Our new ROBOT Overlords

will be running Windows. Why do I feel very uneasy... Microsoft announced today that it has been developing a set of tools for designing and running robots. From The Register:

Microsoft gives monopoly robotic legs
Microsoft has answered the robotics industry's call for a monopoly standard with the release of a new software development package for powering devices of all sizes. The beasty hopes the software will make it easier for students and hobbyists to enter the robotics field and provide a common platform for companies to use.

Tandy Trower, a general manager at Microsoft, unveiled the Microsoft Robotics Studio today here at the Robo Business conference. Broadly speaking, the developer package provides a way to model robots and then write commands to make the devices function. While only in "community technology preview" today, the developer package will go "Gold" in October, The Register has learned.

The robotics industry is currently struggling with a severe lack of standards for software and hardware components. Companies produce mounds and mounds of custom code to run their specific platforms. This can make life difficult on third-party types who want to build add-ons for a wide variety products. The software situation also proves intimidating to students who want to dabble in the robotics field.

It may seem odd for Microsoft to step in with a plan for solving these problems, but the robotics directive came straight from the top. Bill Gates returned from one of his Think Weeks and ordered Trower to pursue the market and "see what Microsoft could do."

Trower wrapped the arrival of Robotics Studio with a lot of good natured fluff about Microsoft igniting a thrilling industry and giving poor students a helping hand. Lurking behind all of this is the obvious push to make Windows and Microsoft's developer tools a standard piece of the robotics industry where custom applications, Java and Linux already do quite well.

"What we are seeing right now is perhaps the second age of the PC, when the PC gets up off our desktops (and walks around)," Trower said, rather ominously.

Brings new meanings to the "Blue Screen of Death" and system crash... A bit more on the package itself:

Developers can start out and design a 3-D model of their robotic device courtesy of a Microsoft-provided license of the PhysX engine from Ageia. Then, they can tap into a visual programming tool to create and debug applications meant to run the machine.

The application can be fairly complex, according to Trower. Microsoft has shipped a "lightweight services-oriented runtime" with Robotics Studio. This lets a programmer create numerous, independent services for a device such as moving an arm, having sensors announce changes in state or firing up a motor. The failure of one service will not affect the other services, demonstrating that Microsoft might be better at building robotics software than it is as developing operating systems.

Always aware of its surroundings, Microsoft did make an openness pitch.

"The Microsoft Robotics Studio programming model can be applied for a variety of robot hardware platforms, enabling users to transfer their learning skills across platforms," the company said. "Third parties can also extend the functionality of the platform by providing additional libraries and services. Both remote (PC-based) and autonomous (robot-based) execution scenarios can be developed using a selection of programming languages, including those in Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Visual Studio Express languages (Visual C# and Visual Basic .NET), Jscript and Microsoft Iron Python 1.0 Beta 1, and third-party languages that conform to its services-based architecture."

I am certainly not planning to get rid of my CAD/CAM software any time soon. The main problem with running machine software on a windows platform is that Windows is not a real-time operating system. The various kibbles and bits of Windows come and go as they please and getting any application to synchronize to an invariable clock is next to impossible at any rate of speed. This becomes important when you are coordinating several motor-driven devices operating in the same physical area. Interesting to follow anyway. These people also are reporting Microsoft's announcement:

Forbes

ROBOTS.NET

BetaNews and

Extreme Tech

It actually will be very cool if they can pull this off. Early computers each had their own operating systems and writing an application or utility for one and then porting it to another system was not really cost-effective. CP/M helped a lot as all of the Input and Output devices were located at standardized addresses. It was MS-DOS that started the ball rolling though. Robotics are very much at the late pre-CP/M stage.