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Always wanted a HERO ever since seeing ads in the back of the Radio Electronics magazines. Of course price was prohibitive.
by xellisx 8y ago
Always wanted a HERO ever since seeing ads in the back of the Radio Electronics magazines. Of course price was prohibitive.
- 52-6F-62 8y agoJust thought I'd comment to link this from the article in case anybody misses it: http://www.rbrobotics.com/Products/RB5X.htm http://www.rbrobotics.com/Products/RB5X.htm
- IncRnd 8y agoThe RB5X incorporates infrared sensing, ultrasound sonar, 8 sensors/bumpers, voice synthesizer, and an optional 5 axis armature that can lift a full pound. The RB5X can play interactive games with up to 8 people. Programs can be written and downloaded from any computer--Apple Macintosh, DOS, Windows, or Linux/Unix.
- enkiv2 8y agoAuthor here, making a quick correction about the RB5X. When I wrote the article, I believed it was still produced by the original company. I later learned that while the same company produced the RB5X for about 20 years after its initial release, eventually the name & the remaining stock was sold off, twice. They kept afloat despite only having produced a handful of bots because the stock of parts was kept in somebody's garage & ever few years when an order came it, the gang got back together to build one. If you've got an interest in these things & aren't confident about your ability to build one from scratch, the RB5X seems like a good choice: help them clean out their garage. If you are confident in your ability to build one from scratch, I recommend downloading the code, designs, & instructions for the Gemini from Mike Fowler's site -- the Gemini is more capable than even newer robots on the market at a price comparable to what they originally asked for, & the price of components can only have gone down since.
- jackhack 8y agoWow! $1800 for the arm subassembly. (IMO, an essential component. If you're going to have a 'bot it must be able to fetch a beer.) That strikes me as a tough price point to meet. Perhaps I'm jaded after having seen numerous 3-4-5 axis arms on thingiverse & hackaday being 3d-printed and built with servos & stepper motors for a couple hundred bucks or less.
- stcredzero 8y agoConsidering that people now 3D print their own cut-rate R2D2's nowadays, you could probably 3D print your own now.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoMy dad had a hero one in the early 80s. He taught 3rd grade me how to key in programs using the HEX pad on its head. Fun times!
- sehugg 8y agoYep, I longed to be the only 8-year-old in town that could have a robot fetch them a beer. (even though I'd never had one)
- jackhack 8y agoIt's irrational, but I'd like to tinker around with a HERO robot, too. I say irrational because it's possible to have vastly more capability with a Raspberry Pi-based modern bot, at 10% of the price. But there's something alluring about the golden era "old iron" computers (pdp8/11) and 1stgen micros (8088/6502), tube amps over solid-state modeling amps, and robots. In a sense it's amazing they (we?) were able to accomplish so much with so little resource. But also, in the same way that cabinet art portrayed 80's video games as graphical masterpieces even when the graphics themselves were little more than blocks, perhaps it is the hopefulness in the face of failure to deliver on the promises of the early robots that makes them so charming. I hope to live long enough that someone looks at a Boston Dynamics littledog and says "oh, look at that old thing. It's so primitive!"
- xellisx 8y agoTalking about "the good ol' days", with mass ammount of resourses we have today, it seems that "we" don't try to make things as efficient as possible, since we dont have to.