board) using 3 digital pins (data, clock, latch) on the Arduino from the book. I don't see why the joystick pins could not be configured to do the same thing.

 

And, I do like using optocouplers to isolate the Atari and experiments. I haven't lost a computer yet.

[ClausB]

Yes you're right, the PIA pins and paddle inputs on the joystick ports can be used with lots of custom assembly routines (what I called bit banging) or to drive intelligent devices or Arduinos. But even an Arduino has more computing power than an Atari, so what's the point of involving the Atari?

 

What might be retro-cool is to make a robot play an Atari game. Could it be done without expensive machine vision? Or how about a swarm of small bots and one big one playing Space Invaders on the floor (no Atari involved)?

Edited March 3, 2018 by ClausB

[_The Doctor__]

While that is true, the Atari could still be used as the central coordinator or supervisor for a group of them or a a quick display of what is going on or in progress a status panel. You wouldn't use your arduinos for that, as they should be putting their full horsepower into controlling the robots etc. But it is a perfect use for the Atari, and is a convenient keyboard to program and communicate with at the same time.

Edited March 3, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[ClausB]

That's a good suggestion, the Atari as master. I don't mean to put a damper on anyone's efforts, I was just saying that I haven't found a worthwhile way yet to combine two of my biggest hobbies.

[www.atarimania.com]

There was this: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-apprentice-_20888.html

 

Also: http://www.theoldrobots.com/images17/DC-2-44.JPG

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

[Geister]

There were a lot of articles BITD about controlling various things with the joystick ports. The 400 and 800 were the best units for this as you could configure one pair of ports as an 8 bit output and the other for joystick input. The pot inputs would let you read feedback from the A/D converters. It wasn't a lot of output, but it might be enough to control a simple device. It might have nearly as much I/O as the pin header on a RaspberryPI. The AtariPi, the first programmable experimenters system.

 

The biggest problem with the Mindstorms system is that there doesn't seem to be much low-level interfacing information. Everything I find searching on controlling the little brick assumes that you have a modern system running their building block software. If it takes serial commands at some level, you might be able to use a SIO2USB or an SIO2BT to talk to it.