I was just thinking about how kids these days are so damn lucky. They've
got all this cheap, extraodinarily useful computer hardware sitting around
in massive quantities that they can do all sorts of killer things with.
I remember when I was a kid I was dreaming about building robots and using
computers to control them, but all the parts and expecially the computers
were too expensive. I had one design based on a //c, but this was around
1986 when the //c was still relatively new.
Today, a kid could go to a thrift store and buy all manner of salvageable
computer parts, including printers (to get the steppers and gears out of),
disk drives (for the motors and gear shafts) and of course the computers
to control their projects with easy to use languages built in, all for
just a few bucks.
An entire robot could be built for under $100 with thrift store and flea
market parts. It could include a fairly powerful and easy to program
"brain" in the form of a Commodore 64, a Tandy CoCo, even an Apple ][
board. This stuff is everywhere and extremely simple to hack.
Man, I wish I was a kid again!
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever onward.
September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See
http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 09/12/98]
Received on Fri Sep 18 1998 - 16:07:27 BST