Doing the Robot. Androbot, That Is

Bushnell engages in a myriad of other comeback attempts of varying success, including Androbot, a San Jose-based consumer robotics company headed by Tom Frisina that in 1983 produces Topo, the “world’s first personal robot”. A stripped down version is initially made available at a within-reach price tag of $495; this model is eventually replaced with a more advanced version with all the bells and whistles at $1595.  Sporting dimensions of 36.5″ x 24″, the 33-lb, battery operated Topo can move and speak via a remote IR interface card inserted into an Apple IIe or II+ computer, controlled by either joystick or keyboard. Interfaces for the IBM PC, C64 and Atari 8-bit computers are also promised by Androbot. Topo’s speaking ability uses text-to-speech, to simplify the programming process. The robot comes with TopoBASIC, which includes intuitive movement commands such as TFD (forward) and TRT (turn right) and TLT (turn left).  Programmed distances are measured in Topo Steps, with one step equalling a centimetre. Also made available is TopoSoft, a programming language based on Forth,  and a TopoLOGO programming package can be purchased for $125. This simplified language allows users without programming skills to easily input directional commands for the robot. The computer needed to program your new electronic buddy is not included in the price, but there is an emergency stop switch on the top of his head in case his programming goes wonky. Topo‘s name is derived from the word “topology”, meaning the study of spaces or surfaces.

Part of an overall incubation think-tank for high-tech start-ups called Catalyst Technologies that Bushnell had founded back in December of 1980, Androbot only manages to sell a few thousand robots. These include Topos, as well as B.O.B.s (Brains On Board), Topo‘s 43 pound, nearly four-foot high big brother that doesn’t require an external computer and runs about $4,000. The brains referred to in his name are represented by three onboard 16-bit CPUs, as well as 3M of RAM. Available options include the Androwagon and Androfridge, which BOB can pull behind him, weaving in and out between party-goers offering pretzels and beers. BOB has a certain amount of autonomy in comparison to his cousin, in that he contains five ultrasonic sensors, such as the autofocus sensors found in cameras, which allow him to move around freely while mapping the dimensions of his environment and the objects within it. He also has two infrared sensors to help him identify living things. Utilizing this feature, programming BOB‘s movements can be simplified using his Follow Me mode, where the unit will follow the user and remember the path and repeat it on command. Voice synthesis seems out of reach to its designers, so instead, he draws on a pool of over 100 pre-recorded, digitized phrases. Cartridges are to made available for BOB soon after his release, such as AndroSentry, which turns the robot into a mechanical night watchman for your house.

At the Summer 1983 CES Androbot announces a cheaper robot version called Androman, a 12-inch robot buddy for your 2600. Controllable by joystick, a cartridge for the 2600 would put obstacles on the screen for the device to avoid, and interact with an included 6’x8′ cardboard game playing field and set of data coded game pieces. Androbot also announces a $350 robot named F.R.E.D. (Friendly Robotic Educational Device) that includes a drawing pen attachment and a keypad for programming. It can also talk and sense drop-offs so it won’t roll off a desk. Androbot, however, eventually rolls off the edge and goes bust,  along with the idea of personal robots running households. After incurring huge losses, the company has been shuttered by September of 1985, with assets sold off to Robotics International.

Bushnell tries again with the company Axlon, that had originally gotten its start making add-ons for the Atari 8-bit computers, including the RAMCRAM memory expansion module. They retool F.R.E.D. into a new robot named Andy, selling for only $120. A kind of pint-sized version of TOPO, ANDY also allows users to plug in a cable into their home computer and control the robot with a joystick, or use a LOGO-like language to issue a series of commands for ANDY to follow. It also has onboard sensors to detect light, sound and touch, and can detect and move around objects it encounters in its path.  Also from Axlon comes a line of robotic pets initially called MicroPets until renamed Petster, critters that move around on their own, make appropriate animals sounds, and will come on command…. although a set of random numbers in their programming will prevent them from ALWAYS listening to their owners, much like real pets. Axlon also puts out a stuffed animal named A.G. Bear, which responds to the emotion in a child’s voice in gibberish “bear language” that mimics the same emotional response, as well as converse with others of its kind when in close proximity. The company also makes Party Animals, a line of six hand puppets with a light sensor in the mouth that triggers noise as the child makes them “talk”. Initially priced at around $25 each, kids can pick such animal pals as Silly Goose, Tetrazzini Turkey, Darwin Gorilla, Sting Mosquito and Dippity Dolphin. In 1985 Axlon sells over $15 million of its talking  stuffed  toys. There is ultimately meritless talk in early 1986 of Bushnell merging Axlon with CL9, a company started by Apple Computers co-founder – and designer of Atari game Breakout –  Steve Wozniak to develop a universal TV remote. It is thought at the time that Axlon might use the CL9 tech for possible remote control toys… and thereby having Woz swap one carnival barker evangelist partner, Steve Jobs, with another. 

Nolan Bushnell Navigating His Way with Etak

Bushnell also gets in on the ground floor of in-car navigation systems, bankrolling the founding of Etak for $500,000.  A pioneering company in the field, the idea behind Etak comes to electronics whiz Stanley Honey while navigating aboard Bushnell’s racing yacht Charley. The Etak system uses the old-school nautical navigation method of “dead reckoning”, using the vehicle as a static point and considering the relative speed over time through the landscape around it to determine its position. Since the Polynesians had used dead reckoning to travel large swaths of the Pacific Ocean, Honey appropriates the Polynesian navigational term etak for his invention. The company produces two versions of the first practical in-car navigational systems made available on the market, called Navigator and released in July of 1985 to the San Francisco area. Coverage for Southern California is to go on sale in September. Licensed to General Motors, model 700 features a 7″ screen meant for commercial vehicles, selling for $1,595, and also a $1,395 model 450 system for consumers that contains a 4.5″ display. Streets, with zoom functions, are displayed on the screens, with the vehicle position represented as an arrow. As the vehicle moves, the map scrolls and rotates live to match. Information on direction and vehicle speed is fed to a shoebox- size computer in the trunk via a roof-mounted magnetic compass and magnetic sensors placed near the wheels. Various EtakMap videotape cassettes featuring coverage areas are sold for $35. Drivers can input their destination via twelve buttons placed around the edge of the CRT display. The dead reckoning system can provide accuracy up to 50 feet, but errors accumulate over time which requires a position reset at the touch of a button. The system also displays distance to the destination set as you drive, although this is “as the crow flies”. Users can also set up to 16 different destinations in memory, to retrieve quickly later. By the latter part of 1987, Etak has also signed deals with Clarion Co.of Japan, makers of in-car sound systems, as well as West German automotive audio equipment company Blaupunkt-Werke. The latter company plans on releasing a version of the technology in Europe called Travel Pilot that utilizes CD storage technology over the map cassettes used by the system in its California trials. Future map coverage is to include restaurants and points of interest. After being installed in about 2,000 vehicles by 1987, Etak hardware is eventually rendered obsolete by satellite GPS navigation systems, whereby the company starts selling its electronic map data. But the firm’s dead reckoning system has paved the way for the later ubiquity of in-car map devices. After a series of acquisitions, Etak ends up being sold to Tele Atlas in 2000.

Bushnell later gains a minority stake and title Director of Strategic Planning in Aristo International Corp. in 1996, with a plan to build Internet-connected music streaming, messaging and video screens for installation in bars and other entertainment venues. Renamed Playnet Technologies, the enterprise eventually sinks. From this, started on July 1, 1999, is a new company called uWink.com, developing Internet-linked physical gaming kiosks. The focus of uWink moves to developing dining bistros featuring monitors at every table with which patrons will order food and play games against other diners, with the initial restaurant opening in the Woodland Hills area of California in October, 2006. After the opening and closing of several restaurants in the California area, in 2010 uWink as a dining experience is shut down and the underlying kiosk technology is to be put on offer to other restaurants under the name Tapcode. As for Bushnell’s former partner-in-crime at Atari and Pizza Time Theatre, Joe Keenan eventually ends up back in the game industry as president of Data East USA in 1990.

Bushnell’s contribution to the modern videogame landscape via the company he created and the console that company produced cannot be overstated, even though we now look back at the blocky graphics and limited colour palette of the VCS/2600 with nostalgic wonder that such a system could be the wellspring of today’s powerhouse monstrosities. It’s not often that a game console, or the company that produces it, penetrates the public consciousness to such an extent that a powerful Hollywood actor produces and stars in a film about its history. However, such a rumour is floated, concerning fervent video game player Leonardo DiCaprio producing and starring as Bushnell in Atari, developed by DiCaprio’s Appian Way production company and optioned in 2008 by Paramount. It makes sense to put the breakneck, roller-coaster story of Atari to film, since the company and its VCS console marked the ascendancy of video games to the top of the entertainment market, along with the programmers that wrestled with the restraining technology to produce some of the greatest games of all time. It also makes sense that the creative and out-there ‘burning with ideas and ambition’ engineering hippie behind the business, Nolan Bushnell, takes a road-trip to the salt-swept desert flats of Nevada every year to avant-guarde technology-hedonist festival Burning Man.