phoenixgarage.org

Here's yet another re-release of the Tomy/Radio Shack Armatron robot arm...

I found yet another article on interfacing the Armatron - this time to a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer! This article first appeared in the April 1984 issue of Color Computer magazine, and was written by Steve Cox (et al).

I recently purchased a couple of these control panels from a local surplus vendor (Apache Reclamation and Electronics), and I am trying to find out how to interface to them, preferably with my Arduino. From what I have been able to discover, they are control panels for two particular Lexmark laser printers, the T612 and the T622...

Waaay back in the day (1994) I played around with VR more than I do now. Recently, I decided to join a new homebrew VR group that's just starting up, and I decided to dust these oldies off, and post them once more...

Here's a nice disassembly/teardown "review" of a Tandy Armatron, featuring really nice and large pictures of the various gearing internals. This might be useful to those hacking their Armatron for interfacing to a computer...

In a previous article I noted that I was making some changes to the site; today I have completed them. I hope that they will bring more visitors, and that perhaps now I will get some comments on articles.

If you're reading this, you've probably noticed the filtering option by now...

Yeah, yeah - nothing new to everyone else, but I finally got around to adding it...

Do you remember being a kid in the 80s, watching the Milton Bradley Big Trak commercial, and wanting one yourself, just so you could have an apple brought to you?

While googling for something else, I recently ran across this interesting article that depicts an alternative method of controlling the Armatron.

A few weeks ago I purchased used (and in pretty rough condition) an Energy Concepts, Inc. (new window) model # 20500B Digital Solid-State Power Supply, from my favorite local electronics junkyard, Apache Reclamation and Electronics...

I was doing some research for a post on the Arduino forums, and I re-discovered this site...

I just found this interesting PDF, which describes a direct-drive motor interface to the Armatron using steppers (check out what those students did to that poor robot)...

I just found out about this robot arm as I was doing some research -after- I had posted my archive! Argh!

This archive was created in an attempt to bring together several sources of information that have floated through time (and the internet) detailing how to interface the Tomy/Radio Shack Armatron (and Super Armatron) to a computer. I hope you enjoy this archive as much as I had compiling it!

Gismo was a robot from another time; a time when boys played with electric motors and train sets, with maybe an occasional "Cowboys and Indians" game outside thrown in...

Ever play with (or own) a Milton Bradley Big Trak? Ever wanted to control it with a computer? Want to interface your Arduino with one? Read this "future past" article to find out how!

So begins an interesting article found in a scan of a fairly old copy of Popular Mechanics; in this article, you quickly learn that the science and art of "Giant Robots" is much older than you think...

It's been a while since I last posted, if anyone out there cares and is reading this, read on, and you'll be filled in...

Thank $DEITY, not our house; unfortunately, it was our neighbor's house. Nobody was living there, fortunately...

Laziness got the better of me, which is why I probably shouldn't tackle a project as large as building a fence, because it would never get done! Anyhow, I took all of these pictures on Saturday, April 4th, showing what the new fence with the gates and view panels installed looks like...

Interesting Frappr Map of TRS-80 Color Computer owners worldwide...

The block arrived early this morning...by the end of the day, our fence was complete; all that is left is the "ironwork"...

Well, with several phone calls, a few estimates, one insurance adjuster, and a pittance insurance check later, we are now well on our way to a new fence...

I found this neat little website which opens with the line "Do not believe the naysayers who say it cannot be done". Apparently it is centered around an individual who goes by the handle of "rog8811"...

Yesterday I came home from work thinking "Ah, a relaxing evening", never imagining anything outside of what my wife and I now define as "ordinary" (things get weird when you have your mother, who has dementia, living with you). Never did I think this would be here to greet me when I got home...

This article serves to document some of the interesting and useful sites both I have found during research - read on for more!

Well, it's official: I am going a new direction in the development of the UGV. A friend from my work, Jared Hurn, has decided to assist me in the development and programming of the robot. We hope to eventually be able to enter it into the Robo-Magellan contest, if not the one next year, then the year after. Read on for more about this exciting new direction the project has taken!

It's been a while since I last updated this site, so I thought I would post something to let everyone know what is going on, where I am at with things, and how I am doing...

I made a small, low-quality video of the pan-tilt mechanism of my UGV/ROV today. The servos are currently controlled via an R/C transmitter; in the future everything will be controlled with a Basic Stamp 2.

I am currently involved in a project to help preserve an interesting RPG for the Color Computer - Paladin's Legacy...

The following is a list of books I recommend, that when taken as a whole, can serve as a primer for understanding the what, how, and why of self-reproducing bits of information known as "replicators"...

Welcome to my website. Whether you arrived here via the link in the Nuts and Volts September 2008 issue, where it was announced that I won (new window) Vern Graner's Personal Robotics $100 Workbench Design Challenge (new window), or in another manner, I want to thank you for visiting.

Enjoy the website, and consider joining phoenixgarage.org's member list to post comments to this and other articles!

I've been lazy about my site, and about my projects. Which is strange, because I have been working...

I originally released this guide back in October of 2003, and several people enjoyed it. All of them said it was helpful and interesting. When I updated my site, the welding guide went away. After looking at my site statistics, though, and noticing people trying to find it, I thought I would dust it off and bring it back.

I recently received this email response from John McCain. Note the distinct lack of reference to what it is regarding. This man and his staff are considered "presidential material"? A wookie from the planet Endor makes more sense than this...

Those of you following along know that my current project is the design and construction of a homebrew UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle). I intend to control it using a BASIC Stamp 2 OEM microcontroller module I constructed (see my assembly primer (new window) for more details). So, once I had the module built, I then needed some way to program it...

I just wanted to post a short "status update" on where my ROV project stood. First off, I am sure you notice the name change...

I wrote this primer for those out there who may need some extra visual and written explanation to the assembly manual which is included with the Basic Stamp 2 OEM kit (new window) from Parallax.

I found this recipe today on Fark (new window) - I haven't made it yet, but I thought it sounded tasty:

Morton_toes' BBQ Bacon Breasts (new window)

Read on for locally-hosted version of the comments and recipe...

To all who visit: Please be patient, I am switching stuff over to mod_rewrite, and you may notice things breaking from time to time. This is normal. I will post a comment when everything seems stable. If you continue to have problems, please contact me...

"This project began as a bit of practical industrial psychology, and ended up unfolding into an understanding of how most people in most human societies have a consistently distorted view of everything. Not everyone is caught in the confusion, and as the picture emerged, an alternative model of relationships between observable phenomena that seems to be experienced by creative programmers in software engineering, star diagnosticians in medicine, great physicists and mathematicians, so-called ADHD children, people who "Know Quality" in industry, poets, painters, sculptors and mystics became describable - but only in its own terms. The alternative picture is wholly rational, but not reductionistic. Best of all, it is scientifically grounded and experimentally testable. If the experiments fail we can junk it. If they work, we've learned something important." - Alan G Carter

In this time of expensive gasoline, any gains in fuel usage efficiency can only be taken so far using ordinary Otto-cycle engines as found in most cars. What is needed is a more efficient engine. Engines with complicated arrangements of cranks, cams and pistons have a lot of moving parts: parts which induce friction, parts which have to be cooled and lubricated, parts which can easily fail. Enter the McMaster Engine...

This blog was recently recommended to me. If you are a fan of old tech magazines (Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Byte, etc), then you will love this site.

I recently received the occasional email newsletter sent from Knowledge Publications (new window), my favorite alternative energy book publisher. I am just a customer, but I have found that even what they offer for free is worth way more than what they charge.

All I can say is "WOW!" - this is a great example of street art...

First off: I apologize, for both my attitude and demeanor during our email conversations. Yes, the issue was at my end, but one can easily see how I was mistaken - it wasn't so much that I was wrong (which I was), but that I didn't have all of the information, either. Read on...

I recently (like 5 minutes ago) sent an email to my Congressman, Trent Franks (new window), after I received one of his so-slickly-produced mailers. Even though I should know better by now, it still surprises me that he regards the citizens of this state to be so ignorant. Then again, maybe he is right?

Every day I seem to come across an article or comment that does nothing but solidify the idea, in my mind, that we are living in a dystopian nightmare as bad or worse than anything depicted in a fictional context.

"One death is a tragedy. One million deaths is a statistic." -Sportacus

So begins David Wong's (new window) humorous and insightful article on Cracked.com.

Tonight, my wife and I prepared a cheap meal, part of which was a simple box of mac-n-cheese. But a little improvisation went a long way...

I recently had the pleasure to conduct a short and informal email interview with a pioneer in the field of hobbyist robotics, David L. Heiserman.

Towards the end of the development of the new "look and feel" for this site, I ran into an interesting issue when I attempted to implement an automatic authentication scheme between my development server and and the virtual server my site is hosted on. The issue turned out to be easy to resolve, but learning how to do so required me to perform many Google searches before I had the correct answer.

As a resident of Arizona, I recently heard about Senator Jon Kyle's opinions on why we have high gas prices. The following URLs shed light:

'Cause-and-effect' behind high gas prices (new window)

Dollar Value Down, Gas Prices Up (new window)

I disagree with this, and if you continue reading, you'll see why...

Sometimes the jewels on the internet are hidden from you until that right moment and time comes along, when it somehow seems to hand you the treasure. I was recently handed such a gem, and I want to share it with you.

FOSS Factory is the only website where the community collaborates on every aspect of free/open source software production, including design, funding and development. Our mission is to help accelerate the advancement of free/open source software.

Of course, what I am referring to here is the look of the site, especially under Internet Explorer 7.