Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!sgiblab!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uunet!psinntp!gdstech!wlim
From: wlim@gdstech.grumman.com (Willie Lim)
Subject: Re: Desktop robotics (Macintosh?)
In-Reply-To: dbell@coral.bucknell.edu's message of 14 Sep 1993 18: 11:10 GMT
Message-ID: <1993Sep16.135847.4170@gdstech.grumman.com>
Followup-To: comp.robotics
Organization: Grumman Corporation, Bethpage, New York, USA.
References: <dbell-140993140422@macf16.bucknell.edu>
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 13:58:47 GMT
Lines: 85

At the risk of starting a religious flame war ... what the hey... :-)

In article <dbell-140993140422@macf16.bucknell.edu> dbell@coral.bucknell.edu (David Bell) writes:

   I am try to decide on ideas for a thesis in mechanical
   engineering/robotics.  I personally have an interest in Macintosh
   computers, and think that the GUI of the Mac would be great for a
   robotic controller (and the voice recognition of the new AV Macs
   would be really something) but our robotics lab is full of IBMs and
   my budget does not allow for the purchase of a new computer, so
   that idea is on standby unless I hear of some possible
   super-educational discounts (are you listening, Apple people?)

I have spent (wasted to some people :-) about 4 years hacking software
for mobile robots on a Mac II and Mac IIfx.  If GUI is the primary
concern of your project and not robotics then the Macintosh may be
appropriate.  The Macintosh had a clear advantage a few years ago but
not anymore especially with DOS-independent Windows 4.0 coming out.
If I have to do it over I'll go with a Linux machine (see below).
After all that work, I have to redo the user interface part to port
the robotics software to a Unix workstation.  And I have basically
locked out potential users/customers who are from the Windows/DOS
world.

If you are developing robotics systems for the market, then you have
to decide if you want to go into the Macintosh market segment (about
20% of the total number of desktop/home computers out there) or with
the Windows/DOS market segment (4 times the size of the Macintosh
market).  You need either a higher hit rate or charger a higher price
to make the same amount of revenues with the smaller market segment.
Educational discounts may make the Macintosh cheaper for you but not
for most of your customers unless you are targeting the even smaller
"educational-discount" market.

What do you need for a desktop robotics development system?  Well you
need the hardware, a program development environment (usually C), a
windowing system (if that is important to you), special I/O cards
(e.g. sound cards, CD ROM drives, image processing boards, voice
recognition systems).  For the Macintosh you need to get something MPW
C or Think C for the program development.  There may be freeware C
systems for the Macintosh.  However on the DOS/Windows systems you
have a choice of both commercial (e.g. products by Borland, Microsoft,
etc.)  and free (GNU C++) software.  Both the Macintosh and
DOS/Windows systems have third party I/O cards however I believe you
get more choice both in terms of type and price in the latter.  You
need documentations too (e.g. the 6-7 volumes of Inside Macintosh) to
get into the guts of the windowing system or OS.

If you are doing research or just tinkering (i.e. no intention of
going commercial), then you take a look at the free software, Linux
(UNIX).  Unfortunately it is only available on 386/486 machines but
there may be work going on to port it to 68xxx systems.  You don't
need DOS/Windows, OS 2, or any other commercial software to get your
Linux system going, even though Linux can co-exist with these systems.
It is an open system that comes complete with gcc, emacs, tex/latex,
and X windows and most of the man pages.  It is a complete UNIX
system, e.g. it has UUCP, news, ftp, nfs, mail, etc. etc. all bundled
in.  So if you need a UUCP connection for sending and receiving mail
to the outside world, all you need is add a modem.  If you have an
ethernet card, your Linux system will fit right into any TCP/IP
network just like any Unix machine.  It works with the popular IO
cards for the PC e.g.  SoundBlaster pro, several brands of CD-ROM
drives and video boards, etc.  There is a large selection of printers
too (mainly because of tex/latex).  If you are not running X windows,
you can get a Linux system for about $1000 (a 4 Mbyte, 386, 33 Mhz,
about 100 MB of hard disk, and the 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives).  You
can get a pretty good system for $2000 e.g. great graphics for your X
windows, sound cards, etc.

The key advantage, in my view, is that the Linux is a completely open
system.  You can get the source code for everything in it if you want.
That means you have complete control of its software and can make it
work the way you want it to work.  You don't have to deal with any
proprietary stuff at all.  You also get a real multi-tasking,
multi-user system for free.

The main disadvantage of Linux is that it requires a hacker mentality
or attitude.  It is clearly not for those who can only click and point
and don't want to know or not capable of knowing what is going in that
box. :-)




Willie
