Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: sean@cs.tamu.edu (Sean Graves)
Subject: American Robotics Merlin question
Message-ID: <1992Sep24.053502.14764@tamsun.tamu.edu>
Sender: news@tamsun.tamu.edu (Read News)
Organization: Computer Science Department, Texas A&M University
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1992 05:35:02 GMT
Lines: 29


My lab will soon inherit a Merlin robot.  It currently is not in use,
and the disks and manuals have been lost.  So we are investigating what
approach to take to get it running.  We are primarily interested in
controlling this robot from another host, such as a PC or VME rack.

Today I talked to a fellow with American Robotics.  He told me that there
are really three approaches we can take:
1. A teach pendant setup called AR-Smart
2. A BASIC-like environment running on a PC as a front end
3. Something called HSHI (High Speed Host Interface).  This is really the
	best, because you can control things at a low level if you want.  It 
	allows you to connect the backplane of the PC or VME to the controller's
	backplane.

The question is money.  1 will cost ~$500, 2 will cost ~$4000, and 3
is ~$8000.  

Given that we want external control of the arm (for sensor interfacing,
etc), the HSHI looks like the way to go.  I would appreciate any comments
from Merlin users.  Specifically, if you are using solution 1, I would
like to know what level of functionality you have.  If you are using
2 or 3, please let me know what you think of it.

Thanks!

Sean


