Matt wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>As a summer project I am considering the construction of a Liquid Fueled
>Rocket.  

Jeez, Cool! I mean, Hot!

>In short, does anyone know of any small logic boards or radio transmitters
>suitable
>for high power rocketry use that will interface with an SE/30 or other
>classic Mac?  Something that would interface with the Mac while it is 'on
>the ground' and maybe a system to receive real time telemetry data from
>while in flight.  It doesn't have to be fast, a few hundred baud should do.
>
>If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

I can think of the following options, restricting it all to I/O gadgets
that plug into the serial port, for simplicity of discussion:

1. use a small 68k logic board on batteries, software loaded into RAM
(RamDisk), no diskdrives connected anymore, together with an I/O gadget)
like the MacIO II that was mentioned yesterday. Measured data could be
pulled from the MacMissile(tm) after landing. Talking to the I/O gadget can
be done in HyperCard etc.

2. use an I/O gadget, and a radio transmitter ( e.g. a mobile phone) in the
MacMissile(tm). On the ground, the SE/30 also uses a mobile phone to
send/recieve the data to/from the gadget. Basically, you extend the serial
cable by going wireless. 

3. Customized microcontroller board like Atmel's, Scenix SX, PIC's etc. For
*some* of these little wonders, there are Mac programming environments
available. I have one here: 'Mac Pic 68k'(1999). The ReadMe says:

"The MacPIC shareware program is a tool for editing, assembling, debugging,
and programming the PIC microcontroller.  All functions are contained in
one program for an integrated development environment."

The package includes Editor, Assembler, Disassembler, Simulator and
Programmer. About 40+ PIC-devices are supported. 

The vastly available info on the PIC's themselves is usable; only the fact
that it's done on a Mac is different. The board itself will be just like
the ones you'd buy/design with a PC.

4. a somewhat larger missile with the footprint of an SE/30? :)

Guestimation: Getting the software to work (for any of the above) will take
more time than the hardware..

-mart


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