AndroMan

 

Similar to Nintendo's R.O.B., only more interactive, Androman was a 1' tall robot that was designed to interact with specially-programmed games.  It was linked to the VCS via a separate infrared unit that plugged into the right joystick port. A barcode reader underneath the robot detected its position on a special "Gamescape" map (and several 3-D objects for it) that came with the game.  Using the joystick, you would alternately control the robot to navigate the map and play the video game. David Springer wrote the tx/rx code for Androman, of which only 1 prototype is known to exist.  Electronic Games had a news blurb about this in July 1984 (pg. 8), about Atari entering into an agreement with Nolan Bushnell to market a line of products from Androbot; the October 1984 issue notes Atari shelved the project for unspecified reasons, though unnamed robotics experts said the project is proving to be more difficult than originally anticipated, necessitating the delay in production. (pg. 13).  According to David, when Atari passed on it, the Androman project pretty much ended.

 


Return to main menu