AIBO Performer Kit

What it is

The AIBO Performer Kit is an accessory for AIBO, the four-legged entertainment robot. Sony's 1999 launch release announced it under the model number ERF-510, alongside the ERS-110 robot itself^[1]. Its purpose is narrow and clear: it is a motion editor that makes it possible for users to create original movements for AIBO^[1].

A robot like AIBO ships with a fixed set of behaviours — walking, sitting, wagging, and so on — written by its makers. A motion editor opens that set up to the owner: instead of choosing among built-in actions, the owner can describe new ones.

How it works

The kit is software for a personal computer, and the release says it provides a graphical user interface that makes it simple to create motion programs on a personal computer^[1]. In practice, a motion program is a description of how the robot's joints should move over time: which leg or head moves, how far, in what order, and how long each step takes. A graphical editor turns that into something a person can assemble on screen rather than by writing code.

Getting the result onto the robot is the job of the hardware in the box. The kit includes an 8MB Memory Stick and a Memory Stick PC Adapter Card^[1]. The Memory Stick is the removable storage medium the robot reads; the adapter card lets the computer write to that medium. The workflow is therefore: compose the motion on the computer, save it to the Memory Stick through the adapter, and move the stick to the robot.

Price and availability

Sony listed a Japanese retail price of 50,000 yen excluding tax and a United States price of $450^[1]. Orders were to be accepted from June 1, 1999 in both Japan and the United States, with shipment in early July^[1].

Where it sits

The kit belongs to the first generation of AIBO products, arriving together with the ERS-110 robot rather than after it^[1]. That timing says something about how Sony positioned the robot: not only as a finished appliance whose behaviour is fixed at the factory, but as a platform that owners could extend. The Performer Kit was the tool offered for that extension, and its separate price and separate ship date made it an optional purchase rather than something bundled with every robot.

For someone who bought it, the kit changed the relationship with the machine from operating a product to authoring behaviour for it — editing motions on a desktop computer and carrying them over on a small memory card.