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Bots / The Ultimate Palm Robot/ Mukhar & Johnson / 222880-6 / Chapter 6
Bots / The Ultimate Palm Robot/ Mukhar & Johnson / 222880-6 / Chapter 6

120 The Ultimate Palm Robot

I n the beginning, scientists programmed their computers by flipping
switches. The position of the switch corresponded to a bit, either 0 or 1, and
the computer stored each bit. After entering all the bits that made up the
program, the scientist told the computer to execute the program. One of the first
computers, called the ENIAC, could execute 5000 operations per second and
used 1000 square feet of floor space. Scientists predicted that soon computers
would be able to program themselves.
Next came punch cards and Teletype terminals. Engineers could enter pro-
grams using simple languages that were converted into machine language
and executed by the computer. Computers were built using solid-state cir-
cuits rather than vacuum tubes, and thus they began to shrink in size. Soon,
they said, computers would be able to program themselves.
Not long afterward, more powerful languages were developed, such as
Algol, FORTRAN, Smalltalk, Lisp, and C—to name a few. Engineers had re-
mote terminals, while the software ran on a mainframe computer. Gone were
the punch cards and batch runs of the old days. Aprogram could be entered at
any time, and the engineer would be able to compile and run the program im-
mediately. Scientists were using the new languages to create expert systems
and experiment with artificial intelligence. We were finally within reach of
creating computers that could think and program themselves.
The PC revolution began in the 1970s with computers made by companies
such as Commodore and Apple. At this point, anyone could learn to program
using BASIC, the Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. In the
30 years since, computers have become more powerful; the ENIAC computer
can now fit on a chip barely 1/4-inch per side, and handheld computers like
the Palm offer dramatically more processing power than those early
room-sized computers. New languages, such as C++ and Java, have entered
the scene. And scientists continue to predict that computers will soon be able
to program themselves. Don’t we wish it were so.

Unfortunately, neither your computer, nor your robot, can program itself.
As you saw in the last chapter, your robot needs a program to tell it how to
move and react. The programs in the previous chapter offer a starting point
that lets you immediately see your robot in action. But the real fun comes
when you are able to tell your robot how to behave by writing your own
program.
Don’t get scared off if you aren’t a programmer.

P:\010Comp\Bots\880-6\ch06.vp
Monday, May 12, 2003 1:06:19 PM