Introduction

Thank you for your interest in Remote Control X. This program will allow you to control your LEGO MINDSTORMS invention with a game controller using the infrared transmitter that comes with the Robotics Invention System set. I wrote Remote Control X because I found that the currently available methods of immediately controlling the RCX from the computer were not intuitive. It seemed to make a lot of sense to be able to control your robot by using a joystick or a game pad.

I starting working on a program shortly after I bought my MINDSTORMS set and looked through the software development kit. That was more than a year ago when I originally wrote the program using Visual C++. I made it do everything I really needed it to do, but I quickly realized how useful it might be to other people. I lost the code when my hard drive crashed last year and also the desire to try again when LEGO released their remote control. I finally realized that I could improve my original program by allowing a user to program what buttons control what motors and by throwing in a few added features as well. This time I gave a crack at Visual Basic, since I had not done any programming in C++ for a while and it would allow me to quickly produce this program. This is the end result and I hope you find it a useful tool.