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Bots /The Ultimate Palm Robot/ Mukhar & Johnson / 222880-6 / Chapter 4

Chapter 4 Using Palm VIIs and Handspring Visors 81

Using a Handspring Visor with the PPRK
Famous quotes that got it wrong:

❏ “The world is round, and we’ll be in China in just a few months.”
❏ “They’re just a few colonists with no army, so we’ll have no problem
quelling that revolution.”
❏ “…any handheld computer (such as Palm, Visor, etc.) that supports
serial communication should be usable for PPRK.”

To be fair, that last quote, from the Carnegie Mellon PPRK web page, starts
with the phrase, “We tested only Palm III, but…”
The folks at Carnegie Mellon knew that the PPRK might not work with
other PDAs. As it turns out, the Handspring Visor doesn’t work quite as well
as the Palm III or Palm V. To use the Visor with the Pontech controller you’ll
need to make a connector cable as well as a nontrivial modification to the con-
troller board.

The Robot Geek Says

Top Ten Reasons You Should Buy a BrainStem PPRK

✖ We really, really, really (really!) recommend that if you have a
Handspring Visor, you get the BrainStem kit. Really.
✖ You can modify your SV203 controller to work with the Visor, but this
is definitely a task for a hardcore roboticist.
✖ You will need to build your own connector cable.
✖ Did we mention that we recommend the BrainStem controller for
the Visor?
✖ You can use the Visor with a BrainStem without any modification to
the BrainStem.
✖ If you choose to modify the SV203, you do so at your own risk.
✖ Modifying the SV203 could possibly lead to a reconfiguration of the
galactic dimensional matrix, resulting in a universe where jazz is still the
most popular genre of music in the world. Dave thinks that situation is
akin to the end of the world.

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Monday, May 12, 2003 4:03:06 PM