Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: fredm@media.mit.edu (Fred G Martin)
Subject: Mini Board versus 6.270 Board
Message-ID: <1992Dec6.210808.19039@news.media.mit.edu>
Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Sun, 6 Dec 1992 21:08:08 GMT
Lines: 57

Dear Netters,

There seems to be a bit of confusion as to the difference between the
Mini Board and the 6.270 Board.  I thought I might try to clear it up.

First, things that both boards have in common:

* plans are available from the MIT Media Lab FTP server
(cherupakha.media.mit.edu).

* they are both based on the Motorola 6811 CPU core.

* the designs are distributed freely.

Other than this, the boards are different beasts.

				   
THE 6.270 BOARD

The 6.270 Board is the one we use in our MIT course, the LEGO Robot
Design Competition.  It has 32K of battery-backed RAM, an LCD display
port, a stacking expansion board, and a bunch of other features.  The
board measures 3" x 5".  Look in directory pub/6270/docs and print out
the Robot Builder's Guide to learn more about it.

Greg Kulosa just sold out of his run of fifty 6.270 boards.  These will
be the first boards distributed to the net community.  If anyone else
is interested in hosting a board run (there was an overflow of
interest from Greg's order), he has offered assistance.  Contact Greg
at gkulosa@oberon.com.


THE MINI BOARD

The Mini Board is a minimalist design with only a 6811 CPU, 2 motor
driver chips, an RS-232 link, and connectors.  It's very small:
smaller than a business card.  It's good for beginning projects or
small dedicated applications, because with just a 6811, you only get
256 bytes of RAM and 2048 bytes of EEPROM.

You can use a 12K EPROM 6811 with the Mini Board.  However, the
development cycle will be slow because you have to UV erase the 6811's
memory.  It doesn't make sense to think about adding external RAM to
the Mini Board; it wasn't designed for expansion.  If you need
expansion, you need another board, like the 6.270 or some commercial
board with external memory.

Look in directory pub/miniboard/docs for information; contact Gregory
Ratcliff (gratclif@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) for boards.


I hope this helps!

	- Fred Martin

Fred Martin | fredm@media.mit.edu | (617) 253-7143 | 20 Ames St. Rm. E15-301
Epistemology and Learning Group, MIT Media Lab     | Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
