When we read “smaller paddles” we immediately thought of the physical controllers that you hold in your hands. But this hack alters the size of the virtual Pong paddles displayed on the TV screen.
We remember quite well the episode of That 70’s Show where Red and Kelso take apart their Pong machine to hack it. The video after the break which [Blues Image] put together shuffles scenes from that episode in with images of his hack. The characters are adamant that the game is too easy and reducing the size of the virtual paddles is the only thing that will make it fun again. After building his own hardware from the original schematics, [Blue Image] figured this challenge was worth a try.
His solution is in the form of two man-in-the-middle boards which insert a way to reroute the pins without altering the main board. One of the chips is used to draw the paddles, the other checks for collisions with the ball. By changing the pin-out the paddles are reduced from fifteen pixels down to seven.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6RgSupljYM
[via Reddit]
I had a pong knock-off that had difficulty levels. The paddles size could be changed. So could the ball speed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Td0P9Mqu68
Season 1, Episode 22 “Punk Chick”
This hack almost wouldn’t be complete without someone being called “dumb-ass” by an irritable, balding man. Cue also reference to soldering being the future.
I read the headline on my RSS reader and immediately thought of That 70’s Show. Awesome.
i only read smaller paddles and my mind went to the scene with kelse and red
Cool stuff, nice hack :). Somewhat related:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzEBOjvA11w
These guys not only shrink the paddles, but move them closer together. And as an added bonus, they play it on an oscilloscope ;)
That’s actually the first version of Pong and the first video game ever!
get your head out of those damm videogames and get a job…
and if i ever catch you smoking() again, ill kick ur ass all the way to canada, dumbass!
dumbass!