Author: Jason Striegel

99 Articles

Gameboy Advance Gps

March 7, 2005 by 18 Comments

gameboy advance gps

if you’ve got a gameboy advance, a gba flash cartridge, and a gps receiver that outputs nmea, then you can turn your gameboy advance into a cool gps mapping receiver.

mikhail sharonov created a nice litle application that assists you in importing and calibrating up to 20 raster maps.  the software will then output a gba rom file that you can run on your device.  with a few minor software updates, he was also able to get the microsoft branded gps to work (the one which comes with microsoft streets and trips 2005).  hot!

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24-channel Audio System

March 6, 2005 by 11 Comments

leamon sound device

roy leamon just wasn’t satisfied with 5.1 discrete audio channels, so he went to work hacking together a 24 channel sound system that he calls the lsd (laemon sound device).  the 24 seperate speakers are controlled over firewire by a mac g5.

it’s a bit difficult to imagine what is possible with this system.  you could realistically have a seperate sound source for each instrument in your recording.  you could move a single source around the room in a way that a 5.1 system can only attempt to imitate.  there are a lot of possibilities.

this one is not for the faint of heart or light of wallet.  though it’s constructed from off the shelf components, roy estimates that it would take $12-15k to reproduce his system.  that figure just shattered any hopes that i had of being a true audiophile.  this is probably ok — i don’t have the skillz to juggle 12 turntables anyway.

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G5 Alarm Clock

March 5, 2005 by 8 Comments

g5 alarm clock

a couple of days ago, an engadget reader posed an important question:

Does a non-fugly cd-alarm clock exist? It is the Holy Grail of gadgets. How Sony can make a gorgeous T1 or T3 digital camera and still make clocks that look like ass confounds me.

now there is hope for fugly alarm clock haters.  anders lundberg has solved your problem and built an alarm clock into a mac g5 case.

the howto is written in swedish, but it’s also well documented in the universal language of jpeg.  it looks like he was able to create a custom led array that fits the hole pattern of the case, while using the guts from an every day alarm clock to drive it all.  thanks for the link, gary!

update: a reader over at tuaw has translated the howto to english

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Homemade Lazer Tag System

March 4, 2005 by 16 Comments

lazer tag trogdornator

kno one forwarded me a link to a diy lazer tag system that is off the hook.

MilesTag uses a digitally encoded signal allowing differentiation between up to 32 players and 7 teams, and supports a wide range of weapon types, including mines, area-denial and even non-conventional weapons.  Damage inflicted by each weapon is scalable, and the performance of each weapon is fully configurable (rate of fire, ammo capacity, reload time, etc.).

the trogdornator (pictured above) really caught my eye.  source and schematics are included so you and your friends can get together and build you own game.  but make sure to pick your friends carefully — they must have courage, cunning and the ability to hack.

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Make A Palm Pilot Robot

March 3, 2005 by 10 Comments

palm pilot robot

the old palm pilot you have could also be used as the brains for a nifty little holonomic drive robot.  the palm pilot robot kit was created several years ago by the carnegie mellon toy robots initiative.  that would be the same research group that came up with the bow powered pogo stick.

The Palm makes a handy robot controller: it packs a lot of computational power in a small size, runs on batteries, and best of all, can display graphics and an interactive user interface. Our robot empowers a Palm to move about and sense the nearby environment.

speaking of palm hacks, sean russell sent me this link after reading the palm lcd display article.  make sure to check that out as well if you are interested in dusting off your old palm device.

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Howto: Nonviolent Ipod Shuffle Disassembly

March 2, 2005 by 107 Comments

shuffle disassemble hack
while most shuffle owners don’t know it yet, in a year or two there will be a lot of folks wondering where their battery life went.  applecare’s battery replacement service for normal ipods is available for the low, low price of $99.  think they will have a cheapo shuffle battery replacement service?  think different.

we mentioned earlier that someone posted photos of an ipod shuffle disassembly.  the previous disassembly left a few key questions unanswered, namely:

  • do you need to butcher the buttons to take your shuffle apart?

  • will the average joe be able to replace the battery?

  • what else is under the hood?

  • can it be cleanly reassembled?

this howto will attempt to answer these questions while disassembling the shuffle in a non-destructive manner.

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Reuse Your Old Palm Pda As An Lcd Display

March 1, 2005 by 78 Comments

palm lcd display
if you’ve got an old palm device (palm, visor, clie, workpad), you can use it as an lcd output device for your pc or robotics project.  the open source software palmorb runs on palm os 2.0 or above and makes your old palm pilot emulate a Matrix Orbital LK204-25 LCD.

this is great.  i’ve got an old palm 3 collecting dust that can get some use now.  there are some code samples on the site, or you can use lcd4linux or lcdsmartie to communicate with your new lcd device.  thanks for the link ray.

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