Robot Controller is an application for controlling and testing Lego Mindstorms robots using the RCX with firmware version 2, on Mac OS X version 10.1 or later. It is the ideal companion to Dave Baum's NQC.

Robot Controller allows you to:

• Download firmware to the RCX;
• Control the three motor outputs;
• Set up the three sensor inputs and monitor their values;
• Download programs to the five program slots and run them;
• Set up the datalog and save it on your disk in readable form;
• Send and receive messages to and from your robot;
• Examine the use of the RCX memory;
• Read and change the values of the RCX variables;
• Control the RCX with AppleScript.

Robot controller only works on Mac OS X version 10.1 or later. It works both with the USB IR tower and with the serial IR tower (provided you have a serial port with a driver). Programs for download must be in .rcx format, as produced by nqc; firmware for download must be in .lgo format, as included in the Lego 2.0 beta SDK.

Known problems:

• There seems to be a problem using one of the two USB channels on my G4. If your USB tower shows up in the preferences, but then doesn't work, try it in the other channel. I think this is a bug in IOKit, and I have reported it to Apple.

OTHER PEOPLE SUGGEST