AiboHack

AIBO Scope - the AIBO Recorder and Analyzer

Overview

Ever wonder what your AIBO is seeing, feeling and thinking ?
If you have a memory stick reader, you can stop wondering !

After you put a special hacked version of AiboWare on your dog's memory stick, it will save a snapshot of what the dog is seeing, feeling and learning, about once every second.

AIBO Scope is a program that runs on your PC. It will display the captured data in a graphical format, showing a picture from the AIBO camera, what it is learning, and changes to the emotional and instinctive states of the dog.

AIBO Scope is informative: it tells you exactly what the dog is learning and when.
AIBO Scope is amusing: especially when the dog is flailing away trying to get back up after falling down.
AIBO Scope is more fun than a spy-cam: try leaving the dog alone in a room, and later come back to see what it was doing.

Platforms

To use the AIBO scope, you need a memory stick reader and a PC. The AIBO Trainer (AScope.EXE) is a Win32 program. It should work on Windows 95 and above.
You must patch an ERA-111A version of AiboWare on a 16MB purple memory stick. This version of AiboScope will not work with older versions of AiboWare or on a standard 8MB stick.

AIBO Instruction

AiboWare Installation - one-step install:

AiboWare Installation - two-step install:

How to use it - Part 1

With the patched AiboWare installed on the memory stick, you can put it in your dog and start him up as usual. Everything should run as a normal AIBO. The only difference is that the LED on the back will stay on (or flash) while the dog is recording data. If the dog runs out of memory stick space, it will just stop recording and turn off the Orange LED.

IMPORTANT

When you are done playing with the dog, you must press the dog's pause button and wait for the memory stick to finish writing, and the Orange LED to stop flashing.

PC Instructions:

PC Installation

Next download the PC program that lets you view the captured images.

How to use it - Part 2

After you've done the recording, place the memory stick into your PC stick reader. There will be a file called "SNAPSHOT.IBO" that contains the recorded information.
Run the new tool "AIBO Scope" (ASCOPE.EXE) on your PC. Open the "SNAPSHOT.IBO" file on the memory stick.
See above for Downloads.

The AIBO scope interface is pretty simple. You can scroll down the screen to look at the different pictures. Pictures are typically one second apart. To the right of the pictures, you will see three columns.
The first column lists what is being learned. The "time" number is the quality time (in 1/10th of seconds).
The second column shows the dog's emotional state. The bar graph showing the dog's current values. The text shows the changes in the dog's emotions. The text colors match the bar colors.
The third column lists in the dog's instinctive state.

Menu Commands

File - Open

Opens the "SNAPSHOT.IBO" file from the root of your memory stick. You must have a file open to change the capture options.

File - Print options

File Print, Print Setup and Print Preview are partially implemented. If you have any ideas on how/what you would like printed out, please email me.

Capture - Save Images As...

This will save the camera images as one big bitmap. You can then use Chris's AIBOAnim to animate them.

Capture - Capture Options...

You can change the Capture rate (normally 1 per second). Saving the images to memory stick takes more than one second, so the actual capture rate will vary. You can also set the capture options to turn on or off various features.
Changes made will affect the next time you put the memory stick back in the dog.

Window - Split Window

This will let you split the window into 4 parts. You can also use the little splitter controls on the upper-right and lower-left of the scrollbars. Use this feature when viewing extra wide output, such as the edge detector images.