A 1980s toy robot arm inspired modern robotics

There was an article in i think Radio Electronics at the time to connect it to a C64.

There was a pretty detailed article in the May 1985 Radio Electronics that mentioned interfacing it to a VIC-20:

https://archive.org/details/radio_electronics_1985-05/page/n...

Transactor Magazine volume 7, issue 4 (1987 ) had an article on interfacing it to a C64:

https://archive.org/details/transactor-magazines-v7-i04/mode...

Hot Coco had an article about hooking it up to the TRS-80 Color Computer.

https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Magazines/Ho...

>By moving the joystick (a mechanical linkage), you select one of a series of rotating cams that connect a gear to the power shaft. This is probably the worst design possible for modification to electronic control.

At the time I was disappointed that it didn't use (non-existing) motors already in the Armatron but looking back at it with an understanding of the mechanical design, it's easy to see why they went with that decision. The only other choice would have been to connect to the joysticks themselves. The added motors probably improved the operation quite a bit.

Ahhh so it had only motor that got switched in and out mechanically, eh? That must be why it was always whirring even when not moving. I guess small motors were not cheap back then :)