Toastie

You mean before the storm hit, the mechanical computer you built, right? You had the one that could read brick coded plates sliding through and the other reading punched cards, wasn't it? Weren't these the first LEGO computers ever? Best Thorsten

Absolutely true! I even used the flexible LEGO "light pipes" to get light around the corner. Good tip! Best wishes Thorsten

Dear All, got my hands on these nifty lil' boxes for Arduino Uno/Yun/M0 Pro/Leonardo. They all fit in there, just both faceplates need to be selected: So I put my LEGO Blockly Arduino with homemade "shield" in there, needed 10 more holes, one for the HC-05, which I can plug/unplug as needed. The other is on the back for the 20 ribbon cable to Interface A and there are the 8 holes for the LED's on the top cover. These are positioned/drilled easily with a scrap piece of perfboard, as the LEDs on the shield do as well. The top cover has 4 additional holes, two for the I/O pins, two more for whatever. The top cover surface is recessed so that a 1 or 2 mm thick cover plate nicely fits in there. I simply used what I found in the basement: 2 mm acrylic glass, which gives clean edges when cut with an exacto knife and then bent - snap! - and carefully sanded. Added a coat of black spray paint, first to the underside, looked cool, but the acrylic glass was showing that it spent some time with metal parts in a drawer. Another coat on the exposed side and a couple of superglue spots to make it stick. Next time, I'll use a new acrylic glass piece, as a) it looks cooler when coated on the underside and b) the black paint doesn't come off - well it can't . Here we go: Naked + clothed ... wait - it should be the other way around ... Yeah - don't panic ... All the best Thorsten

That is true! I did that in the past with my Arduino Nano based interfaces (serial or USB to 8-bit parallel via bit banging). However, as the Nano is so nicely small even with an HC-05 attached, LEGO built cases make is generally a bit bulkier than necessary. Again, I am only talking about my special case carrying these lil' critters around, when away from home. This is all sooo unbelievably cool Best Thorsten

Same here. HiTechnic and other 3rd party companies did it this way back then, even with a (remaining) circle of pre-soldered Cu ring around the hole, maybe for strength or looks (RXC, NXT, etc.). As far as I am aware, they are mostly gone ... at least the custom RCX/NXT sensors are. Best Thorsten

This is indeed new! And COOL. Another thought: When you do the next batch, how about designing it with the LEDs arranged such that they "stick out" a bit? So that the board can go into a small ABS box or the like, rather having them surface mounted (or the like) on the board? Plain vanilla 3 or even 5 mm LEDs? It is very nice and clever to have the bare board attached to a Technic beam, which can be fastened to a build. However, in that case you are in LEGO world and Int.A is probably around as well. When traveling or simply doing program development, a bare board is a bit "exposed" and the Technic beam is not of help. I am enclosing my Arduino boards into a small dead cheap Arduino Uno ABS enclosures. Currently, I just need to do some 8 LED hole drilling and a making a slot for the HC-05 "antenna" (not true, it did not fit into the box ). The holes for the 9V and USB_A socket (my UNO is old ;) are already factory done. These are just ideas!!! I like this project a lot. I also downloaded your latest BrickLogo zip file for Win. So glad that this is not some of your node.js miracles, but comes as executable with some other bits around! That is my biggest problem with all your simply >beautiful, elegant, and absolutely cool< node.js projects: It is way over my head. I simply cannot get it going. Yes, of course: If I can't do it, I should be left behind, I know . I am so excited that so many new brilliant programs and projects arise around Int.A and other legacy LEGO devices. Int.A wise, for me, it is all @evank's fault! All the best and thank you so much for sharing!!! Thorsten

That is absolutely totally cool! I am sure you have seen @Bliss Arduino version over at his thread. I made this "controller" What I like about the LEGO Blockly approach is that I can make Int.A programs without knowing much about all sorts of ports and stuff on a modern computer via USB or BL; would that be possible with your interface as well? Or could it be made compatible with LBlockly? The other thing is: I find it rather comfortable to having 6 visible LEDs for the outputs and 2 for the inputs on the board, as then I can carry it with me while traveling - no need for any Int.A - for program testing. The inputs are of course TTL only (and thus not good for the 4.5V light change sensor, but certainly for the 4.5V touch sensor). Well, Cornelius Munz LEGOINO running on an ESP32 has that feature as well - I made this multiple LEGO protocol interface for it: But it is always nice to having a miniaturized out of the box interface!!! Wow, new developments for Int.A and other vintage LEGO devices really gain some traction here! Perfect!!! All the best Thorsten

Yes. As far as I understood, the XBOX version is one type, which does not work with non-LEGO software (as the protocol is unknown?) whereas the other version (for Wii and all others) does work, as the protocol is known. @Mr Hobbles knows certainly more about that as he can read/write to the Wii type device using node.js. I have the Wii version of the pad and I had somewhere a control program I found in the webs (which I can't find anymore ) that let me turn on/off the LEDs in the pad and change their colors on a Win10/11 laptop via USB. They are also rather cheap. Best Thorsten

I have one more ... I would love to work with: This is another vintage LEGO device, the LEGO Dimensions toy pad. I know that @Mr Hobbles has realized a fantastic solution for interacting with the pad/let the pad do things, but I am simply too dumb to get that going. Here is one of >his< stunning videos about that: Wouldn't it be incredible, when putting a tag (figure/minifigure) on one of the sectors on the pad, that Interface A would "react" and does something? These pads would also add some nice lighting to any larger build as well. And if I am not mistaken, even multiple pads could be used ... Just an idea ... All the best Thorsten

Exactly. One or the other - with my above posted interface, HC05 removed when connected via USB and plugged in when using BT. What I find interesting is that BLE connections stay live, regardless what I do, as do USB cable wired connections to Arduino V2, but BT connections to Arduino V2 react nervously and disconnect when doing something else in focus. Again: It is all fine! Best Thorsten

@Bliss I am doing a bit of testing (will get much more elaborate in the coming weeks ) LPF2 wise (LWP3.0) I have 2-port City and 4-port Technic hubs. As I said, I really find it so powerful to easily connect different generations of LEGO devices to one programming environment. BLE connections seem to be rock solid (I know, you don't like these devices ;) regardless what else I do in parallel on my computer. USB V2 connections to the Arduino interface are as well rock solid. BT V2 connections are not: If I don't anything else on my laptop than running LBlockly, they are fairly stable. However, running e.g., a browser (Firefox) almost immediately leads to a lost connection error. This is all fine and well. Just to get you some data points. I am always using the off-line version of Blockly. One more: The Technic hub has an internal tilt sensor, which can be quite useful. All the best Thorsten

Absolutely true, this is and has been a disaster. However, the way around that is doing your hack. All my builds are essentially locally installed/fixed machines doing things either on my train layout or on shelves etc. So all the PUp devices (as well as RCX' - this is why I only have the 1.0 version) have permanent power I can switch on/off with wireless remotes (Simple 433MHz stuff, ZigBee stuff, Shelly stuff. When it comes to train layouts, I am using the old 9V rail system, feed that permanently with 15V DC and tap into this "power line" going around my office for all the controlling devices (RCX, Scout, MicroScout, NXT, Int.A, Int.B, 8485 ...) A number of my trains are PUp operated; here I use the 9V train motors as a) power pickups from the rails and b) propelling units ;) The rail power goes to a rechargeable battery, here the luxury version is LEGO's 8878 - but this has become superexpensive. Here is what I did - it still works as on day one: It works with other LiPo's as well though. On my "ICE" type train, based on set's 7987 RC module, I am trickle-charging the six NiMH batteries by bringing the 15V DC rail voltage down. This worked for more than a decade now. This trickle charging works also in other PBricks. But yes, PoweredUP is power hungry ... Nevertheless: I remain super-excited about your LBlockly!!! Best wishes Thorsten

@Bliss this will develop into the most powerful software for LEGO's interfaces and PBricks >ever<. Just imagining that I can use a PUp sensor on a simple hub, let's say the 2-port City hub, or the even more powerful but rather cheap 4-port Technic hub to control a 4.5V output on a Technic "machine" is breathtakingly nice! Instead of using two Int.A's to get 4 inputs, I could use a Technic hub and one Int.A ... Wow - this is crazy and opens uncountable options for new routes into machine control - using LEGO technology from 1986 to 2026 - and counting! I never expected something even remotely happening. Thank you very much!!! All the best Thorsten

Hello, not sure what you mean: Interface B is a serial device; I have it connected via Bluetooth to my computer and use @Bliss' LBlockly for programming. Does "mimicking" mean that you want lets say an Arduino or any other microcontroller board replacing Interface B and have access to it via BT? Best Thorsten

Well, it certainly depends on the machine you are running the emulator on. If it is a "modern" Windows computer, LPT is gone since long. There is simply no parallel port anymore. On an "older" machine that actually has one or more parallel hardware ports, it may work, should the emulator get through. DOSBox-X on a Windows machine does have access to parallel ports, when there are any. On my Dell Precision running Win11 there a) are no parallel nor serial ports - there is USB, and thus b) any emulator can't do anything parallel-wise. Regarding serial, it does work using USB2Serial adapters, as they create/represent a COM port - which vintage software does also know. This is why Control Lab for DOS runs flawlessly on a Win11 machine using DOSBox-X as emulator. You are running the Beep emulator on a machine that may or may not have hardware parallel ports. If it does, then the LEGO software may work with Int.A. If it does not have that, it won't work. I can't test anything related to Int.A emulator-wise, as my machines don't have parallel ports. OK, the vintage IBM-XT has, but it can't run any modern emulator software. It can handle Int.A by default :D Best Thorsten