evank Posted March 13, 2025 Posted March 13, 2025 (edited) 12 hours ago, chabala said: How about four at a time? https://chabala.github.io/brick-control-lab/features.html#Working_with_multiple_control_labs I know this thread is about Interface B, but I once ran seven Interface A devices -- 42 outputs, 14 inputs -- using all of the slots in a single Apple //e. Just to prove it's possible. :) Edited March 13, 2025 by evank Quote
amine Posted January 8 Posted January 8 (edited) On 2/3/2025 at 12:11 PM, legoROBOLAB said: Good morning friends Sorry to "change" the topic of this forum's conversation, but I was asking for your help. Interface B was launched by LEGO with software produced by LCSI - ControlLab. But in Europe it was also marketed by LEGO with TechnoLogica software and with Coach Junior - the first launched by Phantom II from Israel and the second by CMA from the Netherlands. In the USA, LEGO Engineer was created by Tufts, but without LEGO sponsorship (yet). I wonder if they know of any other software released at the time (1993 and beyond until 2000 +-) that had LEGO's declared support? I'm placing here two images of the LEGO manuals for Interface B. TechnoLogica and Junior Coach. Thank you very much for your attention and support. Leonardo I have the soft coming with that bundle a set of Two disks. Edited January 8 by amine Quote
alexGS Posted January 8 Posted January 8 1 hour ago, amine said: I have the soft coming with that bundle a set of Two disks. That is great news! I had also received two disks for the Macintosh Control Lab software - one was colour and one was monochrome - so both the same really (I uploaded them to the Internet Archive; https://archive.org/details/macintosh-control-lab-1.0) I’ll be interested to see what is on the two disks that you’ve found :) -Alex Quote
amine Posted January 8 Posted January 8 (edited) 7 minutes ago, alexGS said: That is great news! I had also received two disks for the Macintosh Control Lab software - one was colour and one was monochrome - so both the same really (I uploaded them to the Internet Archive; https://archive.org/details/macintosh-control-lab-1.0) I’ll be interested to see what is on the two disks that you’ve found :) -Alex It is an alternative software to lego control lab but from a third party company. I will have some time this weekend to upload the programs Edited January 8 by amine Quote
Toastie Posted January 8 Posted January 8 10 minutes ago, amine said: It is an alternative software to lego control lab but from a third party company. Holy cow!!! Is this the successor of the LEGO Lines software for the Swedish Compis computer? And it runs on a Windows machine, right? I know this is about Control Lab, but the "LEGO + Swedish schools" story is really interesting. As you certainly know, Paul (from Sweden) has two 640kByte 5.25" floppies with LEGO Lines for the Compis computer, which was running CP/M-86 as OS. Paul has already extracted some files from this rather weird format (however, known to 22Disk!), which he sent me, but you can do nothing with any executable of course, as they needs a Compis computer. This software was specifically made for Swedish schools, as the Compis was. The latter failed rather miserably; not because of its design (it is a beautiful machine!!! See here: http://www.datormuseum.se/computers/others/telenova-compis), but because of some rather unfortunate decisions, the Swedish government made back then. It is a highly fascinating story. Cool! Best wishes, Thorsten Quote
amine Posted January 9 Posted January 9 (edited) 19 hours ago, Toastie said: Holy cow!!! Is this the successor of the LEGO Lines software for the Swedish Compis computer? And it runs on a Windows machine, right? I know this is about Control Lab, but the "LEGO + Swedish schools" story is really interesting. As you certainly know, Paul (from Sweden) has two 640kByte 5.25" floppies with LEGO Lines for the Compis computer, which was running CP/M-86 as OS. Paul has already extracted some files from this rather weird format (however, known to 22Disk!), which he sent me, but you can do nothing with any executable of course, as they needs a Compis computer. This software was specifically made for Swedish schools, as the Compis was. The latter failed rather miserably; not because of its design (it is a beautiful machine!!! See here: http://www.datormuseum.se/computers/others/telenova-compis), but because of some rather unfortunate decisions, the Swedish government made back then. It is a highly fascinating story. Cool! Best wishes, Thorsten Here they are, Three floppy Disks in total. Scanning the manual very soon Enjoy https://archive.org/details/dacta-elevdata 20 hours ago, alexGS said: That is great news! I had also received two disks for the Macintosh Control Lab software - one was colour and one was monochrome - so both the same really (I uploaded them to the Internet Archive; https://archive.org/details/macintosh-control-lab-1.0) I’ll be interested to see what is on the two disks that you’ve found :) -Alex https://archive.org/details/dacta-elevdata Manual coming soon Edited January 9 by amine Quote
Gunners TekZone Posted January 10 Posted January 10 (edited) On 1/9/2026 at 8:21 AM, amine said: Here they are, Three floppy Disks in total. Interesting. I had to use Google Lens Translate, but I got it installed on my WIN7 VM that I use to run Control Lab... So I know that the COM port connection is good. I am unsure if this is the reason... The program knows I am not using original disks!! But while the program seems to run, it cannot find the controller (and NO option to set the COM port?? Although I have only the one on the VM) Edited 22 hours ago by Gunners TekZone Quote
amine Posted January 10 Posted January 10 (edited) 7 hours ago, Gunners TekZone said: Interesting. I had to use Google Lens Translate, but I got it installed on my WIN7 VM that I use to run Control Lab... So I know that the COM port connection is good. I am unsure if this is the reason... The program knows I am not using original disks!! But while the program seems to run, it cannot find the controller (and NO option to set the COM port?? Although I have only the one on the VM) I added the .img image files of the floppy disks to the same archive. https://archive.org/details/dacta-elevdata Thank you for trying Edited January 10 by amine Quote
amine Posted January 10 Posted January 10 (edited) On 2/3/2025 at 12:11 PM, legoROBOLAB said: Good morning friends Sorry to "change" the topic of this forum's conversation, but I was asking for your help. Interface B was launched by LEGO with software produced by LCSI - ControlLab. But in Europe it was also marketed by LEGO with TechnoLogica software and with Coach Junior - the first launched by Phantom II from Israel and the second by CMA from the Netherlands. In the USA, LEGO Engineer was created by Tufts, but without LEGO sponsorship (yet). I wonder if they know of any other software released at the time (1993 and beyond until 2000 +-) that had LEGO's declared support? I'm placing here two images of the LEGO manuals for Interface B. TechnoLogica and Junior Coach. Thank you very much for your attention and support. Leonardo Here are the disks and manuals. https://archive.org/details/dacta-elevdata I found another source I am going to merge the content to my archive https://legoeducacional-umcontributo.blogspot.com/2021/05/control-lab-programacao-lego-5-anos.html?m=1 Edited January 10 by amine Quote
legoROBOLAB Posted January 12 Posted January 12 LEGOeducational-umcontributo it´s my blog. I have the help from a friend from Sweden that give to me what I put there. If I can help someone. tell me. Leonardo Quote
Toastie Posted January 12 Posted January 12 2 hours ago, legoROBOLAB said: LEGOeducational-umcontributo it´s my blog. Hi @legoROBOLAB! That is a very nice blog, just had a look. Also, very interesting to hearing about your friend in Sweden! Is there a chance, that your friend has some more information about LEGO Interface A coupled to a Compis school computer back in the days? Must be around 1986-1988. The Compis machines were beautiful machines, but unfortunately a) a bit late to the game and b) used the 80186 CPU - which was a rather special chip, which did not make t much into other machines. It ran CPM-86, could also boot into DOS (that is what I understood so far). There is a dedicated LEGO Lines version for CPM-86/the Compis machine, which is in the hands of another person in Sweden, I am in contact with. Does your friend by any chance have access to a Swedish Compis computer? Or knows somebody who has? Very interesting! All the best Thorsten Quote
amine Posted January 12 Posted January 12 4 hours ago, legoROBOLAB said: LEGOeducational-umcontributo it´s my blog. I have the help from a friend from Sweden that give to me what I put there. If I can help someone. tell me. Leonardo World is small lol, I am trying currently to contact someone who had the french win95 version of control lab. But by that time I figured out I already have the French version of Robotlab on original CD rom with the french big manual.....hundreds of pages !! Quote
evank Posted January 13 Posted January 13 I rescued a large amount of Control Lab sets last weekend. It included the Intelligent House disk (for Mac) so I'll see about archiving that one. Quote
amine Posted January 13 Posted January 13 I am looking activily for the french version http://dcharletoux.free.fr/content/Pilotage_01_apercu.htm Quote
amine Posted January 14 Posted January 14 (edited) Ladies and gentlemen Lego dacta control lab in internet browser. https://archive.org/details/ctrlab_202601 We might be abble to program lego from anycomputer and any OS using this method. Can you check that archive can use the serial port ? It is revolutionary !!! A Blast from the past !!! Edited January 14 by amine Quote
Toastie Posted January 14 Posted January 14 WOW! Nice ... 23 minutes ago, amine said: Can you check that archive can use the serial port ? Hmm - I would need to configure DOSBOX first, i.e., which COM port on my laptop (=USB port) is declared as "serial1" in DOSBOX. Is there a way of configuring DOSBOX on the archive? Best Thorsten Quote
legoROBOLAB Posted January 15 Posted January 15 (edited) That's awesome!!!!!! I'm going to test it with my interface B.... Congratulations, the idea is very original.... and it comes at a good time, since LEGO is discontinuing Spike this year and for now only the LEGO Science kits remain.... This way we continue to have at our fingertips all the good things that LEGO Education has done over the years. Congratulations again!!!! P.S: I'll be sharing this achievement on my blog... even those without an interface will be able to see the program. Edited January 15 by legoROBOLAB Quote
evank Posted January 16 Posted January 16 (edited) Archive.org's browser emulation can not connect to physical hardware. I confirmed this with Jason Scott, who built the emulator. Edited January 16 by evank Quote
amine Posted January 16 Posted January 16 (edited) 2 hours ago, evank said: Archive.org's browser emulation can not connect to physical hardware. I confirmed this with Jason Scott, who built the emulator. I hope that at least we should be able to explore and run the project files online.I am curious however if Jason can do anything on his side to allow the application to communicate via the serial port. Edited January 16 by amine Quote
Toastie Posted January 16 Posted January 16 4 hours ago, evank said: Archive.org's browser emulation can not connect to physical hardware. I was afraid of that - however, there are the emulators "DOS Wasm X" (neilb.net/doswasmx/) and "js-dos" (caiiiycuk/js-dos on GitHub ), which are apparently based on DOSBox-X (which in turn very nicely allows access to the computer hardware), and both run in a web browser ... Well, Google's AI told me that, I have never tried, nor did/do I know anything about it. Best Thorsten Quote
legoROBOLAB Posted January 16 Posted January 16 (edited) Good morning. It's sad news that we can't identify COM1 or COM2. However, DOSBox on the PC has several menus, including the configuration menu. Personally, I don't have the technical knowledge to solve the problem, but I ask: "Couldn't a version of DOSBox already configured for COM1 be uploaded to archive.org?" I appreciate all your efforts; we all know that if we ever manage to get the B interface working online, it will be the first step towards uploading other old LEGO devices... thank you very much. (I'm attaching two images, one with all apps connected to DOSBox and the configuration menu.) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lxvii5yXG1sWP1z1_OVM0nBMpOWFluyh/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l0JupcIA-WY9yeVhPYVC5ITv27FYNk4A/view?usp=sharing Edited January 16 by legoROBOLAB repair link Quote
amine Posted January 16 Posted January 16 1 hour ago, legoROBOLAB said: Good morning. It's sad news that we can't identify COM1 or COM2. However, DOSBox on the PC has several menus, including the configuration menu. Personally, I don't have the technical knowledge to solve the problem, but I ask: "Couldn't a version of DOSBox already configured for COM1 be uploaded to archive.org?" I appreciate all your efforts; we all know that if we ever manage to get the B interface working online, it will be the first step towards uploading other old LEGO devices... thank you very much. (I'm attaching two images, one with all apps connected to DOSBox and the configuration menu.) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l0JupcIA-WY9yeVhPYVC5ITv27FYNk4A/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lxvii5yXG1sWP1z1_OVM0nBMpOWFluyh/view?usp=sharing Getting the application to load online with all the project files is already a first step. After that if the user download dosbox and the right configuration file he should be abble to run the software and use the serial db9 port or a com port through USB viathe configurationfile Dosbox support serial communications in local what I don't know is if the online version of archive can communicate with your physical port or if it is just not allowed by the administrator. Quote
Toastie Posted January 16 Posted January 16 6 hours ago, amine said: Dosbox support serial communications in local what I don't know is if the online version of archive can communicate with your physical port or if it is just not allowed by the administrator. I believe on Windows machines and using a browser for HW control, Windows with its directives is in your way. There are means of circumventing that, see post above, but I'm out on that stuff, I am a DOS person. When locally running a DOS emulator, just make sure you are using DOSBox-X. I have Bluetooth2Serial (BL2Ser) adapters on my Interface A, Interface B, and on my pimped ControlCenter II (I made a serial port for that one). They are all controlled from my Dell laptop using its internal Bluetooth radio - in "parallel". All I do is pair the BL2Ser adapters with my laptop, and then change the COM port Windows gave them to meaningful ports (that's just me). Then I open 3 DOSBox-X instances with their individual config files from a Windows console batch file: @echo off start dosbox-x.exe -conf 8485.conf start dosbox-x.exe -conf 9750.conf start dosbox-x.exe -conf 9751.conf exit Each config file configures the Windows COM port of the individual BT2Ser adapter as DOSBox-X COM1 or 2 port. The last lines of the DOSBox-X config file are (individual QBasic programs for each interface): mount C C:\_DOSBox-X\ c: cd qb11 qbasic /run Q9771\Q9771_3.BAS 3 DOSBox-X windows open, "autostart" QBasic, which in turn autostart my individual BASIC control programs for the 3 interfaces. And then I can play with all three interfaces; even in this configuration, DOSBox-X handles the "data bombardment" from Interface B ;) All this works nicely, but how to access HW from a web browser is >way< above my head ... But maybe someone else know how to do that? All the best Thorsten Quote
Toastie Posted January 16 Posted January 16 (edited) OK, I currently do not know what it's worth, as I am on a business trip ^^ and can't check any further. I just made a ZIP file of my entire QBasic directory with all Qbasic files in sub folders residing on my laptop's HD, including the QBasic.EXE, .HLP, and .INI files. Opened the above referenced website (neilb.net/doswasmx/) and dragged the about 1.2MByte long ZIP file into the little window, that says ... drag files here. It makes Zzzip, then a DOS window appears in the browser and I can start QBasic. There is nothing much about that, as you can do that on the Archive as well, at least this is what I believe. I ran my QBasic control programs for 9750 and 9751 in SIM mode (as I don't have my LEGO stuff with me ;) and all seems going well. Tomorrow I shall try getting access to the serial port - no clue whether that works or not. The thing is: The source code for this web-DOS-thingy is also on GitHub and programming gurus can build their own web-server from scratch ... I certainly cannot . Best Thorsten Edited January 16 by Toastie Quote
amine Posted January 17 Posted January 17 (edited) 20 hours ago, Toastie said: OK, I currently do not know what it's worth, as I am on a business trip ^^ and can't check any further. I just made a ZIP file of my entire QBasic directory with all Qbasic files in sub folders residing on my laptop's HD, including the QBasic.EXE, .HLP, and .INI files. Opened the above referenced website (neilb.net/doswasmx/) and dragged the about 1.2MByte long ZIP file into the little window, that says ... drag files here. It makes Zzzip, then a DOS window appears in the browser and I can start QBasic. There is nothing much about that, as you can do that on the Archive as well, at least this is what I believe. I ran my QBasic control programs for 9750 and 9751 in SIM mode (as I don't have my LEGO stuff with me ;) and all seems going well. Tomorrow I shall try getting access to the serial port - no clue whether that works or not. The thing is: The source code for this web-DOS-thingy is also on GitHub and programming gurus can build their own web-server from scratch ... I certainly cannot . Best Thorsten Seems we can do our own server with it no need to rely on archive !!! https://github.com/nbarkhina/doswasmx Edited January 17 by amine Quote
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