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I got my Atari to control my Nintendo R.O.B. Robot!


Pioneer4x4

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Once I sell the first 5-6 I will release the bin to all, no problem at all. Heck, once I put them up for sale, (I will go in order of this thread) and someone pays, I'll email them the .bin. I don't know if I will number or not. I would prefer to make the actual bin unique to the purchased ones, even if only different color.

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I still think you should eventually make a game out of it. What would be really cool is if a simple game was made with two AI's. One AI would be R.O.B's. He would be playing against the other AI. He would make a decision, send a signal to his body, and then he would push buttons. You could just watch him play Atari by himself. Anyway, great job!

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I still think you should eventually make a game out of it. What would be really cool is if a simple game was made with two AI's. One AI would be R.O.B's. He would be playing against the other AI. He would make a decision, send a signal to his body, and then he would push buttons. You could just watch him play Atari by himself. Anyway, great job!

I'd call him Duke Nukem, but he doesn't have time to play with himself.

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I don’t know a thing about R.O.B., how it works, or what it does, so this suggestion might not make any sense, but doesn’t that toy interact with the games by holding a NES controller and pushing the buttons on it?

 

If so, it’d be pretty cool if you teamed up with a NES homebrewer to make a sister cartridge for the NES, so you have a game where you have to use an Atari 2600 to control the NES game via R.O.B. You could call it “Remote Operating Buddy” or “Chain of Command” or something dorky like that. The game could probably be kind of fun even if it was very simple because it would require mastering a crude machine to get it to do what you want.

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I believe I received payment from everyone I messaged that theirs were ready. I will be getting more boards to make some more, probably all identical. I have several people that have requested one, and will take those first. Then open up for more requests. They should ship tomorrow.

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Pretty trivial to tell ROB what to do.

 

I believe these are the screen flashes required to control ROB.  (1 represents a green screen, 0 represents a black screen. common bits at top of list.)

101 1 1 1
  0 0 1 0	Down x 1
  0 1 0 0	Left
  0 1 0 1	Up x 2
  0 1 1 0	Close
  1 0 0 0	Right
  1 0 0 1	Reset
  1 0 1 0	Open
  1 1 0 0	Up x 1
  1 1 0 1	Down x 2

 

Through all of this, there is at least 3 flashes, and at most 4 flashes, sent to ROB. If there is ever 5 or more flashes sent, 10101010101, as such, this puts ROB in test mode, used to verify that you have lined ROB up right with the TV. A reset is usually sent afterwards, to put ROB into a known state. The Up/Down x 2, are used with Gyromite/Robot Gyro, and the Up/Down x 1 are used with Stackup/Robot Block.

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Pretty trivial to tell ROB what to do.

 

I believe these are the screen flashes required to control ROB.  (1 represents a green screen, 0 represents a black screen. common bits at top of list.)

101 1 1 1
  0 0 1 0	Down x 1
  0 1 0 0	Left
  0 1 0 1	Up x 2
  0 1 1 0	Close
  1 0 0 0	Right
  1 0 0 1	Reset
  1 0 1 0	Open
  1 1 0 0	Up x 1
  1 1 0 1	Down x 2

 

Through all of this, there is at least 3 flashes, and at most 4 flashes, sent to ROB. If there is ever 5 or more flashes sent, 10101010101, as such, this puts ROB in test mode, used to verify that you have lined ROB up right with the TV. A reset is usually sent afterwards, to put ROB into a known state. The Up/Down x 2, are used with Gyromite/Robot Gyro, and the Up/Down x 1 are used with Stackup/Robot Block.

I'm not sure what you mean, but that isn't what I found out, as well as others. Where did you get that list? Is that maybe the list of possible command choices in a NES cart?

The best info I have found that expanded on what I was able to do myself was actually on this site all along!

http://www.atariage....-rob-homebrews/

Post #24 sums it up pretty good.

 

And yes, very trivial, that is why there have been so many others out over the last 25 years. Hell, as far as I know, nobody released one for the NES, let alone another console.

And the implementation was not all that difficult for me. From my opinion, and thankfully several others, it was the idea that was unique.

 

And I am working on another personal challenge, that I hope to reveal soon. (Hint more old hardware related)

 

And once I either have no more demand for carts of it, I will release the bin file, and probably the source if someone can think of something better to do with ROB, more than what Nintendo already did.

Edited by Pioneer4x4
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  • 9 months later...
  • 5 months later...

I haven't been on this site in months, I went on a couple of long vacations and never got back into reading the forums. Thanks for the messages and continued interest, and I guess I will have to get back into it and finish the 2nd batch. I remember I did make up some Instruction manuals to include.

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If you mean from the picture on the label, that is a small gum holder. It was for "Atari Gum". It is a tin box with plastic stick on it (the gum is like chiclets). I have 1 unopened I was saving for a special package. I got it at 5 Below a couple of years ago.

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  • 3 years later...

I'm digging up my old thread. I tested this on the Atari Flashback Portable I just got and it does control the R.O.B. Robot when the AFP is connected to my typical test TV. It is pickier on location (angle and distance) but it does work. The picture quality is excellent, and "feels" like the screen is behaving the same, but there must be some difference. Maybe I will try recording it and playing it back slow. I have messaged Al about putting the .bin file on AtariAge along with the instructions I created years ago, but have not heard back yet. Also I will probably modify it so it will work with the limited controls avaliable.

You need

1 - up

2 - down

3 - left

4 - right

5 - open

6 - close

and it will also do

7 - up x 2

8 - down x 2

9 - "reset" where it will go all the way up and right, then reset to center.

 

I was thinking D-Pad for up/down/left/right, and fire for close and bw/color for open since it is momentary anyway, and using game reset to reset R.O.B.

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  • 1 year later...

Thank you Pioneer4x4 for the development and for sharing information. While I haven't been using an Atari for this, I have been working on a R.O.B. project off and on over the last few years that was in part inspired by this thread. I don't want to hijack, but I felt that it was relevant since the R.O.B. community is fairly niche.

 

I call my version InfinitROB. However, instead of relying on the original electronics, I have completely redesigned the logic board, based on Arduino, and have reprogrammed and extended the abilities of the robot.

 

Here are a few demo videos...one of basic operation and one working with Gyromite on an LED monitor.

 

This is quite an extensive modification, so while it has a lot of abilities, it's a considerable build to get to this point.

 

While I'm here, might as well add that I miss our Atari 800. Cheers!

 

25fsyt4.jpg

 

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