How do you program a robotic arm in Basic via the printer port that
has five axes of movement. The gripper, wrist, elbow, shoulder and
base.
This program should indicate two or three movements for each axes.

Thank you.

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Clarification of Question by bigtee-ga on 02 Nov 2002 21:23 PST

How do you program a robotic arm in Q-Basic that will control five
axes of movement that involves the gripper, wrist, elbow, shoulder and
base.

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Request for Question Clarification by dannidin-ga on 03 Nov 2002 03:45 PST

bigtee,
I am pretty sure doing this requires knowledge of the particular model
of robotic arm that you are using, as I don't think there is a
standard protocol for controlling robotic arms (although I'm not an
expert on this so I could be wrong). Would you please specify if this
is a general question or does it pertain to a specific model of
robotic arm, and if so which one?

Thanks,
dannidin

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Clarification of Question by bigtee-ga on 03 Nov 2002 06:13 PST

Hello Dannidin:

The type of robotic arm is called:Robotic Arm Trainer model:OWI-007.

The arm came with pc interface that runs on Windows. It is program to
have 11 axes of movement.: elbowup, elbowdown, wristccw, wristcw,
gripopen, shoulderup, shoulderdown, gripclose, baseccw, basecw, and
pause.

The company name is Movit.

That's it.

Thanks,

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Request for Question Clarification by mathtalk-ga on 13 Nov 2002 14:13 PST

Hi, bigtee:

I'm just checking to see how your project is progressing.  Let me know
if I can give some specific assistance with the BASIC program you
intend to write.

regards, mathtalk

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Clarification of Question by bigtee-ga on 13 Nov 2002 19:29 PST

Hello Mathtalk;

Thanks for the inquiry.

I just won a bid on ebay last Sunday for a brand new PBASIC Stamp
Starter Kit II.  It is scheduled to arrive this Saturday.  According
to the Robot Builder's Bonanza and PBASIC website it should be easy to
program.

Since I am new at this, any suggestions on getting started that you
may have would be very much appreciated.

Again, thanks for asking.

Regards Bigtee

Hi, bigtee-ga:

It sounds like the PC interface (API) that the manufacturer supplies
with the robotic arm uses a DLL (dynamic link library, since you say
it is for Windows).

QBasic is a thoroughly DOS based product and there is no satisfactory
way to have it call DLL's directly.  Executing a DLL requires a
Windows operating system in order to do certain addressing fixups that
are not required in DOS.  The closest one can come in QBasic to a DLL
is loading assembly code into a string and executing that, which would
not be practical for a large piece of code.

If your interest in using QBasic is because of programming skills in
that area, you might consider "upgrading" to Visual Basic or another
product, Liberty Basic:

http://www.libertybasic.com/productinfo.html

which preserves the command-line syntax you may be used to but allows
for calls into DLL's.  A review of QBasic alternatives is found here:

http://www.hulla-balloo.com/vplanet/arch197.shtml

and mentions some concerns about the slow execution of Liberty Basic
(though I would imagine a gigahertz CPU makes up for most anything
along these lines).

However there are open source Liberty Basic compilers available at
this site:

http://lbpp.sourceforge.net/

for the ultimate in performance along these lines.

Here's a site with a focus on the use of BASIC from either DOS or
Windows for research into robotic control:

http://www.finitesite.com/robasic/software.htm

I didn't post this as an answer because, from my reading of your
question, you would really like to control the robotic arm without
relying on the PC interface supplied by the manufacturer.  If you can
clarify your goals a bit further, I'd be more confident about whether
I can be of assistance to you.

regards, mathtalk-ga

Greetings Mathtalk-ga:

Firstly, thank you for your interesting comment.

Secondly, you are correct in your last paragraph in that I do wish to
control the robotic arm w/o the supplied pc interface.

Thank you.

Hi, bigtee-ga:

Here's how I would proceed to develop the software you describe.

Working from the pin-out diagrams for the printer port
(parallel/Centronics? serial/DB9??), I would develop routines similar
to each described in the manufacturer's existing Windows DLL. 
Generally the signals on these ports are controlled by POKEing values
into defined low-range memory locations on the PC, known in the DOS
world as IO ports.

If you were more specific about what is meant by the printer port, I
could point you to the memory mapping of those addresses.  Assuming
you have done a bit of low-level (PEEK/POKE) programming with QBasic,
you would have the outline of program architecture in hand.

regards, mathtalk-ga

Hello again Mathtalk,

It has been a lightyear ago when I last did Basic.  That was when it
was called Basic, and not like today when you have Qbasic, VBasic,
etc.

Anyway, I seem to get your drift.  I needed some early guidance to
help me think ahead while I await my QBasic book from Amazon.com.

I used the term printer port because I thought that to give directions
to an external device the instructions are sent via the printer port.
Is this the case or not?

Thanks.

Hi, bigtee-ga:

The manufacturer offers (for just under $90) both DOS and Windows
"interfaces" that work with the parallel port, so obviously that would
be one feasible approach:

http://robotikitsdirect.com/html_files/products_html/IBM007.html

Presumably one advantage of this is that it "cleanly" replaces the
hand-controller that apparently comes with the base kit.

Most hobbyists who do motor activations on the "cheap" use a serial
port interface, as the pinouts are a bit simpler to understand and
program.

Here's one hobbyist's account of building a controller/interface using
the serial port (RS-232) approach:

http://www.litewav.com/auton/arm.html

Apparently the March 2000 issue of Robot Science and Technology
magazine has a couple of relevant articles to your quest, one on the
mechanical design of this OWI/Movit training arm (including added
positional circuitry) and one on creating a computer interface (albeit
for Windows 95, not DOS).  See here, about 15% of the way down the
page:

http://www.robotbooks.com/robot-magazine.htm

regards, mathtalk-ga

Greetings Mathtalk,

Well buddy, you have given me a lot to digest.  

I am going to need a few days to pick a direction. But at the moment
it seems that I am going to write a basic program and use the serial
port. I just need to wait for my book to arrive that I ordered on
Sunday.

By the way, that referal to the RC-232 was great.  

Thanks,

Hi, Bigtee:

I suggest that if you are no longer interested in receiving an answer
to this, your initial query, that you go ahead and expire it.  This
would be fairer to other experts who might be spending time trying to
determine if they can provide the research necessary to resolve your
question.

regards and best wishes with the project, mathtalk-ga