Bigtrak

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Bigtrak

BIG TRAK / bigtrak was a programmable electric vehicle

Electronic game

An electronic game is a game that employs electronics to create an interactive system with which a player can Play . The most common form of electronic game today is the video game, and for this reason the terms are often mistakenly used synonymously....
created by Milton Bradley

Milton Bradley Company

The Milton Bradley Company is an United States game company established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the largest game manufacturer in the United States and in 1987 it purchased Selchow and Righter, makers of Parcheesi and Scrabble....
in 1979.

It was a six-wheeled

Wheel

A wheel is a circular device that is capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation whilst supporting a load , or performing labour in machines....
tank

Tank

A tank is a Continuous track, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility and Military tactics Offensive and defence capabilities....
with a front-mounted blue photon beam headlamp, and a keypad on top. The toy could remember up to 16 commands which it then executed in sequence (such as "go forward 5 lengths", "pause", "turn 30 degree

Degree (angle)

A degree , usually denoted by ? , is a measurement of plane angle, representing 1/360 of a Turn ; one degree is equivalent to p/180 radians....
s right", "fire phaser" and so on. There was a "repeat" instruction allowing simple loops

Control flow

In computer science control flow refers to the order in which the individual statement , Instruction or function calls of an imperative programming or functional programming computer program are execution or evaluated....
, but the language was not Turing complete, lacking branching instructions; the Big Trak also lacked any sort of sensor input other than the wheel sensors.

There is now a small but dedicated Internet community who have reverse engineered

Reverse engineering

Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation....
the BIG TRAK and the Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments , better known in the electronics industry as TI, is an United States company based in Dallas, Texas, Texas, United States, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology....
TMS1000 microcontroller

Microcontroller

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Encyclopedia

BIG TRAK / bigtrak was a programmable electric vehicle

Electronic game

Milton Bradley Company

Wheel

A wheel is a circular device that is capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation whilst supporting a load , or performing labour in machines....
tank

Tank

Degree (angle)

Control flow

Reverse engineering

Texas Instruments

Microcontroller

A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit consisting of a relatively simple CPU combined with support functions such as a crystal oscillator, timers, watchdog, serial and analog I/O etc....
inside it (see external links).

The US and GB/European versions were noticeably different. The US version was moulded in gray plastic and labelled BIG TRAK whereas the GB version was white and labelled bigtrak with a different keypad.

Bigtrak also included an optional trailer accessory. Once hooked to Bigtrak, this trailer could be programmed to dump its payload.

In the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
, a clone was made under "Elektronika

Elektronika

Elektronika is the brand name used for many different electronics such as calculators, electronic watches, portable games and radios in the Soviet Union and, nowadays, in Russia....
IM-11" designation. Next versions (named "Lunokhod

Lunokhod programme

Lunokhod 1 and 2 were a pair of Soviet Union robotic spacecraft lunar rover s landed on the Moon in 1970 and 1973, respectively. They were in operation conterminously with the Zond series of flyby missions....
" , "Planetokhod") had more and more differences, like more cheap odometer based on reed switch

Reed switch

The reed switch is an electrical switch operated by an applied magnetic field. It was invented at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1936 by W. B....
, sensitive bumper for switch-off and others.

Programmable keypad

All programming to BigTrak was done through the keypad shown here. There were no LED displays or ways to display program instructions, beyond actually running the program, which was done by pressing "GO". Other function keys included:

Forward/Backward: Move forward and backward
Left/Right: Turn the specified number of degrees in that direction
HOLD: Pause for a number of seconds (GB version; P: Pause)
FIRE: Fire the LED "laser" (GB; Photon Symbol)
CLR: Clear the program (GB; CM: Clear Memory)
CLS: Clear Last Step (GB; CE; Clear last step)
RPT: Repeat a number of steps (primitive loop) (GB; x2: Repeat key)
TEST: Run short test program
CK: Check last instruction (GB; Tick symbol)
Out: Dump optional trailer accessory
In: Reserved for future expansion (GB; missing. Disabled or not implemented on most if not all BigTraks)

Bigtrak

Programmable keypad

See also

External links