[Ben Heck] posted an interesting one-off project he built many months ago. Video game developer Infinity Ward approached him to build a large display that indicated what buttons on a controller were being pressed. They were planning on using it during player testing by recording the board and the monitor at the same time. They could then compare the two to see if there was any disconnect between the players input and the onscreen action. Infinity Ward is the developer behind games like Call of Duty 4.
[Ben] piggy-backed the switch connections and added an external port. He used a pair of octal buffer ICs to replicate the signals and activate the LEDs. The whole board is powered by the same 3.3V line that’s used by accessories like the chat pad. The triggers have three LEDs each and are lit using a resistor ladder. [Ben] comments that since this is a newer Xbox 360 controller, the active-low button scheme makes it fairly easy to work with. There is a video of the board embedded below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNdY92-i9Xk]
It would B pretty slick if it had some smd leds around the Sticks to show direction…otherwise, Go Team Venture…I mean go Ben Heck. Heh
This would be an awesome backdrop for tournaments.
There’s a 360 controller mapper on my Mac that does this same thing. Except it provides support for the analog sticks as well, giving appropriate X/Y positions for both.
http://tattiebogle.net/index.php/ProjectRoot/Xbox360Controller/OsxDriver
@Warren: the app on your mac shows button-presses in real time while you’re playing a 360 game? That’s a hell of a trick.
Actually I wonder how hard it would be to sniff on all the controller channels, possibly with the PC’s USB360WirelessController adaptor. But yeah, most joystick control panels show that I imagine, the trick was getting it while gaming on ‘360, which ben achieved.
–PidGin128