[vox-tech] mindstorms

[Peter Jay Salzman]

ok, i obtained the serial IR tower.

i plugged the tower into my server, satan (the 2nd serial port).  After
putting batteries into the RCX and downloading the Mindstorm 1.5
firmware from katherine's website, i ran:

nqc -S/dev/ttyS1 -firmware firm0309.lgo 

in the console, it printed:

.draining
.draining
.draining
.draining
.draining
.draining

a whole bunch of times.  "00000" appeared on the RCX and it began to
increase.  presumably, "draining" means the process of writing data from
an output buffer to the tower and the numbers on the RCX are almost
certainly the number of bytes read by the RCX.

finally, the following appeared on the console:

Current Version: 00030001/00030009

and the RCX sang a pleasant tune.  i take this to be a good sign.

pete

ps- there is now a linux usb tower kernel driver.  i'll try it out
tonight.