Lego Mindstorms and the Mac: getting started

jbljbl
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I don't know if this has been discussed before... I can't seem to get search to work.



Anyway, I have thought that Mindstorms was pretty cool and a few months ago I heard that someone had ported Robot Controller to OS X. So now I have Mindstorms, but I am having problems knowing where to start. I have Robot Controller, but I need to download the firmware to the RCX. I have the disk that came with Mindstorms but I don't know which file is the firmware (I don't see anything marked "firmware"). Anybody know?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    my brother will be home from school in a few hours. I'll tell him to come here and help. He knows all about Lego Mindstorms and mac compatibility
  • Reply 2 of 7
    jbljbl Posts: 555member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by applenut

    my brother will be home from school in a few hours. I'll tell him to come here and help. He knows all about Lego Mindstorms and mac compatibility



    I guess that was when the boards were down. Anyway, I took that opportunity to search around the internet and finally figured it out. I guess the firmware comes with the (beta) SDK on Lego's website (in case anyone else wants to know). If your brother is still around I would appreciate any other advice on where to start. Also, while I was hunting around on Lego's website I saw this Vision Control thing. Looked pretty interesting but there were not any details. What kind of image analysis can you do with that and how does it interact with the RCX?
  • Reply 3 of 7
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    If you don't mind ... keep this thread up to date. Mindstorm is the kind of geek stuff I'd like to get into.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    yea, the boards were down... i'll tell him now
  • Reply 5 of 7
    thinkdifferent1984thinkdifferent1984 Posts: 69member
    I don't specifically use Mindstorms, I use the Mac compatible version of it called "RoboLab". It is pretty much the education model of mindstorms, and of course, for education, it has Mac compatibiliy. The Robot Controller software seems pretty cool. As for the firmware, i'm installing RoboLab on my 6100 now, i'll find the firmware file and tell you what it's called.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    squidthingsquidthing Posts: 124member
    I have RoboLab, it's far superior to the software included with the RIS but it's classic only at the moment so now I use NQC.



    With NQC you type the programs using a text editor and then download them with the terminal. Coding vs Graphic Programming is mainly a personal preference, but I find Robolab a bit daunting with all the boxes and cables, and NQC is very easy to learn, plus it's free.



    You can also use NQC to download the RCX's firmware, which you get with the RCX 2.0 Beta SDK.



    Enjoy..



    (look up how to make proximity detectors they're pretty cool)



    Andrew
  • Reply 7 of 7
    cubedudecubedude Posts: 1,556member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Scott

    If you don't mind ... keep this thread up to date. Mindstorm is the kind of geek stuff I'd like to get into.



    You might like this site.



    Also The Screen Savers has done a few segments on Mindstorms.



    http://cgi.techtv.com/search?query_t...nytime&x=0&y=0
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