A talking Apple IIe robot #Apple #AppleII #Robots #VintageComputing #RetroComputing

Apple IIe Robot

Via Cameron Coward on Hackster.io who wrote about this retro project:

When most people decide they want to build a robot, they start with some sort of kit. Super elite makers might take a more granular approach and build it from scratch using some sort of microcontroller board as the brain. But, Mike Kohn isn’t most people, and went the completely bonkers route of turning a vintage Apple IIe into a robot rover.

This project was inspired by “scary” killer robots seen in cheesy 1980’s sci-fi horror movies. In order to make the project more authentic, I started with the ultra-intimidating 6502 based Apple IIe.

I started by pulling out the power supply and making a circuit that could provide 5v, -5v, 12v, and -12v from a battery and created a motor control board. The motor control board runs on an ATmega368 connected to the Apple IIe through its joystick port and includes an Emic 2 voice synthesis module.

At the top is a 3D printed sword controlled by a simple servo motor. Code running on the Apple IIe is written in Apple BASIC and sends commands to the motor control board by bit-banging data over 2 output wires from the joystick port.

There are alot of design details like which includes how to power the 4 voltages the computer needs via one large LiPo battery.

See a Youtube video below and the project details on mikekohn.net.


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