Valiant Turtle
- Posted by Simon Inns
- Posted on March 24, 2010
- Acorn, Retro Computers, Reverse engineering, Robotics
- 12 Comments.
The Valiant Turtle is a floor roving robot made by Valiant Technologies and was a popular education robot for teaching geometry and programming during the 1980s and 1990s. Please note that the information on this webpage has moved:
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I’m just taking delivery of one of these, minus cables and software: Dave Catlin informed me that you would be the person who would know where I could lay my hands on those.
I don’t think there is really anywhere to buy such cables, but you can make it as there is a wiring diagram (for both the serial and parallel cable) in the article. The software is provided in the ‘downloads’ section.
If you’re using a BBC Micro, then I’ve also scanned and uploaded all of the Acornsoft Logo documentation on the stardot.org.uk forum.
Thanks for the heads up.
I have these cables, plus the software and manuals. I have the manuals for BBC computers, the RM Nimbus 186, and IBM PC compatibles (including the RM Nimbus 286). I have one 3.5 inch floppy, to go with the IBM PC compatibles version, plus one 5.25 floppy version of the software. I think that is for the BBC computers version. I have two cables btw.
I am willing to sell all this gear, if you want to make an offer for it. I gather this stuff is very rare. I have been looking for a haul like the one that I have, but I can’t find anything like this anywhere. Even Ebay is drawing a blank. It seems like all the cables got lost years ago, but lucky me, I have two ;).
If you want to get in contact my email address is patcoyne79@yahoo.co.uk.
By the way, is Dave Catlin the guy that used to be the head of Valiant? I also have a letter from him posted in 1992 apologising for the products being dispatched very late. Poor chap. Maybe that’s why they don’t make these things any more. Ha ha.
So: I have hit the mother-lode and will be taking delivery of a complete Turtle set in about 3 weeks (which is great because I can dissemble my current Turtle that came with no peripherals, with a view to seeing if it can somehow be got to work with a BlueTooth connexion).
However, I can find little or no documentation and any software links to obtain a way to lever it via DOS/Win 3.1 ? ?
I don’t think DOS and Win3.1 is really quite the right era for these robots. You’d have more luck with things like RM Nimbus, BBC Micro and C64. There were PCs around at the time, but they were only in reach of businesses due to the cost. What you find on this page is pretty much *all* of the available documentation, there may be a few more computer specific manuals around, but not much more.
Hi Simon,
I have the PC version of the cable, manual and software. See above for more info. Cheers mate.
Hmm: http://www.valiant-technology.com/archive/usa/turtle1.htm
Finding a link to something pointing at the possibility of software is not quite the same as actually finding something 🙂 If you do find any actual software, then please share the source and I’ll include it here.
http://www.downloadcollection.com/fmslogo.htm
Hi Simon
Great info on the Turtle.
I have a couple of these but no control box.
Any idea where I can get one ?
Please help !!
The control boxes are quite hard to find these days (people kept the turtle but not the control boxes it seems) so ebay is usually the place; they do pop up from time to time.
It’s a bit tricky to make a copy of the original control box since the Philips microcontroller is programmed and a copy of that code is no longer available (so even if you made it, it wouldn’t be easy to program).
It is possible to make a new controller using something like an Arduino though; I’ve not done this myself but there is example code in the article showing how to code the required IR communication (and a breakdown of the protocol is also given) – so if you have Arduino skills (or know someone who does) that could be a viable route.