On Mon, Jul 2, 2018 at 11:09 PM, Evan Koblentz via cctalk <[email protected]> wrote: > Time to reveal a personal project related to vintage computing and unrelated > to my role at VCFed. > > In the past two years, while getting neck-deep in the historic Lego 9700 > "Technic Control Center" set, I learned that there is a TON of information > about this set (and about various related sets) -- but most of that > information is missing from the web or at best scattered. > > What these programmable robotic sets all have in common is they're all from > the 10 years BEFORE the modern Mindstorms series, and they run on vintage > computers! > > I decided a few months ago to make a web site about it. I call the site > www.mindsbeforethestorm.com. The site is under construction but you can > visit now and see where it is going.
One thing struck me from looking at your schematic of the Apple ][ interface card (you know me, always looking at the schematics first...) That card is essentally a 6522 VIA with port B linked to a 20 pin header. The BBC micro has a user port which is port B of a 6522 linked to a 20 pin header, and I've just checked the 'Advanced User Guide' and the connections are essentially a superset of those on your Apple ][ board (pns 2 and 4 would be the CB1 and CB2 lines on a BBC). It is my guess that the BBC micro version of this system used the Lego interface box, but connected it straight to the user port on the BBC. -tony
