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quote:Originally posted by Art

Welcome Baskot,

There was quite a discussion some time back where some users were using a program called GIRDER to control external devices with HAL (some were X-10 devices as well).

Click on the SEARCH feature at the top of the forum page and do a search for X-10 or Girder and you might find the threads in question.

The emotional thing may prove to be more difficult from an external control standpoint.

Good luck!

Hello Art,

thanks for welcoming me. I read about the X-10/Girder combination before and found it quiet interesting. I wanted to point out an additional usable and effortable alternative to people who are interested in that.
I agree that the software and implementation part is the challange. Particularly it is the most difficult part for me. I have to explore and understand the Hal.brn and it's logic and go through Medeksza's forum posts to understand better how to interface with Hal.
But...every helping hint is more than wellcome [8D]

Greets and regards

Baskot

Hello there :)

I am a new member in this forum. After more or less long time of only following the threats I decided to participate this forum actively to find answers for my questions. Maybe someone has the answers......
Let me start by telling by stating what I "have" and following later what I want to know :
I want Hal to exchange Data with it's environment via an input/output device.
This is pointing a bit into robotics or animatronics I think. I find it interesting an begun to investigate a bit....
By looking for a suitable (and payable) technical solution for the I/O-Interface I found the Velleman
K8055 interface (see http://www.velleman.be/common/product.Aspx?lan=1&id=351980 for a detailed description).
It has 8 digital and two analoge output channels( analog is usable for PWM, too), 4 digital and 2 analog inputs, it is cascadable (up to four units) and it is connected via USB to the computer. It comes with a dll for programming purposes, but not an ActiveX-Dll. That is (afaik) not easy to use it in VB-Script. But lately I found a wrapper called DynaWrapNT (see http://people.freenet.de/gborn/WSHBazaar/WSHBazaar.htm)
By using this Wrapper I can use the Interface now within VBS. First tests went ok and I am quiet happy. The technical open part seems to be done :))
The question I have is rather simple, but the answer is more the complicated kind I assume...
Of course, I'd like to use this interface now with Hal. First step I thought about is to give Hal the ability of facial expressions, because Hal has emotions and these could be usable easy with something like :

case hal emotion
   switch angry
      SetAllDataports (0)
      dataport 3 = "1"
   switch happy
      SetAllDataports (0)
      dataport 1 = "1"
      dataport 2 = "1"   
   switch neutral
      SetAllDataports (0)
   endswitch

Of course, this is only an example (this code doesnt really work), but the idea should be visible....
Where in the brain are these things settled best, and what is the best method to integrate this possibility ?
This is a mix of coding and "best way of implementation"-Tasks. I am not that deep into Hal to find the best way myself, and so I ask the
comunity for giving me a hint.

Or, maybe there is somebody out there interested like me to work out this idea more in depth. I will give all my knowledge (not that much) into a discussion. Every helpful remark is wellcome!! Maybe my english is not the best...I have to appologise myself for that, but my mother tongue is german and so I have sometimes a problem to choose the right subset of words.

Regards

Yours Baskot