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#device#rf#not-optical

CyberMaster

8482 CyberMaster, 1998, is a programmable Technic brick that reached its computer through a tower plugged into a serial port. The link between the two is radio at 27 MHz, so no infrared and no visible-light emitter reaches it — see How the links work.

Reach

CapabilityStateNote
Radio at 27 MHz, through the tower it shipped withworks, untested herethe only command channel the brick has
Programming it with NQCworks, untested hereone toolchain covers RCX, CyberMaster and Scout
Any optical link: VLL, RCX infrared, Power Functionsout of reachnothing in the brick listens to light
Its light sensor input as a way inout of reachbrightness read into a program, no command channel behind it
Driving it from the bridgeout of reachthe bridge emits infrared and speaks Bluetooth, never 27 MHz

What it hears

Radio at 27 MHz, and only that. Every link in How the links work is light, infrared, printed bars or Bluetooth, and this brick answers none of them; the physical-layer table in Frequencies & wavelengths carries it as the one exception rather than a row. Radio bought it range and freedom from line-of-sight, which no infrared brick of the period had.

It is the same era and the same toolchain as the RCX and the Scout, which is why it gets mistaken for one. What separates it from them is the link, not the year.

Its inputs can include light sensors. That is sensing, with no command channel behind it.

Reaching it today

The brick's own tower on a serial port, with NQC as the compiler — the same toolchain that covers the RCX, the Scout and Spybotics.

Nothing in Flash Force reaches it, and nothing is planned to: 27 MHz is not on the bridge, which carries an infrared emitter and a Bluetooth radio.