Greetings all;
A new arrival joined us tonight, but it looks like he is suffering from a
very rough life.
A HERO-1, who was fished out of the dumpster (EEK!) a couple of years ago,
and rattled around someone's desk ever since as a curiosity. Fortunately,
I have a friend who was able to rescue him from this rather unpleasant fate.
At first glance, he is in rather sad shape. One of the metal side panels
and both of the plastic panels are missing, there are some cracks in the
head plastics, the blue foam bar for the sonars is gone, a couple of
keycaps from his keypad are missing, and the arm plastics are badly damaged.
Mechanically though he seems fairly complete. Some bent metal here and
there but nothing too serious, and the wrist is going to need some help.
Batterys are completely shot, no charger or teaching pendant, tho I have
all that with my other HERO-1. And besides, I've been looking for an
excuse to build a 'control console' for Science Fair demos. (big buttons
and icons)
Electronics look to be in fair condition, I've noted a couple of (common)
ICs are missing, and in my first quick look I noted a small junction board
mounted on the bottom plate just inside of the back door marked 'Interface
board' that puzzled me... Until I pulled the head plastic and found that
what I had first thought to be a 'bike flag' (really, a red triangular flag
that says "HERO" on a stiff wire), was actually the antenna for the RF
remote receiver unit!
No apparent options other than the arm (and speech board). Have not
checked ROM versions yet... He will need a thorough check out before I
consider powering him up.
But... all in all, I think he might even make it back to life in time for
our next scheduled Science Fair appearance in February. (one can always hope)
...And then there were three! Mayhaps he will join us at VCF IV. B^}
-jim
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jimw_at_computergarage.org
The Computer Garage - http://www.computergarage.org
Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
Received on Thu Nov 11 1999 - 01:28:45 GMT