Announcing the Handy Board

For immediate release:
Fri Jan 12 11:24:03 1996
http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/handy-board/release.htm

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The Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announces the Handy Board, a new microcontroller board ideal for experimental and educational robotics projects. The Handy Board features the Motorola 68HC11 CPU with 32K of battery-backed RAM, a 16x2 character LCD screen, four DC motor outputs, sixteen powered sensor inputs, infrared I/O, and a built-in rechargeable battery, all in a convenient hand-held size. The Handy Board runs Interactive C, a multi-tasking development system for MS-DOS, Macintosh, and Unix host computers.

The Handy Board is the latest in a series of boards released under MIT's free licensing policy, in which the printed circuit board artwork, schematics, and driver software may be freely licensed for personal, educational, and commercial use. Past designs disseminated under this policy include the 6.270 Robot Controller System and the Mini Board.

Handy Board kits and assembled systems are distributed by Gleason Research (gleason@tiac.net, 617-641-2551), CW Technology (cwtech@infinet.com, 800-547-7479), and Digital Micro Systems (dutta.4@osu.edu, 614-299-2566). Blank printed circuit boards are sold by Douglas Electronics (info@douglas.com, 510-483-8770).

Fred Martin, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Media Laboratory, is the creator of the Handy Board. Dr. Martin is presently writing a textbook for an undergraduate engineering course based on mobile robotics project work. The text (working title, The Art of Engineering by Robotics) will make extensive use of the Handy Board, and is scheduled for publication in late 1996 by Addison-Wesley.

For more information, contact one of the distributors, or see the Handy Board home page on the World-Wide Web:

http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/handy-board

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