I did try them out in 1995 and the LEDs on Zero2 flashed a bit but that was all.
I think the photos show how the robot board was supposed to be fastened on the plate with two 4xAA cell holders on top of Zero2 but in the box there were no AA cell holders and the circuit board and 'bracket' were loose in the box. The PCB is free to wave about suspended only by the legs of the 7805 regulator and the bracket only has one fixing screw! The PC circuit-board is wired to the lid of a plastic box with no indication of it ever being held in place. The lid includes a BBC-B type Serial-Socket and a 3.5mm jack-socket for regulated 5v in case only the Serial-Socket is used and not the normal Zero2 interface box which supplies (nominal) 12v and regulated 5v.
On test the LEDs and everything could be controlled from the base computer - in this case, the PC running a terminal program allows commands to be sent to my Arduino interface which then sends commands to Zero2.
However Zero2 is supposed to send a return byte after every command byte and the IR-LEDs on the robot's IR-PCB-LEDs were not transmitting anything.
[Just to add to things Basyl had scratched off the chip numbers - why??!!! What petty mindedness. and a waste of time, the IR is received by an IR-diode connected at one end of a 16pin IC - what else could it be but an SL486 and the next chip had to be a multivibrator to generate the serial pulses for the 4800 baud stream to Zero2, a quick check of what was connected where and it had to be a 74LS122, and the other chip in the transmitting side had to be a 555 - the 555 circuit is not one found in the data sheets but does produces narrow +ve pulses to drive the IR-LEDs.]
I added wire loops to both IR-PCBs so I could attach power and 'scope leads and added some labels. There was no power to the robot's IR-PCB's IR-LEDs, a track had been cut to isolate them! On restoring power to the LEDs nothing worked and garbage seem to be transmitted from Zero2. It turned out that the robot's IR-board was receiving the return byte it was sending and locked up in a send receive loop.
The PC-board obviously didn't do that because it sent commands. Basyl had added an extra transistor and a link to inhibit the receive circuit while transmitting. I modified the Zero2 IR-board to match the PC one and everthing worked as it should - after I added an extra capacitor in parallel with the timing one. I then modified both boards so the IR-LEDs ran off the 12v motor supply instead of the 5v regulated electronics supply. There is a diode on the PC-board which supplies power from 5v to the IR-LEDs in case there is no 9v supply. Finally I also added a blue LED in parallel with the IR LEDs so I could see when they were 'flashing'.
The photos on green shows the part finished new assembly.
I cut a new Perspex mounting plate from a Zero2 baseplate, removed the 7805 from the robot IR-board and added a connector header so it could be mounted off-board on a heatsink on which is mounted the on/off switch to which the AA cell holders will be wired. I also added a 2.1mm coax socket for power when testing. The battery holders are not yet fastened down and the wiring is not complete - the battery-clip leads have only just arrived.
Like with the Induction-Loop controller I don't remember any demonstrations of Zero2 being controlled by IR nor do I remember any talk of one! It would have been nice if it had been finished off and demonstrated back in 1985/1986.