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From: Donald.Heller@jpl.nasa.gov (Don Heller)
Subject: Re: NuTank shareware
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References:  <31tmq0$sn5@cronkite.Central.Sun.COM>
Date: Sun, 7 Aug 1994 21:26:57 GMT

In article <31tmq0$sn5@cronkite.Central.Sun.COM> rkeene@pixelplow.Central.Sun.COM (Dick Keene [Sun Market Development Software Engineer]) writes:
>Path: llyene!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!cs.utexas.edu!koriel!news2me.EBay.Sun.COM!cronkite.Central.Sun.COM!pixelplow!rkeene
>From: rkeene@pixelplow.Central.Sun.COM (Dick Keene [Sun Market Development Software Engineer])
>Newsgroups: comp.robotics
>Subject: NuTank shareware
>Date: 5 Aug 1994 15:45:04 GMT
>Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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>        NuTank now has a shareware version.  It is about 300k bytes compressed.
>        I made the compressed file by doing a tar of the DOS floppy on a 
>        UNIX machine and compressing it.
>        If anyone would like to put it on their server feel free to do so.
>        Also I need someone to put it on a DOS machine and compine and
>        compress it so peopel on DOS machines can copy it as a single file
>        and unpack it on their machines.
>        Anyone know how to do this?

I assume you have multiple files on a DOS floppy, and what you would like to
do is combine (compine? combine/compile?) the multiple files to a single
compressed file.  If you have PKZIP, you can use it to create a file called,
say, NUTANK.ZIP, and the users will need to have PKUNZIP to uncompress and
restore the file set.  If you also have ZIP2EXE, you can create a file called
NUTANK.EXE (I usually call it $NUTANK.EXE or some such) which is referred to
as a self-extracting zip file.  The user just places $NUTANK.EXE in some
subdirectory and types $NUTANK, at which time all the files are uncompressed
and restored.  PKZIP/PKUNZIP is shareware; I'm not sure about ZIP2EXE.  I
would send you the programs, but we have an institutional site license at
JPL, so I can't.

Good luck
Don

>        R. Keene
>        Dick.Keene@Central.Sun.COM


>         NuTank, Copyright Richard Keene 1994, All rights reserved.
> 
>NuTank stands for NeuralTank.  In this program one is given
>the shell of a 2 dimentional robotic tank.  The tank has
>various I/O devices like wheels, whiskers, optical sensors,
>smell, fuel level, sound and such.  These 
>I/O sensors are connected to Neurons.  The player/designer
>uses more Neurons to interconnect the I/O devices.  One can
>have any level of complexity desired (640k memory limited) and do
>subsumptive designs. More complex design take slightly more fuel, so
>life is not free. All movement costs fuel too.  One can
>also tag neuron connections as "adaptable" that adapt their weights in
>acordance with the target neuron. This allows neurons to learn.

>The Neuron editor can handle 3 dimentional arrays of neurons
>as single entities with very flexible interconect patterns.

>One can also design a Glyph or drawing to represent the 
>robot and/or obstacle.  (or bug, worm, whatever)

>One can then design a scenario with walls, rocks,
>fat (fuel) sources (that can be smelled) and many other such things.

>Robot tanks are then introduced into the Scenario and 
>allowed  interact or battle it out.  The last one alive wins, 
>or maybe one just watches the motion of the robots for fun.
>While the scenario is running it can be stopped, edited, 
>zoom'd, and can track on any robot.

>One can designate a neuron group as the probe group and get 
>a display of the neural activity of that group.  This helps debug
>designs.

>The entire program is mouse and graphicly based.  It uses 
>DOS and VGA and is written in TurboC++

>There will also be the ability to download designs to another 
>computer and source code
>will be available for the core neural simulator.  This will 
>allow one to design neural systems and download them to real 
>robots.  This feature may be in the Beta release, around August 94.
>The design tools can handle three dimentional networks
>so will work with video camera inputs and such.

>Eventualy I expect to do a port to UNIX and multi thread the program.
>I also expect to do a Mac port and maybe NT or OS/2

>The theory that I eventualy want to test has to do with 
>the self oscillating nature of combined subsumptive and standard 
>neural nets. One can also work on flock and pack behavior.

>I have a paper I've written called Artificial Cognition that discusses
>a theory of the combination of regular neural nets and subsumptive networks.

>        Richard Keene
>        Keene Educational Software
>        Dick.Keene@Central.Sun.COM


>The shareware version has the ability to write to disk disabled.  Feel
>free to pass the shareware version around.  The regular version costs
>$50 and can be had by sending $50US to 
>        Richard Keene
>        Keene educational Software
>        8155 Lone Oak Court
>        Littleton, CO 80124




