The Age of Robotics
FIGURE 8.
Stanford
Research
Institute’s
Shakey.
and PDP-15s) that
were way beyond the
budgets of 1970
home experimenters
and robot hobbyists.
Some amazing
robotic creations
began to emerge
from the cluttered
workshops of home
robot experimenters,
however, using some
relatively powerful
microcomputers. Had
we actually entered
the age of robotics
like we thought we
had?
Early Personal Computers
Powered the First
Home Robots
We were convinced that we were on the
cutting edge of robotics. We didn’t care about
those metal monsters in car factories that snaked
about car bodies spitting sparks and paint. We
had massive computing power right at our
fingertips as home computers were becoming
popular. A processor running at an amazing 1
MHz, commanding a full 64 kB of DRAM, a five
meg hard drive, and 5-1/4” floppy disk drives that
we could jam 180 kB of data on — well, the sky
was the limit for our soon-to-be intelligent robots.
Long before the days of microcontrollers such
as the PIC, BASIC Stamp, and Arduino, we had
small, single-board microcomputers such as the
John Bell Engineering Model 80-153 to ‘talk’ to
our main desktop computer. This little 3” x 4”
card-based computer (shown in Figure 9) used the
very popular 6502 CPU and had 1K of RAM, 2K of
FIGURE 9. John
Bell Engineering
single-board
computer. (Photo
by Don Sawyer.)
80 SERVO 06.2010
ROM, and a 6522 VIA (versatile interface adapter)
for I/O. John Bell also sold an EPROM programmer
board to program the 2708 or 2716 EPROMs that
held programs.
Now, experimenters could use a computer
such as the KIM-1, SYM-1, and the AIM- 65 as a
larger single-board computer on board, with
several smaller ‘sub-computers’ for sensors, main
drive motor control, or appendage control. The
Polaroid electro-static ultrasonic range finders from
cameras became the eyes for many a robot in those
days (as well as these days, three decades later).
Computer Age Speeds
Up Robotics Age
In 1974, Intel debuted the first true
microprocessor: the 8080. Few people knew just
what to do with it until a small New Mexico
company (MITS) built a computer kit — the Altair
— that was first publicized in Popular Electronics in
1975. Thousands built the kit, and Bill Gates and
Paul Allen helped supply the operating system.
Another pair of entrepreneurs — Steve Jobs and
Steve Wozniak — built and sold the first ready-to-use personal computer in 1976: the Apple II. Yes,
the computer age was born as people could have
useful computers right on their desktop, rather
than monstrous main frames hidden in back
rooms that only a few could operate.
Robotics continues to claw its way upward.
The computer’s role for robot intelligence greatly
improved things. However, a true robot is more
than just a computer on wheels; it is a life-form of
sorts created to entertain, enlighten, and teach us.
Final Thoughts
Is the basic, all-in-one house-cleaning robot
that dusts shelves full of figurines, cleans windows
inside and out, scrubs and sweeps floors, walks
the dog, and mows the grass still a dream? Is
Isaac Asimov’s Robbie still the trusted babysitter of
the future? Are the NS- 5 robots that tormented
Detective Spooner in I-Robot what we can look
forward to? Is the age of robotics any closer than
it was 25 years ago? Mike Budimir wrote an article
for Machine Design — A Robot in Every House —
in 2002, stating: “Robots are not just for assembly
lines any more. They’re knocking at your front
door, ready to fetch you a beer, watch for
prowlers, or play your favorite CD.” Yes, robots will
continue to proliferate in our society, since we all
know that the age of robotics is here to stay. SV
Tom Carroll can be reached at
TWCarroll@aol.com.
