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[ta0]

My robotic buddy (Nintendo Entertainment System, 1985) and I played some tops. Who said that video games and spinning (real) tops don't go together?



 

[ta0]

I am still amazed that this toy exists! I first found out about it when hemingsoft made a post about 5 years ago. I don't have an antique automaton that plays tops, like Cyril has, but I think for a spintop collector this is a dream. On the other hand, for a player not so much. As you can see, play is very slow. 

For the video I wanted to spin both tops simultaneously. Browsing through the levels (fortunately you can skip to whatever level/phase you want) I could not find one that required both spinning at the same time until this one which is the last level. But later I realized that if you are clever it is not necessary even on this one Anyway, I stuck with this solution and it was challenging to finish in the allotted time. But I have to admit that the tops are great spinners and even hanging from the handle they spin remarkably long. The starter base also works great.

[jim in paris]

hello Jorge
yeah your "buddy" is having fun
i have a little bot with voice commands,
but it is zero at tops

i do not understand the link with platform game .. Huh ?

jim

[the Earl of Whirl]

That is pretty wild!!! 

Very interesting.

[mailman]

It wasn't until the very end of the video that I saw the relationship between the robot with the tops and the video on the screen.  I don't play video games, so I'm a bit slow, I guess.

It looks like lots of fun!  I never knew something like this existed....

[ta0]

i do not understand the link with platform game .. Huh ?

It wasn't until the very end of the video that I saw the relationship between the robot with the tops and the video on the screen.

There are two platforms, red and blue, on which Rob can spin a top. The weight of the top on the platform moves a lever that pushes on the buttons of a game controller (meant for human fingers on other games). Keeping one button pressed lowers the columns of the respective color inside the game. So the game consists in Rob manipulating the tops so the correct columns stay up or down.

Rob is battery operated and you cannot control it directly. Rob actually looks with its own eyes at the game on the TV screen. When you want Rob to do something, you send him the instructions through the TV. Normally you use the other game controller to move the character, but to talk to Rob you first press a button that turns the screen blue. Then when you press up/down/left/right/open/close the TV passes the instruction to Rob encoded as green frames.

Although it does not happen, in theory Rob could react to the game itself. Actually, if I replay the recorded game on the TV, he should move without me doing anything. There are several hacking possibilities that would be fun to explore . . . 

[ta0]

A little video having ROB play with tops:



One day I want to hack this topspinning-capable robot, so I tried to figure out the codes it gets from the TV.  I recorded the CRT TV screen at 480 frames per second or 8 times the TV frame rate (60 Hz). I'll put what I found here for future reference as they are not easy to find on the internet (but I finally found this thread of some people trying to hack R.O.B.: link).
The instructions for R.O.B. are given by a series of black and green frames. If we use a 0 as a symbol for a black screen and a 1 for a green screen, the codes are:

RIGHT	000101 1101010
LEFT	000101 0111010
CLOSE	000101 0111110
OPEN	000101 1101110
DOWN	000101 1111011
UP	000101 0111011

The frequency is that of the TV frame rate, 60 per second (not the interlaced 30Hz). I imagine R.O.B. also responds to the 50 Hz used in other countries.
Interestingly, there is another game for R.O.B. (Stack Up) that requires intermediate stops on the vertical direction, so other codes must also be functional (but I don't have that game to find them).
By the way, the testing sequence (that should flash the red led on top of the head) is: 00000 000101 1101011 11111