ROBOTARY REVIEW SERIAL
ROBOTARY REVIEW SOFTWARE

In the mid-1990's, the Lego Dacta Control Lab released as a follow-up for Lego 9 V system, using a standard serial port rather than a custom hardware interface card. This interface was controlled from an IBM-PC or Apple-IIe by the use of a special version of Logo, a simple programming language designed for use in children's education. These sets from the mid-late 1980's provided a dedicated hardware interface to control the Lego Technic 4.5 V system using a computer, and for the first time it introduced electric Lego sensors.

One of the first examples of programmable Lego was the LEGO Interface-A adapter, used for the educational-only Lego Dacta TC-Logo system. Lego Mindstorms’ Robotic Invention System 1.0 was released in September 1998. The Mindstorms’ project development team had to redevelop the language after finding out it was too complicated for the target audience (10-14 year old boys : 26) which caused them to miss the original 1997 launch date.

ROBOTARY REVIEW SOFTWARE

: 18 Both bricks also ran programs created through the use of visual programming, the RCX using a coding software based on MIT’s LOGO Blocks. The Liquid Crystal Diode (LCD) display that the two bricks share was specifically requested by teachers interviewed by the Epistemology and Research group, in order to give readouts of the status of the motors or sensors in real time. At the same time, Media Lab was working with the Epistemology and learning group to develop a version of the “Grey Brick” specifically for classroom instructions and the collaboration between these three organizations led to two separate versions of the brick computer: The Lego Group’s Robotics Command eXplorer (RCX) and Media Lab’s “Red Brick”. In 1996, the newly formed Home Learning division of Lego Education began developing Media Lab’s “Grey Brick” into an official product. There was interest within The Lego Group to commercialize this Brick compatible computer as soon as personal computers became widespread, and in 1996 The Lego Group began developing this computer into what would eventually be known as the Robotics Invention System. In 1988 the Media Lab created a Lego Brick compatible computer that could be used to control a robot without connection to a desktop computer. : 14 Born out of this collaboration (and the work of Papert and collaborator Mitchel Resnik’s Epistemology and Learning group) was the idea to have children use the LOGO programming language to command Lego brick robots of their own design connected to a computer. The Lego Group began a partnership with Papert’s Media Lab, funding their research and sharing ideas. In 1985, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, then Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Lego Group heard of the work of MIT's Seymour Papert and was struck by how similar his goals of learning through building were to those of The Lego Group’s newly formed educational division. The original Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System was born out of a collaboration between The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Lego group.

Robotary review