CS 372 Artificial Intelligence

Robot Building Lab

How to Initialize the Handy Board

Find a MAC and extract the following items from your kit:

  1. The Handy Board.
  2. The battery charging unit.
  3. The RJ11 cable.
  4. The power adapter cable.
  5. The Interactive C floppy disk.

 

Next, we will connect the Handy Board to the MAC, and power it up!

  1. Put your MAC to sleep (if it is already awake!),
  2. Connect the battery charging unit to the serial port of the MAC using the MAC-DIN 8 cable.
  3. Make sure the "Charge Rate" switch on the charging unit is selected for "Normal Charge" (as opposed to "Zap Charge").
  4. Connect the Handy Board to the battery charging unit using the RJ11 cable.
  5. Connect the power cable to the battery charging unit and the other end of the cable into a wall outlet.
  6. Turn the Handy Board ON (the power switch is located near the RJ11 connector).

The Handy Board requires two software components: A 6811 runtime library, and the Interactive C application program. Both are provided on the CS372/IC3.1 floppy disk. The 6811 runtime routines are like a small operating system for the Handy Board. Find the application IC 3.1 and launch it. You will get the following screen:

Notice that it says that it can't talk to the board. This is because the board is turned off. Next, from the File menu, select the option "Look for board" as shown below:

Since the board is turned off, it will give the following dialog box:

In order to initialize the board, you have to reload the pcode system. Select that option and you will get the following box:

Make sure that it says Handy Board next to the find button. Next, do as it says: put the board in download mode and press the Download button. You will get a progress bar. If all goes well, you will get the following:

Once again, do as it says, reset the borad by turning it off and then ON again. And press the continue button. If you look at the board, you will get the message:

IC v3.1
Handy Board 1.2

Also, notice in the bottom right corner of the Handy Board screen, there is a blinking heart. A blinking heart indicates a healthy Handy Board.

 

Next, in the interaction window, enter the command: printf("I am alive!\n");

When you hit the Return key, the statement will be translated and executed on the board (watch the bottom right corner of the window for action). You will then get the following screen:

Also, look at the display of the board.

Back to Week 1 Lab.