Bot-Kit, Cybermaster, Windows-2000

Bot-Kit, Cybermaster, Windows-2000

Do they work together?

Nevin

In article <A0d56.3919$[hidden email]>,
  "Nevin Pratt" <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Bot-Kit, Cybermaster, Windows-2000
>
> Do they work together?

Looks like I can now answer my own question :-)

I just bought a Cybermaster for my son (we also own the Lego
Mindstorms).  Now I can test it.  The results are...

The software that comes from Lego with the Cybermaster DOES NOT work
under Windows 2000.  However, Bot-Kit (with Dolphin) works just fine to
control the Cybermaster under Windows 2000.

Nevin


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"Nevin Pratt" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:A0d56.3919$[hidden email]...
> Bot-Kit, Cybermaster, Windows-2000
>
> Do they work together?

I have not been able to install the Bot-Kit, due to the installer used.
It muck's-up the destination directory to an illegal pathname.

Anyone have an installable bot-kit on Win2000?

I'm still hesitating wether to buy:
- the CyberMaster, available here in Holland, but a little impaired
- the Robot Invention System I cannot find here or on the net.

Richard

Nevin,

I'm not sure.  Bot-Kit does (well, it did at the '99 OOPSLA) work with
CyberMaster.  Given that Dolphin gets developed on Win2k, I suspect that
you'd be ok.  In truth, I'd be more worried about the Lego software running
on Win2k than I am about Bot-Kit.  However, you might find that you won't
need to actually run their software.  I haven't tried this from start to
finish, but, if you use regsvr32 to register spirit.ocx and then use a
couple of ISpirit methods to download the firmware to the CyberMaster (I'm a
MindStorms user, so your situation might end up being different), it might
work w/o having to install the graphical programming environment.  Note that
you **do** need to buy the Lego software, but, I'm not aware that the
license agreement requires one to actually run it - if you find it does,
please let me know.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

> The software that comes from Lego with the Cybermaster DOES NOT work
> under Windows 2000.

Honest gang, I didn't peek.  I'm not at all surprised though, because it's
such a multi-media "authoring" kludge.  Not bad for the intended audience,
but, they really should rewrite it using Dolphin and Bot-Kit :)


>  However, Bot-Kit (with Dolphin) works just fine to
> control the Cybermaster under Windows 2000.

Any tricks required to make it go, or did the Lego installer run to
completion?  What about the firmware?

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

"Bill Schwab" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:9355hi$98j36$[hidden email]...
> >  However, Bot-Kit (with Dolphin) works just fine to
> > control the Cybermaster under Windows 2000.
>
> Any tricks required to make it go, or did the Lego installer run to
> completion?  What about the firmware?

Once we got our Cybermaster, there were no tricks.  The Lego installer
runs to completion.  However, you just can't execute the Lego software
afterwards.  Of course, Bot-Kit needs some of the stuff on the Lego CD
(DLL's, OCX's, or whatever), so you still must install the Lego
software.

I'm actually quite pleased with it.  Good work Andy, Blair, or whoever
did the Bot-Kit!!!

Nevin Pratt

> > Bot-Kit, Cybermaster, Windows-2000
> >
> > Do they work together?
>
> I have not been able to install the Bot-Kit, due to the installer
used.
> It muck's-up the destination directory to an illegal pathname.
>
> Anyone have an installable bot-kit on Win2000?

I've installed it.  I had a problem (which I posted on about a week
ago), but the problem was just user-error.  It works fine.

> I'm still hesitating wether to buy:
> - the CyberMaster, available here in Holland, but a little impaired
> - the Robot Invention System I cannot find here or on the net.

I bought the RIS first (for my son).  Later I bought CyberMaster, so we
have them both.  We like 'em both just as well.

Nevin Pratt

Nevin,

> Once we got our Cybermaster, there were no tricks.  The Lego installer
> runs to completion.  However, you just can't execute the Lego software
> afterwards.  Of course, Bot-Kit needs some of the stuff on the Lego CD
> (DLL's, OCX's, or whatever), so you still must install the Lego
> software.

I question whether that's the case.  It looks to me that you can manually
register the spirit.ocx (its dependencies are modest) and I _think_ the
firmware is sitting in a file in plain view on the CD.  I'm not suggesting
this as a way to cheat on buying the software - I simply don't want to have
to actually run it again.  At this point, I'd have to go back through the
tutorial because I've long since lost or forgotten the access code to avoid
it.  Also, as your experience justifies, I don't trust the software to
continue working nearly as long as the OCX itself.  My brick is still
happily running the firmware that I downloaded to it when I first bought it;
but, I'm hoping that I won't have to resort to the Lego software to refresh
it should I ever manage to fry it or let the batteries run down for too long
(gotta happen eventually, right?).


> I'm actually quite pleased with it.  Good work Andy, Blair, or whoever
> did the Bot-Kit!!!

AFAIK, it was Andy's doing.  I too am quite impressed with it.  In fact, it
was Bot-Kit that prompted me to buy a MindStorms set; the ability to use
Smalltalk to control a home-grown robot is too much fun to pass up.  It
might even find its way into a research project we've recently started.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

"Bill Schwab" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:9367ea$913um$[hidden email]...
> Nevin,
>
> > Once we got our Cybermaster, there were no tricks.  The Lego
installer
> > runs to completion.  However, you just can't execute the Lego
software
> > afterwards.  Of course, Bot-Kit needs some of the stuff on the Lego
CD
> > (DLL's, OCX's, or whatever), so you still must install the Lego
> > software.
>
> I question whether that's the case.  It looks to me that you can
manually
> register the spirit.ocx (its dependencies are modest) and I _think_
the
> firmware is sitting in a file in plain view on the CD.

Yes, I believe you're right ('spirit.ocx' for MindStorms, probably
something different for Cybermaster).  That's the "some of the stuff on
the Lego CD" I was talking about.  Since I wasn't sure exactly what was
needed, though, the easiest thing for me to get the "some of the stuff
on the Lego CD" was to just install the complete Lego Software.  Bot-Kit
then worked fine.

In case you (or anyone else) missed my post of about 10 days ago (under
a different thread) where I couldn't get it working, here are the steps
I took when it didn't work.  You'll see my obvious error:

1. I first installed MindStorms software on one of my laptops (an older
one) that happed to be running a pre-release version of Windows 2000 (I
forgot it was a pre-release Win-2K).  Tested the Lego Mindstorms
software, and it worked.
2. I installed Dolphin 2.1 and 4.0.  Installed Bot-Kit under both.  It
worked fine.
2. A few days later, I had Sprint Broadband internet service installed
and connected at my house.  My first machine to connect was that laptop.
Everything continued to work fine.
3. A couple days after that, I downloaded the Win-2K update at Microsoft
for that laptop, and installed it.  My Broadband quit working for that
laptop. (this is unrelated to Bot-Kit).
4. Realizing that I had a pre-release Win-2K on that laptop, I bought
the retail Win-2K and installed it on the laptop.  I did a fresh OS
install.  The Broadband started working again.
5. I then re-installed Dolphin 2.1 and 4.0, as well as Bot-Kit for both.
6.  Tested Bot-Kit, and it no longer worked.

You can see, I missed step #1 after re-installing the OS.  Of course
Bot-Kit wasn't going to work (the 'spirit.ocx' and who knows what else
was no longer on my laptop)!  Duh!!

Bot-Kit works just fine under Win-2K, *if* you install the Lego software
first.  Either that, or figure out exactly what you need off of the Lego
CD and just install that.  But for me, it was easier to just install the
complete Lego software.

Same goes for Cybermaster (at least as far as Bot-Kit is concerned).

Nevin