A salute to R.O.B.

[scotland]

For those who built an Invisible Man / Woman model when you were younger, let's look inside R.O.B.

The mechanic gears


The underside PCB


If you flip the PCB, my guess is that its a chip on board (the black glob top over an unsocketed silicon die and thin wire tops)

I don't really know what the tech specs were of R.O.B. R.O.B. worked by photosensors distinguishing several different types of screen flashes. Because of this, R.O.B., like the Zapper, only works on CRTs.

There was also a homebrew game, 8 bit X-mas 2014, for the NES to interact with R.O.B. as well.
http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=132