Controlling a 6 degree Robot Arm using a 48K ZX Spectrum
- Track: Retrocomputing devroom
- Room: UB5.230
- Day: Sunday
- Start: 16:35
- End: 17:00
- Video only: ub5230
- Chat: Join the conversation!
![](/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-2898-controlling-a-6-degree-robot-arm-using-a-48k-zx-spectrum/fosdem-2024-2898-controlling-a-6-degree-robot-arm-using-a-48k-zx-spectrum-a87f0a4b1c5237822819e2eba1e006a3e1ea9dbf0ba3fed75cbc55c14f8ac9b3.jpg)
Controlling a Robot Arm, requires some form of interface. In this case, the Lab-Volt Robot arm used implements a private protocol over RS232 serial communication. Hence a new hardware interface board was designed and built to be able to communicate by RS232, which included a "driver" layer (in assembly) that was properly integrated with the Spectrum ROM advanced Channels/Streams concept/feature, allowing the RS232 to be used transparently from BASIC language. The Robot protocol was reverse engineered and a BASIC application implemented to follow the protocol to allow movement of the Robot Arm. A new Module was also added to the robot, to provide a pneumatic end effector that provides for faster interaction with objects with a flat surface were suction can work effectively.
Speakers
![]() |
Rui Martins |