Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!cat.cis.Brown.EDU!agate!tcsi.tcs.com!uunet!hobbes!earth.armory.com!rstevew
From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: STEPPER DRIVER INFO NEEDE
Organization: The Armory
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 1994 07:16:13 GMT
Message-ID: <CuD073.CnE@armory.com>
References: <9408070631.A6509wk@circellar.com>
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In article <9408070631.A6509wk@circellar.com>,
 <stephen.griswold@circellar.com> wrote:
>To:Comp-Robotics@CS.Utexas.Edu
> 
> A few years back, I began building a 'Pet' robot from scratch, using an
>Intel 8085 as the CPU, about 16K of Static RAM (which I could never fill)
>using cds cells, and an old infra-red motion detector, for sight.  The base
>was moved by two independent rear wheels, and a swivel caster for the front
>(all steering was performed by turning off one of the two motors.)
> As you can guess, not much to brag about, but it was a fun project for a
>27-year old at the time, with a little too much time on his hands.
> My main problem with the base, was being unable to calibrate the two drive
>motors, to the same speed.  One, would always seem to spin faster than the
>other, causing the base to turn on a wide arc, when I wanted it to go
>straight.   I shelved the project, about 2 years ago, still frustrated by
>the 'Running in W-I-D-E Circles' problem...  It wasn't until I attended the
>most recent Connecticut CP/M User's Group meeting, that I was re-inspired.
> 
> One of the members demonstrated an analog wall clock he had modified for
>use as a stage prop, where the clock's time needed to be reset from remote
>without going out on stage, and run at a specific speed other than the normal
>1:1 second ratio (say, 1 minute needed to be done in 45 seconds, Etc).
> He had replaced the synchronous motor, with a small stepper motor, and
>controller the device with a small Micro-Trainer, offstage, using a simple
>driver assembly, clocked, and direction controlled by the 'trainer' computer.
> 
> Having seen this, when I got back from the meeting, I immediately dug into
>my 'Junk Box' (Ok? Who also has one of these, or for that matter knows what
>one of these is?) and found two identical stepper motors I had pulled from
>a 'Fried' line printer, and a set of 4 Fairchild FT5753M Driver ICs.
> 
>  Sorry to say, I no-longer have the PC-Board these came from, So.......
> 
> Does anyone have the Pin-out for the FT5753M? the device is size equiv.
>to 4 TO-220 power transistors side-by-side, 12-pin SIP.
> Also, can you provide the specs on the chip? (maximum load limits, heat sink
>requirements, power, etc.)
> 
> Any help would be appreciated.  Reply back either through the newsgroup,
>or email back to @Circellar.Com.
> 
>Also, side note, a few weeks back, someone began serious "Flaming" about
>CP/M machines..  Once I get it up & running again, the robot, which originally
>being remote programmed by a TRS-80 Model 100 Laptop (80C85 based), will be
>now remote programmed by a Kaypro-10..  Why not a CP/M Machine? Why do you
>need 16K Colors, Upteen-Gigabytes of RAM, and Warp-Drive equivalent Mhz speed
>to program a robot?   the 'Now!' generation has been severely MSDOS-Poisoned!
>Besides, My robot uses the 8085 as its heart. I need only write the program
>in assembler as I had before, feed it through ASM now, and feed the hex data
>to the robot through the RS-232. (ASM would run a lot faster, than the
>original BASIC Assembler I had been using. and I've already ported over the
>BASIC programmer, converting it from the old read/write of the RS-232, to
>I/O port INP/OUT for the Kaypro.
> 
> +------------------------------------------+-----------------------------+
> |Stephen Griswold                          |There is no such thing as an |
> |Stephen.Griswold@Circellar.Com  <---<<<   |Orphaned computer. Neglected,|
> |Stephen.Griswold@F201.N142.Z1.Fidonet.Org | YES! Orphaned, Never!!!!!!! |
> +------------------------------------------+-----------------------------+
> |  CP/M systems never die, they just get more BIOSed with age.           |
> +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>... There's life in CP/M yet.
-------------------------------------
Stephen, I Agree! I have a number of those things around. I discovered long
ago that the Morrow CP/M MD-3 machines had a wonderful board with an
already available decoded I/O port header right on the board, and which
enables a hell of a lot of ports! And the board is light and only needs
5VDC unless you need to talk to it, and then you supply the +/-12VDC. Also
I have several Ampro 1A boards, which I have a piggyback plug to extract
full 256x8 bit port I/O from the Z-80 directly. And CP/M was originally
written for 8085 code, which is completely supported by the Z-80. I begin
to think many people are nuts spending their bucks to screw around with the
latest and best when that kind of power is available for putting an ad in
the paper looking to give people $5 or $10 for their old Morrow machine! I
can't buy more than a PIC/84 for that kind of money, and the CP/M machine
is so simple to program! A Morrow rev 2 board weighs just 5 oz's and is the
size of a piece of printer paper! It will accept 3.5" DSDD drives and store
800K on each, and it has 64K on board and 2 serial and 1 parallel port, as
well as all that I/O!!!!! Take the case off it and it is just this little
board! You can't get ANYTHING for robotics that cheap or easily!!! And it
runs fast enough to outrun any stepper made, and it will run 30 hours on a
motorcycle battery! A car battery and it doesn't even seem like it knows
the computer needs juice! And it runs all the made for CP/M software at the
same time! You can park the robot and set up a small terminal and type a
letter on WordStar 3.3! And then print it! And you can write in Turbo
Pascal 3.0, or BDS C, or MBASIC or its compiler, or Forth, or tiny basic or
small C or countless other languages, or in assembly, as you have done! I
liked the 8085 language and I used to have the SDK-85 development system
from Intel back when and I had the half of it that was for prototyping
filled and was working on another hunk of protoboard when I went onward. I
still recall most of the Hex codes for directly coding the 8085/Z-80!
Carry on! CP/M and those processors are by no means gone or lost. Anyone
who has a MD-2 or MD Morrow Designs computer in the closet, who wishes it
to have a happy home, take the drive box apart and unscrew/unplug the
drives and toss them, and then unscrew the motherboard screws on the
bottom, put the board into aluminum foil and mail it to me. Inquire by
email for details. It WILL live again and have a good home!!! Anyone need
CP/M software for old Z-80/8085 machines out there, Morrow, Ampro, Kaypro,
Otrona, or any other make, I still have programs to write to your format,
and I can send it to you. Or if you can extract it and have the system
disks, I can send you the software in a form you can read via email!
This is a place where people don't need today's computers to do what we
should have been using the old ones for back then and hadn't figured that
out yet!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

