Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: Macintosh Computers and Robotics
Message-ID: <nagleCtnrAw.K9K@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <CLEARY.94Jul22133717@everest.ccs.neu.edu> <316h0h$4r8@search01.news.aol.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 16:04:08 GMT
Lines: 21

cmartin@aol.com (C Martin) writes:
>>In article <30mh86$brm@search01.news.aol.com> cmartin@aol.com (C Martin)
>writes:
>>> It wouldn't be
>>> practical to use any personal computer as the brains of a robot, ...
>I meant that it isn't practical to put a personal computer on a (mobile)
>robot.  Both for reasons of space and power (plus it's real hard trying to
>type / mouse while the robots moving).  You can put a small computer
>onboard the robot with a serial link to a remote 'brain' computer.  I
>don't really consider this practical.  It is certainly useful for
>devolpment and such, just not practical for most robot applications.

      Using a laptop or notebook computer on research robots is quite
common.

      The Macintosh isn't a particularly good machine for this application,
though, because the OS isn't well-suited to real-time work.  Neither is
DOS, but it's easier to strip a DOS machine down to where it's basically
a one-program machine that uses DOS as a loader.

					John Nagle
