Remote control

 

pk1 with his new master, the BB 8700c

 

So, I have an old blackberry 8700c.  I pulled it out of the closet and dusted it off.  I read up on it a little bit.  Apparently it has 64mb of Flash memory, a 300 mhz  ARM (RISC) processor.  Hell, this little phone is a faster machine  than half the computers I’ve owned in my life.   The thing that really interested me about it is that Blackberries run J2ME, and they have Bluetooth capabilities, internet access, and a few other cool features.

 

So, I thought I should try to use Bluetooth to enable my Blackberry to be a remote control for Pk1.  and after about 3 days of work, I’ve got it up and running.  It’s J2ME utilizing RIM’s API for bluetooth access…the bluetooth connection goes straight to the EB500 Embedded Blue module on Pk1, and…Pk1 just waits for commands from the phone.

 

Future interesting applications would be to attach the Blackberry to the base of Pk1, so that Pk1 can offload data storage and processing to its code written in J2ME.  This expands upon the ideas I have below, except this would allow it to be more portable and self contained.  This way, after writing a better brain for Pk1, I wouldn’t have to follow him around with my laptop, I could just DL the code to the BB, and attach it to Pk1, and he’d be free to roam….and kill small rodents for energy.