gaming

127 Articles

The hairclip-embedded tool being used on a Tiger 99x game console, clipped onto a spot where the plastic ribbon meets the LCD panel itself, heating it up

World’s Smallest Hair Straightener For Fixing Old LCD Ribbons

March 19, 2022 by 8 Comments

[Stephen] writes to us about an LCD repair tool he has created. We’ve all seen old devices with monochrome LCDs connected by thin film, where connections between the PCB and the LCD have deteriorated and the LCD would no longer show parts of the picture. This is a connection heating gadget, that [Stephen] affectionately dubs as World’s Smallest Hair Straightener, made specifically to bring cool old tech back to life.

A resin-printed mold houses a coil of Kanthal wire, easy to source and simple to make. He reuses a hair clip as a housing for the heating element, which also provides pressure needed to squish the film-printed conductive traces into the LCD as the adhesive melts. High-temperature epoxy brings the two together, and with a variable power supply, this tool successfully brought an old Tiger 99x handheld back to life.

This hack was made possible, in part, because of [JohnDevin Duncan] in Hackaday comment section sharing his experience on repairing LCD ribbons back in 2015, giving valuable insights on the problem that we initially thought would be solve-able with a soldering iron. The knowledge shared was distilled by [Stephen] into a tool that we all can now use when we encounter a device we really, really want to revive.

Last time we covered this topic, quite a few hackers popped up with their stories and suggestions. Old game console fix stories are a staple here on Hackaday, a few pop to mind – this high-effort trace repair of a water-damaged GameBoy cartridge, a badly designed NES cartridge socket reinvention, and this GameBoy LCD sunburn damage restoration guide.

Custom Macintosh With A Real 486

February 1, 2022 by 12 Comments

Older Apple computers can often be something of a collector’s item, with the oldest fetching an enormously high price in auctions. The ones from the late ’80s and early ’90s don’t sell for quite as much yet, but it’s possible that museums and collectors of the future will one day be clamoring for those as well. For that reason, it’s generally frowned upon to hack or modify original hardware. Luckily, this replica of an Apple Macintosh didn’t harm any original hardware yet still manages to run software on bare metal.

The computer is built around a single-board computer, but this SBC isn’t like the modern ARM machines that have become so ubiquitous. It’s a 133MHz AMD 486 which means that it can run FreeDOS and all of the classic DOS PC games of that era without emulation. In order to run Apple’s legacy operating system, however, it does require the use of the vMac emulator, but the 486 is quite capable of handling the extra layer of abstraction. The computer also sports a real SoundBlaster ISA sound card, uses a microSD card for its hard drive, and uses an 800×600 LCD screen.

As a replica, this computer is remarkably faithful to the original and even though it doesn’t ship with a Motorola 68000 it’s still fun to find retro PC gamers that are able to run their games on original hardware rather than emulation. It reminds us of another retro 486 that is capable of running old games on new hardware without an emulator as well.

Retro Gaming With Retro Joysticks

January 30, 2022 by 12 Comments

One of the biggest reasons for playing older video games on original hardware is that emulators and modern controllers can’t replicate the exact feel of how those games would have been originally experienced. This is true of old PC games as well, so if you want to use your original Sidewinder steering wheel or antique Logitech joystick, you’ll need something like [Necroware]’s GamePort adapter to get them to communicate with modern hardware.

In a time before USB was the standard, the way to connect controllers to PCs was through the GamePort, typically found on the sound card. This has long since disappeared from modern controllers, so the USB interface [Necroware] built relies on an Arduino to do the translating. Specifically, the adapter is designed as a generic adapter for several different analog joysticks, and a series of DIP switches on the adapter select the appropriate mode. Check it out in the video after the break. The adapter is also capable of automatically calibrating the joysticks, which is necessary as the passive components in the controllers often don’t behave the same way now as they did when they were new.

Plenty of us have joysticks and steering wheels from this era stored away somewhere, so if you want to experience Flight Simulator 5.0 like it would have been experienced in 1993, all it takes is an Arduino. And, if you want to run these programs on bare metal rather than in an emulator, it is actually possible to build a new Intel 486 gaming PC, which operates almost exactly like a PC from the 90s would have.

Continue reading “Retro Gaming With Retro Joysticks” →

Exercise Bike Hacked As Input For Xbox 360

January 25, 2022 by 12 Comments

If you like playing Grand Theft Auto, you’re pretty familiar with squeezing the triggers for accelerating and braking while driving around. [David Programa] decided this was too easy, and instead developed a system to allow him to pedal his way around the virtual world.

The device relies on a flywheel-based exercise bike, with six magnets placed on the flywheel that triggers a reed switch six times per rotation. The extra magnets give the system better resolution at slow speeds. A Hall Effect sensor would be a more reliable way to build this to survive in the long term, but the reed switch does work. It’s paired with a debounce circuit to keep the output clean. A Raspberry Pi is pressed into service, running a Python program to read a GPIO pin activated by the reed switch, counting pulses to determine the speed of pedalling.

The trigger control used in the Xbox 360 controller is a potentiometer that creates varying voltages depending on its position, allowing it to act as an analog accelerator input. 0 volts corresponds to no input, while the trigger reads 3.3 volts when fully depressed. The Raspberry Pi emulates this with its PWM output, paired with a low-pass filter to create the relevant voltage to inject into the trigger input on a generic Xbox 360 controller.

While it’s a lot less practical than simply using a regular controller, the pedal controls do allow you to get a great workout while playing Grand Theft Auto. Some of the more intense chase missions should be a great way to get your heart rate up, and that’s got to be a good thing.

Ironically, though, the system only works for cars and motorbikes in game. The bicycles in Grand Theft Auto are controlled by mashing the A button instead. Alternatively, you might consider a similar system for playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Exercise Bike Hacked As Input For Xbox 360” →

Google’s T-Rex Game Ported To The ESP32

December 15, 2021 by 3 Comments

Most Chrome users will have come across a neat little Easter egg when their Internet connection has gone down – a game known as “T-Rex” where a dinosaur must be jumped over cactii. Whether or not this is accurate in terms of the evolutionary timeline, it’s a bit of fun, and Volos Projects educator [Danko Bertović] decided to port the game to the ESP32.

The game runs on the LILYGO TTGO T-Display development board, which pairs the powerful microcontroller with a 1.14-inch color LCD. His clone goes as far as authentically replicating the “No Internet” page from within Google Chrome, before kicking into the game at the press of a tactile button.

The game is built using a sprite-based engine, which enables gameplay with a minimum of flickering on the screen. Transparency is included to stop the sprites from occluding other screen elements unnecessarily. [Danko] hasn’t yet released a full tutorial on using sprites on the ESP32, but code is available for your own digestion.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen [Danko]’s ESP32 games, as he’s developed a few over the years. Others have gone so far as coding 8-bit emulators for the platform. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Google’s T-Rex Game Ported To The ESP32” →

N-Gage Controller Uses All The Buttons

November 25, 2021 by 6 Comments

If there’s anything you can guarantee about a video game system, it’s that in 20 years after one suffers a commercial failure there will be a tiny yet rabid group of enthusiasts obsessed with that system. It’s true for the Virtual Boy, the Atari Jaguar, and of course, the Nokia N-Gage. For those not familiar, this was a quirky competitor of the Game Boy Advance that was also a cell phone. And for that reason it had more buttons than a four-player arcade cabinet, which has led to things like this custom controller.

Most N-Gage gaming these days takes place on emulators, this build is specifically built for the emulator experience. The original system had so many buttons that it’s difficult to get even a standard 102-key keyboard mapped comfortably to it, so something custom is almost necessary. [Lvaneede], the creator of this project, took some parts from an existing arcade cabinet he had and 3D printed the case in order to craft this custom controller. The buttons he chose are a little stiff for his liking, but it’s much better than using a keyboard.

In the video below, [Lvaneede] demonstrates it with a few of the N-Gage’s games. It seems to hold up pretty well. With backing from Sony and Sega, it’s a shame that these gaming platforms weren’t a bigger hit than they were, but there are plenty of people around with original hardware who are still patching and repairing them so they can still play some of these unique games.

Thanks to [Michael] for the tip!

Continue reading “N-Gage Controller Uses All The Buttons” →

LEDBOY Is A Retro-Modern Handheld Game

November 11, 2021 by 3 Comments

Back in the 1970s, there were a few LED-based games on the market that were quickly superseded by the rise of LCDs and other fancier technologies. However, [grossofabian] wanted to recreate that classic style of game but with more modern hardware. The result is the LEDBOY, a colorful handheld game built in tribute to that era.

The handheld is based around the ATtiny 1614 microcontroller, driving a 10×10 array of NeoPixel Nano 2427 LEDs, named for their small 2.4 mm x 2.7 mm form factor. They’re RGB, too, so there’s lots of wonderful colors to play with.

Wrapped up in a neat enclosure with a rechargeable 130 mAh lithium-ion battery and some simple tactile buttons, it’s a tidy little handheld game console. Add in the CH340C chip for USB to serial duties, and it’s easy to program with the Arduino IDE, too.

Code is available on Github for those keen to take a closer look. Amusingly, the project bears a striking resemblance to a similarly-named build we featured just under 12 years ago. Time is a flat circle, and the video, my friends, is after the break.

Continue reading “LEDBOY Is A Retro-Modern Handheld Game” →