LEGO Interface A (9750/9771) – LEGO Technic Control 1 (TC1) reference/ideas thread

[evank]

That's correct -- OUT and INP. Same as QBASIC that came on a DOS 3.3 disk for an IBM PC or Compaq schleptop.

Edited 14 hours ago by evank

[amine]

https://github.com/Atkelar/LegoControlDriver

@diegobaca @Toastie@evank

 @alexGS @Mr Hobbles @Bliss

There was another project by Atkelar with arduino and 1092 plotter driver support.

Is it possible to integrate it somehow inside your current projects ?

 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by amine

[evank]

2 hours ago, diegobaca said:

@alexGS Thank you for the kind words! 
 

Speaking of multiplex...
 

TC Logo Connect version 1.0.1 is out. Here's what's new.

GW-BASIC support

You can now drive the Interface A from your own GW-BASIC programs — control the motors and lights, and read the sensors, directly from BASIC. QBasic and other DOS languages that can read and write I/O ports work the same way.

GW-BASIC is discontinued Microsoft software (abandonware, like TC LOGO), so it isn't included. The README bundled with the app explains where to get GW-BASIC 3.23, how to set it up, and has short example programs to type in, including a sensor-driven motor.

Up to eight interfaces at once

1.0.1 supports up to eight Interface A's connected at the same time, each driven independently — 48 outputs and 16 sensors from one machine. Multi-interface setup and a two-interface example program are in the README.

Output behavior

Outputs set from your own programs work like the real interface: switch a motor on and it stays on until you switch it off. The safety behavior is unchanged — everything stops immediately if the app closes or a cable is pulled.

You'll need firmware 1.0.1 on the bridge

Make sure your bridge is on firmware 1.0.1. If it isn't, the app will detect that when you launch it with the bridge connected and offer the update — it takes about a minute in the browser.

How to get it

If you already have TC Logo Connect, the app offers the update on the next launch. Downloads for Windows and Mac:

https://www.tc-logo.com

Setup instructions, example programs, and the multi-interface guide are all in the README bundled with the app. Questions welcome here.



And thank you to everyone who has ordered a TC Logo Connect — I'll be sending those out this week. Cheers!
 

I tried it and it works! I have classic BASIC control of Interface A on a modern laptop.

< HAPPY EVAN DANCE >

But I'm still using real classic computers at Lego conventions.

PS. @diegobaca's readme.txt file includes a section on how to uninstall this. WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO UNINSTALL.  :)

Edited 14 hours ago by evank

[Toastie]

2 minutes ago, evank said:

I have classic BASIC control of Interface A on a modern laptop

Welcome to the club, Evan! 

Have a nice day!!!

Best
Thorsten

 

[evank]

1 minute ago, Toastie said:

Welcome to the club, Evan! 

Have a nice day!!!

Best
Thorsten

 

Americans: second to the party, loudest to brag about being invited. LOL

[Toastie]

Just now, evank said:

Americans: second to the party, loudest to brag about being invited. LOL

Come on. 

It is really nice: You can now run all my QBasic programs for Interface A! 

(OK, I am on a Windows machine, you do Macs, right?)

Best
Thorsten

[evank]

I have a Macbook here at work, and both Linux / Windows available at home.

[Toastie]

1 hour ago, amine said:

Is it possible to integrate it somehow inside your current projects ?

@amine

What are you specifically interested in?

He is moving all the heavy lifting to the Arduino (a Mega I believe). But all that can be done in our projects as of now, i.e., using Logo, or BASIC (choose your favorite version), or any other programming language within DOSBox-X or Windows that has access to COM ports.

In addition, you have LEGO Blockly which also provides PWM, but with 1 ... 255 resolution.

The connection to/from Interface A is either via USB (all devices) or via BT LEGO Blockly.

For the connection you can use @Mr Hobbles, or @diegobaca's ready to go devices (USB, with TCLogo PWM 1-7), or the DIY Arduino Uno/Nano devices (USB)@Bliss made for LEGO Blockly (with PWM 1-255), or the ESP device @Bliss made for all applications (BT, w/ PWM 1-255 in LEGO BLockly, as of now w/o PWM in legacy DOS mode) or the DIY Uno/Nano device I made (USB, for DOBox-X, w/ TCLogo PWM 1-7; BT for DOSBox-X w/o TCLogo PWM 1-7) 

Just make your choice 

BTW, I believe something is not entirely correct in the video: The segmented disc + light change sensor has an upper hardware limit of about 200 - 300 changes per second, but I have to recheck. EDIT: I found this in the TCLogo Teachers Guide, page 75:

"The sensor can count only 16 black/white transitions per second. So the counting wheel is unreliable if it is spinning faster than 2 revolutions per second (or 120 rpm) when the side with 8 black slices is facing the sensor. If the wheel is spinning too quickly, change the gearing of your model." 

So it is much worse than I thought; it could very well be that I calculated rpm using a 4+4 segmented disc! END EDIT

Inside Interface A, the sensor electronics is analog, and the minute changes of reflected light from the disc when it sees a black or white sector, requires some amplification limiting the bandwidth; I did these measurements a while ago:

The smeared out slopes before they are converted into a nice rectangular pulse are responsible for the limited bandwidth, I believe.

TCLogo should be as good as it gets pulse counting wise, as it does 1000 per second readings (and count additions, if there were any b/w changes) in the ISR routine communicating with Interface A. Which is never really required as the hardware maximum is 16 b/w transitions/s = 2 rounds/s = 120 rounds/min. I believe it can do a bit better than that; even in QBasic it was better. Maybe they wanted to be on the conservative side :D

Or did you have other things in mind?

Best wishes,
Thorsten 

Edited 12 hours ago by Toastie

[amine]

I was specifically thinking about his plotter code library. It it possible to control the 1092 plotter using logo or basic ?

29 minutes ago, Toastie said:

@amine

What are you specifically interested in?

He is moving all the heavy lifting to the Arduino (a Mega I believe). But all that can be done in our projects as of now, i.e., using Logo, or BASIC (choose your favorite version), or any other programming language within DOSBox-X or Windows that has access to COM ports.

In addition, you have LEGO Blockly which also provides PWM, but with 1 ... 255 resolution.

The connection to/from Interface A is either via USB (all devices) or via BT LEGO Blockly.

For the connection you can use @Mr Hobbles, or @diegobaca's ready to go devices (USB, with TCLogo PWM 1-7), or the DIY Arduino Uno/Nano devices (USB)@Bliss made for LEGO Blockly (with PWM 1-255), or the ESP device @Bliss made for all applications (BT, w/ PWM 1-255 in LEGO BLockly, as of now w/o PWM in legacy DOS mode) or the DIY Uno/Nano device I made (USB, for DOBox-X, w/ TCLogo PWM 1-7; BT for DOSBox-X w/o TCLogo PWM 1-7) 

Just make your choice 

BTW, I believe something is not entirely correct in the video: The segmented disc + light change sensor has an upper hardware limit of about 200 - 300 changes per second, but I have to recheck. EDIT: I found this in the TCLogo Teachers Guide, page 75:

"The sensor can count only 16 black/white transitions per second. So the counting wheel is unreliable if it is spinning faster than 2 revolutions per second (or 120 rpm) when the side with 8 black slices is facing the sensor. If the wheel is spinning too quickly, change the gearing of your model." 

So it is much worse than I thought; it could very well be that I calculated rpm using a 4+4 segmented disc! END EDIT

Inside Interface A, the sensor electronics is analog, and the minute changes of reflected light from the disc when it sees a black or white sector, requires some amplification limiting the bandwidth; I did these measurements a while ago:

The smeared out slopes before they are converted into a nice rectangular pulse are responsible for the limited bandwidth, I believe.

TCLogo should be as good as it gets pulse counting wise, as it does 1000 per second readings (and count additions, if there were any b/w changes) in the ISR routine communicating with Interface A. Which is never really required as the hardware maximum is 16 b/w transitions/s = 2 rounds/s = 120 rounds/min. I believe it can do a bit better than that; even in QBasic it was better. Maybe they wanted to be on the conservative side :D

Or did you have other things in mind?

Best wishes,
Thorsten 

I was specifically thinking about his plotter code library. Is it possible to control the 1092 plotter using logo or basic  for printing a file  like his project does ?

Edited 12 hours ago by amine

[Toastie]

9 minutes ago, amine said:

I was specifically thinking about his plotter code library. It it possible to control the 1092 plotter using logo or basic ?

The code library - ok, then you need to get his code - it is on Github I guess?    

Logo/Basc? It depends 

If this plotter really needs PWM control for the motors, then (so far) not in BASIC; as far as I know there is no such feature in any of the BASIC dialects. If it does not depend so much on PWM, then yes.

In (TC)Logo I also believe it can be done as you have PWM - but I have no clue how complex such programs may get. It does not sound like it would be straight forward. I never really programmed in Logo. @alexGS may!

Best
Thorsten 

Edited 12 hours ago by Toastie

[evank]

It is absolutely possible, especially in LOGO. The pen is your turtle.

As I understand it, there wasn't any special software for 1092. It's just motors. You could program them to move the pen around, the same as you'd program any other 4.5V motors.

Edited 12 hours ago by evank

[Toastie]

3 minutes ago, evank said:

As I understand it, there wasn't any special software for 1092. It's just motors.

Well the organization of the moving dish and the arm is a bit sophisticated I believe. But I agree, should be doable. Wasn't there any code example for the plotter in that set?

Best
Thorsten

[alexGS]

45 minutes ago, evank said:

It is absolutely possible, especially in LOGO. The pen is your turtle.

As I understand it, there wasn't any special software for 1092. It's just motors. You could program them to move the pen around, the same as you'd program any other 4.5V motors.

Arrrrrrgh…

Didn’t you read my notes two weeks ago about the TC-Controller (and its manual) being the only original software and documentation we’ve ever seen for the plotter? - and the other builds of the 1092 set - which is not just three motors, it’s optosensors… 🤣 mind you, I can’t really blame you, everything gets lost here lately and I can’t keep up either. It was a really significant find by Amine and there’s the BBC version, too. I have the plotter built currently and I would like to make a video soon showing how it was intended to work.

48 minutes ago, Toastie said:

 

In (TC)Logo I also believe it can be done as you have PWM - but I have no clue how complex such programs may get. It does not sound like it would be straight forward. I never really programmed in Logo. @alexGS may!

Best
Thorsten 

Yes - I have tried with Logo - to produce lines at different angles and even curves with varying speed of the motors is remarkably difficult, especially as you need to somehow read the position during this as well. I probably had greater expectations than was intended.

Atkelar’s video - which I saw some time ago - is nice but is a complete hack with modern controller and code techniques. That’s fine, but personally I’d rather see that applied to typical stepper motor hardware (many early 3D-printers were Arduino-based). I’d much rather see how this was intended to work with the control equipment of the time :)

Edited 11 hours ago by alexGS

[Toastie]

8 minutes ago, alexGS said:

to produce lines at different angles and even curves with varying speed of the motors is remarkably difficult

That is what I meant with "complex" - always a good word for "I can't". Didn't I see even "HPGL" in the script? 

OK, not for me, I am a BASIC person ...

Best
Thorsten

[evank]

12 minutes ago, alexGS said:

Arrrrrrgh…

Didn’t you read my notes two weeks ago about the TC-Controller (and its manual) being the only original software and documentation we’ve ever seen for the plotter? - and the other builds of the 1092 set - which is not just three motors, it’s optosensors… 🤣 mind you, I can’t really blame you, everything gets lost here lately and I can’t keep up either. It was a really significant find by Amine and there’s the BBC version, too. I have the plotter built currently and I would like to make a video soon showing how it was intended to work.

Sorry, I did indeed miss that. Link?

[alexGS]

20 minutes ago, evank said:

Sorry, I did indeed miss that. Link?

Apology accepted :)

It was back on page 14 of this thread and it was actually a reply to your question… link below

Earlier this month, you said “I like the ongoing Interface A megathread. I vote for not changing anything.”
 

Hopefully now we’ve changed your mind 😁 it is getting hard to find things from less than a month ago!
 

And, I feel bad that maehw had to leave… and why is this text larger (sorry)

 

Edited 11 hours ago by alexGS

[evank]

I have definitely changed my mind about the megathread! I am fully assimilated into the subforum concept.

Now that I clicked on your link, I remember it. It's something I probably just skimmed over the first time. LOL as I've said before ... I am busy actually building Lego models that USE such software. You guys just talk about it. :)

[alexGS]

10 minutes ago, evank said:

I have definitely changed my mind about the megathread! I am fully assimilated into the subforum concept.

Now that I clicked on your link, I remember it. It's something I probably just skimmed over the first time. LOL as I've said before ... I am busy actually building Lego models that USE such software. You guys just talk about it. :)

phew, thank you.

You’re right, you are walking the walk at present 😊 I feel like I haven’t done any building with the old stuff for months, plus I had to drop my interface circuit design in lieu of other pressing jobs.

There are actually many contributors to this thread (I counted more than ten) but they’re getting drowned out. I really want to see this thread split into topics of discussion that can grow slowly as we apply all this new information. And, we need to be able to find something six months later.

I’m happy to do the splitting of posts from this thread into new threads. Please, someone grant me the ability to do that :)

 

Edited 11 hours ago by alexGS

[Toastie]

1 minute ago, alexGS said:

I’m happy to do the splitting of posts from this thread into new threads. Please, someone tell me how I can do that…

First planning of the sub forum structure - so far we haven't really settled on one. Then I propose that to Jim, because he has to install the base structure. I guess we can then pin and pong as we see fit. 

I just realize that it seems to be rather easy to have sub sub forums! See Starwars. We need to tell Jim though want we want. More via PM.

Best
Thorsten

[alexGS]

Just now, Toastie said:

First planning of the sub forum structure - so far we haven't really settled on one. Then I propose that to Jim, because he has to install the base structure. I guess we can then pin and pong as we see fit. 

I just realize that it seems to be rather easy to have sub sub forums! See Starwars. We need to tell Jim though want we want. More via PM.

Best
Thorsten

Thanks Thorsten, yes, let’s return to private messages and get this sorted out 😊