Toastie

Here is to feeling good Best, Thorsten

And that's the core of the matter! Just make sure to let @evank know about your endeavors and maybe post here (this is what I try to do; Evan runs his wonderful website pulling everything together, documenting all these activities. EB is (for me) the place to "document" details, nifty things, fun doing it, and letting the world know what they miss(ed) . Says the dude, who gets zero to a couple replies on respective threads . I sure let Evan know though what I am up to). Oh yes, as Evan said: Welcome to the fun house! Best, Thorsten

Sets we want, new elements we want - sure, I can see that. My approach comes from a different angle, though. It was not about what he/she/it wants, it was more about market gears moving and patents regulating an otherwise closed (and merely stagnant) system. And I can assure you I do parse the LEGO catalog every half year, I do BrickLink purchases, I love LEGO. But, as Donald "Duck" Dunn says in Blues Brothers: "If the shit fits, wear it". I am sitting right now in my attic. Looking to the right, up on the wall dominates the MK "Flying Dutchman". Believe it or not, this ship outruns every single pirate ship, TLG ever made, by an order of magnitude ;) Design wise that is, the bricks and plates are generic. Generic as in "Aspirin" - stupid Germans; scroll down to "Trademark" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin - they misspelled the name, duh All the best and take it easy, Thorsten

Hi Scott, welcome to the club!!! There are a number of threads in this forum dealing with 9750, I guess you have seen them already. Are you planning on some DIY interfacing, or do you have everything in place already? All the best and have fun! Thorsten

It appears as if it is even shorter (15 - 20 years) - provided you don't do any substantial improvements to the design, and successfully renew the patent. Which is - for a (on the micron scale defined) LEGO brick made from ABS polymer - quite the challenge Well, we all love the free market, don't we? Many things are affordable these days, simply because there is competition. And competition usually leads to quality/design improvements, market challenges, etc. etc. And in the world of capitalism, surely also to cannibalism, that's automatically built in there. Just imagine, this "free" market would not exist and every piece you can think of is patented - to the end of time. That would lead to crazy times! If there were no competition - because their patents retire one after another, TLG would charge super-insane prices, would not put prints on one single piece, as stickers are so much cheaper, and so on and so forth. Now that they feel (heavily) the competition on the free market, they do improve, I believe to detect that here and there. But what do I know. Price-wise, they are still in money making heaven (look at their annual >profit< they make for decades) - but, well, they are apparently the market leader and produce the best quality bricks in the world. Not sure if kids need the best quality bricks in the world, but maybe adults. And this is what they are after, aren't they, the adults? So many black boxes on the shelves with display only models. But so be it, I don't have to buy them, because there are alternatives. When your patent is that strong, then 15 - 20 years of raking in money is enough, the Gods of Patents say. You also had the same time to do something else. The free market ... oh well. Best regards, Thorsten

Oh crap ... all "advanced" serial ports settings are identical. However, I noticed that you are using XON/XOFF as protocol; I have "none" activated. The IR/RF towers are as dumb as a rock. They don't know anything about flow control other than having the bridge between RTS and CTS = "always ready". BricxCC/NQC don't even bother, the LEGO software does though - the SCOUT tool for example claims there is no tower when the corresponding pin is not pulled high. The electronics in the tower is naturally always way faster than 9600 baud can ever be - it doesn't have to do anything other than emitting the IR/RF serial signal coming in and vice versa. Not the point. But when you have xon/xoff activated, any "tower echo" or CM reply with value 0x13 may stop the transmission, as this is the character to signal "device is busy". For ASCII character transmission, all is fine, as these begin at 0x20 (space). All characters below (0x00 - 0x1F = 32) are considered control codes. LEGO byte codes are of binary nature - no control chars at all. That may be an issue when transmitting longer sequences of bytes (a program). And then no further bytes are coming in, as the towers don't do anything smart, as for example sending 0x11 = "ready" ... I'm not sure though, you can simply try that out - somewhere in your code may be 0x13 ;) Best regards, Thorsten P.S.: I just noticed the pwr command is byte code 0x13. Mayb you should just let the CM brick play a tone. Does this work?

Maybe, maybe not, who knows. The entire industrial revolution was one big no permission copy frenzy. After 30 years, patents are becoming volatile, provided you can't push things further. So legally, every molded piece of ABS falling into the "clippable blocks" category being compatible with whoever has patented that very design more than 30 years ago, is up to the free market. And that's it. At least one absolutely minor advantage of the free market. 30 years ... if you didn't make it then, you'll make it anytime - no wait, that was about location and not time Copying MOCs, stealing set designs, etc. etc. is not tolerable, at least for me. Do I buy other than TLG bricks and sets? For sure! It's a >toy< world, not a deeper insight into how the universe was made and works. All the best, Thorsten

This is really weird. I fired up my Cybermaster brick and tower, along with BricxCC on WIn11/64bit. USB2Ser adapter on COM1. Composed a short program, making the CM play some tones. All works as expected. I have no clue what goes wrong on your side. It maybe the adapter; I remember that I had one, where all looked good, but some stuff simply did not work. I am using a rather seasoned LogiLink adapter with an FTDI FT232RL chip set. Others will certainly also work; what is the chip set on yours? Do you have other PBricks as well? Maybe an RCX or SCOUT? If so, do these run programs you downloaded from BricxCC? Maybe acquiring an RF tower from BrickLink may be an option? All the best, Thorsten P.S.: You did put on all 4 antennas on both the CM brick and tower, I am sure. Just speculating, because I remember having issues with communication when 2 antennas were missing, even when putting them side by side. I am just wildly guessing here ...

I believe yes, otherwise direct control won't work? If of any help, I'll fire up my cybermaster units and try downloading a short program. Direct control worked flawlessly also here ... Now, you are of course aware of the 396 LEGO byte code RAM limit, right? Best, Thorsten

Metoo And as @kbalage pointed out: I came to the same conclusion ... Best, Thorsten

Very nice design, indeed! Does it match in scale with your really nice airplanes you posted as well? Best regards, Thorsten

Hey, that is - almost my story! OK, not in love since 60 years, but 58 - and I am a man. And yes, it was a boy's toy, for sure. So I was not considered nuts ... everything else is the same, though. Our kids (OK, now grown-up women) never made it into LEGO (I tried, but then sooner than later realized that this "trying" is a very elegant way of acquiring LEGOssss >for me< without much of a notice in the accounting department - in the beginning that is. Soon enough, I was busted . Nowadays, when I tell kids, teenagers, university students, grown-ups - regardless of gender - that I do play with LEGO, I happily go with your approach. Best, Thorsten

That sounds reasonable. It really is a shame though, you pointed out the reasons, I 100% agree with. As misleading as these algorithms are and will always be, the numbers still seem to count, as they can be added up. "Quality" or "time invested for a review" cannot be counted up. And I totally agree on your assessment of free set value vs time/cost invested for the review. However, a review is (I believe) done during "leisure time" - and it should be fun to do so? Best, Thorsten

But that only leaves a few - or better only one - reason left, doesn't it? Limit the number of reviewers due to budget constraints (I'd say the more opinions, the better - and constructive criticism is bolstering "quality", so why cutting down) Anything else? Best, Thorsten

That's why I use the 1980's style LDRAW database along with their offline updates. Never real-time-up-to-date, but every half year or so ... and have to use crappy design programs as well. Oh well; cyber-security has become a very big deal over the past decades. Nothing new. And when the mighty TLG company acquires BL, Stud.io, and ties them together (an extremely powerful design tool and a world-wide marketplace, it requires huge efforts for securing the myriads of "links" in between. And: I bet, TLG is a class 1 target for cyber criminals. Best, Thorsten

Chemistry rules Very briefly: Maybe the term positive/negative "port" is confusing in step 6 @Carsten Svendsen? If so, "port" relates to either the "test" (=permanent 4V DC) output of 9750, located at the top right, or to the two terminals of any 3 - 5V DC power source at hand. Also, it is rather important in step 4 to figure out, which hole of the test output of 9750 is positive and which is negative, as it won't work when wired the other way around. On the two 9750's I have, the negative hole is the upper, and positive the lower. I also believe that his is the case on all 9750's - but who knows. @evank You may want to point to the polarity significance in step 4. And maybe change "port" to "positive test supply voltage"? Don't know ... Best, Thorsten

and less >fun< to search for them. I do get the color coding approach. I don't get why they think kids are ... stupid. I know, it is not about stupidity and more about persistence. It may also be about AFOLs throwing the half-done build at the next available wall, because they can't find the so-hard-to-find piece. I am color-blind, so all the coding stuff is totally obsolete, particularly because the colors in the instructions hardly meet the colors of the real pieces. Good thing is: The pieces have unique shapes. And time is relative. Best, Thorsten

Are your tracks bolted down to the LEGO grid? Or do you have or may consider (tiles) giving them some flexibility? When the flextrack piece comes so close, then I would just ease up the strickt geometry. Nobody will notice. Best, Thorsten

The idea is really nice; and applies to many, many other - vintage/collection/preservation/... initiatives. As far as I am concerned, it is not the building (which is, of course (!), a lot of work) of such a website or repository - it is its lifetime, that - in the end - matters. What is your idea of making it "sustainable"? I am asking with all due respect (!), as I see so many websites ... disappear and links leading nowhere ... All the best, Thorsten

"Ready Player One". Again. Never saw the movie and will not. It doesn't get better than the written words creating my very own movie in my head. And: "Artemis" - simply because Art3mis is my favorite character in Ready Player One ;) The novel is so cool ... I shall pick my favorite character in Artemis and then find another book ... well, it is of course "Jazz" ... "Imagine a town where you can stay out as late as you want, wake up when it suits you, you never have to go to work, and everything is free for the taking." That sounds like fun ... Best, Thorsten

Well, this is way too late (OP was July 2 + 1 week) - just to make sure what is going on in Germany On 30% of all Autobahnen (or Autobahns) there is a speed limit of 120 - 130 km/h. On 8-9% of the (total) 13000 km Autobahn, there are more than 550 long(er) term construction sites. Which totals to about 1200 km. So, relax, sit back, and enjoy the time in one of the 213000 traffic jam km, we currently build up each year on the Autobahns. BTW, once the traffic jam clears, people usually go totally nuts and try to compensate for the time lost. Just to come to a grinding halt in the next jam caused by another of the 550 construction sites. No need for a >500 PS super car at all, not in Germany. Well, one of my colleagues in the US used to tell me: Come on, let's do a ride - you won't believe, how fast this thing gets to 70 mph. I ride my ebike to work (15 km). With a super car: 15 min absolute minimum, i.e., 3 am incl. ignoring traffic lights; 30 min incl. light traffic jam at 6 am; 40 min incl. regular traffic jam at 8 am. With ebike: 35-40 min, depending on #cars and #traffic lights I need to navigate. So: When visiting Germany, just get a small car if at all, and just relax. Go with the flow, if there is some. Best, Thorsten

Wasn't it: "Just buy two"? (As it was/is with all passenger trains etc.?) Best, Thorsten

I can see that - but then: LEGO was always - and by far - the most expensive source of building blocks. All that stuff from the galaxy far, far east, was so much cheaper - one of the reasons was their apparently cheap crappy molding machinery and cheap bad resin formulations. Cheap machines + cheap formulations = bad (but cheap) bricks. So we were told, right? Well, TLG still is - and by far - the most expensive source of such building blocks. But now these become crappy as well? But that would mean that the price should drop dramatically, isn't it? Oh, well. I guess it is the "more expensive = better quality" thing, they successfully push. Or: "even more expensive = even better". At least, this is what the prices of recent LEGO sets suggest. Who really cares about the dents, injection points, and hey - the color mismatches, I will never see Best, Thorsten

I totally missed this ... sorry! It is so cool to see all the love you put into the interior, which is the living space - phantastic. So many, countless details. Another MOC, where it is all about the love for the detail "inside" - TLG never cares about anymore. Cozy - functional - I'd love to live in that motor home. All the best, Thorsten

OK, now we are talking - the microchip 16F819 microcontroller can do a lot of things (it has a serial port, 5 chn 10 bit A/D converter, PWM, I2C, some memory ...) and the L293D is a 4x half-H driver But no idea, what this beast is now doing - all things may happen in the 16F ... do you have more documents on the 16F? I guess not - but that renders any further analysis really difficult. All the best, Thorsten