The UltimateSIMON

posted Jan 30th 2010 4:00pm by Mike Szczys
filed under: toy hacks

[Simon Inns] designed a circuit board to retrofit an original Simon electronic game. This hack is immediately a win because he made sure that his design required no modification of the original case. The new PCB has many improvements. It moves the device from using 2 D-cells over to a 9 volt battery, the incandescent bulbs were out swapped out for three LEDs per button, and the use of tactile switches makes the buttons a lot more responsive (but does require a bit of modification to the colored button covers). Under the hood there’s a PIC18F2550 controlling a serial LED chip and handling input monitoring and sound generation. The video after the break is safe to watch at work, there’s no swearing involved this time.

Comments [10]

tagged: 18F2550, game, pcb, pic, simon

10 Responses to The UltimateSIMON

outroot says:

January 30, 2010 at 4:36 pm

I don’t see moving from 2 D cells to a 9V as an improvement. Maybe in size, but it definitely will not last as long.

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Simon says:

January 30, 2010 at 4:44 pm

The original used a 9V battery and 2 D-cells. This board needs only the 9V battery and can run from a 9V power adaptor. The use of LEDs instead of incandescent bulbs lowers the power consumption considerably. Hope this helps to clarify!

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Haku says:

January 30, 2010 at 4:49 pm

That’s great :) stick it to your wall and use it as a door entry system, like in the Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs film

I’ve got a couple of those units, one boxed with manual and another which has seen much better days, I’ve had the idea in the back of my minde to replace the mainboard in that one for a Mini-ITX…

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supershwa says:

January 30, 2010 at 6:23 pm

I pulled apart a Rubik’s Revolution ( http://www.rubiksrevolution.com/ ) a few days ago — it has a Simon/memory game built in to it among a few other games. Many similarities here, except revolution’s tiny PCB fits into a well designed plastic case, and already has the LEDs :P

While oddly simple (however advanced), a great hack to amuse the neophytes!

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pc says:

January 30, 2010 at 8:04 pm

God I haven’t played this game since I was a kid.

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Ho0d0o/Heatgap says:

January 30, 2010 at 9:39 pm

Yes excellent game I loved this as well as Bop-It. All of you out there that have Android phones can pick a great simon app up from the android market. It’s so much fun.

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PocketBrain says:

January 31, 2010 at 2:11 pm

Also, thanx for the link to some cool 8-bit themed music.

Maybe the next Simon mod will have a speak-n-spell calling out the colors. :-)

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venetian says:

February 1, 2010 at 4:14 am

serial LCD?

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The Ffejery says:

February 1, 2010 at 11:20 am

This is neat, especially given the care put in in the build. I pulled apart a broken SIMON a few years back, and the hardware was quite interesting. I can’t remember where I dug up the specs on the controller, but if I recall correctly, it may have been related to the TMS1000. At any rate, the reason it takes a 9V battery as well as the D cells is because the controller seems to use a -9V supply. :S Crrraaazy!
Also, the Rubiks Revolution is kind of a disappointment. It’s almost entirely a CoB, and the build quality is appalling. (Mine had had two points bridged and then separated with side-snips – eep!) The only reason I might recommend buying it is that the central tact switch/LED assembly (in a cubical shape) might be useful.

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Simon says:

February 1, 2010 at 9:15 pm

@venetian: That should be serial LED driver (the A6276)

@Ffejery: If you’re interested in the inner workings of a Simon game, you can find an article about how it works (basically a reverse-engineering exercise) on my website http://www.waitingforfriday.com/index.php/Reverse_engineering_an_MB_Electronic_Simon_game

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