Latest hacker toy? Web-enabled Lego

We've seen web servers that fit into matchboxes, but now a protocol hacker has created the world's first web-enabled Lego brick.

By porting the extremely small uIP TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/internet protocol) stack to the Lego Mindstorms platform, Olaf Christ has set the foundations for a Lego brick web server.

In a posting to the LegOS newsgroup on Monday, Christ said: "I've got the very first and only TCP/IP enabled RCX [Robot Command eXplorer] in my room, cool, eh?"

The Lego Mindstorms kits have become increasingly popular with operating system hackers and hobbyists alike, who have tweaked the Lego robots to do far more than was ever intended.

Although the only thing you can do at the moment is ping the RCX, otherwise known as the brains of the Lego robot, Christ said that "writing a very small web server shouldn't be that big a deal".

Christ plans to put up a web page at the end of the week to make the very first rudimentary, but working, version available to the public.

"Right now I've got approximately 3Kb of Ram left; still enough to do a lot of useful stuff with," he said.

The discussion thread on the LegOS newsgroup can be found here.