After exploring the box with the goodies, building the "getting started robot" and installing the Lego visual programming environment (the NXT is targeted at ages 10+), it was time for a test run... The program in the snapshot plays a sound, starts the motor to go forward, makes a turn and plays a sound again... targeted ages 6+... and enough to make sure that my laptop and my Brick were communicating and actually understood each other.
So this was enough proof for me at this moment and Microsoft Robotics Studio (Nov CTP) was installed... and that of cause is what this is all about. The logical next step is to get the sample working (as we all know manual reading is for when things go wrong)... this required my Tosh to communicate with NXT using Bluetooth... simple... forgetting that my Tosh can have a bit of an attitude... So back to the basics again and making sure that the Bluetooth communication was compliant with the XP SP2 Bluetooth stack (in case you might be interested this article tells you how)... and that's as far as I'm now... Tosh and NXT happily communicating over Bluetooth... to be continued...