Hack A Day Links: April 27, 2011

April 28, 2011 by Kevin Dady 6 Comments

Remaking the first video game

At the Revision 2011 demo compo, a museum project called [MEGA] won first place in the “Wild” category with their zero bit recreation of “tennis for 2”. Entirely made of analog electronics, the retro game completes its presentation on a round o-scope screen. You can see a video of it after the break.

Mint-tin bicycle computer

[Alexdlp’s] newest instructable is a attractive and compact bicycle computer running off of an Arduino, and sports the usual bike features. It does not stop there, adding in a 16×2 LCD gives more room for data in both numeric form and bar graph form, and adding in a pair of radio modems allows that data to be fed back home where it can be logged and compared, perfect for the more serious biker.

8085 Reference Card

If you enjoy retro computers, or would like to make your own, you will find this Intel 8085 reference card is a real treat. Based on a original reference card, it has been expanded to give more detail for additional interrupts, electrical reference, T-State timing, and undocumented instructions.

Connect a SNES controller to your Android phone

[Bruno] wanted to be able to use a real SNES controller with the emulator on his HTC Android phone, packing in an Arduino, 6 AA batteries, and a breadboard and mission accomplished! Hardly as portable as the phone, but we commend the “get it done” sprit. Join us after the break for a quick video.

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The Silicon IC 50th Anniversary

April 26, 2011 by Kevin Dady 13 Comments

Today marks the 50^th anniversary of the first silicon integrated circuit patent. We should not have to explain how important the integrated circuit to this crowd, but it is the biggest thing in electronics since sliced bread.

[Robert Noyce] received the landmark patent on April 25^th 1961, and went on to found a little known company you might of heard of (along with [Gordon Moore]), Intel Corporation. He was not the first to invent the IC, that privilege goes to [Jack Kilby] of Texas Instruments, though that design was using a germanium wafer. Silicon has many advantages over previous technology and has become the main technology of IC’s even 50 years later fueling the electronics, computer and mobile industries.

Check out the little article above, and also be sure to check out this video on IC construction we posted about a few months ago from the other company [Robert Noyce] help co-found, Fairchild Semiconductor.

9v IR Tester

April 26, 2011 by Kevin Dady 29 Comments

Whenever you are working with infrared, you sometimes need to see it, and thats kind of hard. Most people would jump up and say “camera”, but that is not always the best solution. For instance my phone camera is so filtered its near useless for IR, and my DSLR will only take a full blast source and present a dim glow. Wanting something a bit easier [Candymanproducitons] whipped up a little IR tester that fits on top of a standard rectangle 9V battery.

A simple circuit containing nothing more than a LED, resistor, and a IR photo-transistor was assembled on some perforated circuit board, then mounted on top of a battery clip with some epoxy. The end result is a compact and robust tool that will be very handy in the shop, though we think a little spot for your scope probe would be super.

9 volt batteries, with their internal design and locking / polarized terminals are usually a mainstay of electronic tinkerers, and often pop up in cool and compact projects like my lm386 amp in a battery shell from last year. So what can you do with them?

Relay Calculator

April 22, 2011 by Kevin Dady 6 Comments

Calculators are a handy tool to have around in just about every application. We often take them for granted today, but even when I was a kid they were still sort of expensive devices that you put thought into buying. Illustrating just how far we have come is this awesome Relay Calculator brought to us by [Team 619].

Featuring an optical slider input system, the user can select any two 4 bit numbers and can add or subtract them. Logic is carried out by a couple handfuls of relays setup to be AND, OR, or XOR gates, which are then linked together to build adders.

Output is in binary as well, in the form of lights, though we cant really tell if those are some form of tubes or if they are just rods lit on end. Either way if you require a lot of nibble math and want a conversation starter this suits the bill quite niceley. Otherwise you can keep hooking up more and more relays and maybe one day make your own relay computer.

Join us after the break for a quick video!

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Apple II Weather Display (part 3)

April 20, 2011 by Kevin Dady 12 Comments

In parts 1 and 2, I discussed the important parts of what is going on the PC side with lua. While not 110% detailed I hope it gave you an idea on how the data is processed so the Apple II computer could quickly digest it. Now its time to see what happens at the other end of the serial cable. I am using basic, but its not 100% off the rom Applesoft basic, that would be even slower, so I am using a compiler and a fast graphics driver. Both are from “The Beagle Compiler” which was produced by the ever awesome Beagle Bro’s software company, and though still under copyright, the publishers have given permission for use of their software (within reason I don’t think you will get very far selling it).

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Ludum Dare 20 Starting April 29th

April 19, 2011 by Kevin Dady 9 Comments

Ludum Dare 20 is only 10 days away! Great, what the heck is Ludum Dare? Well its only the most awesome video game creation contest on the internet, thats what. While originally for the hardest of the hard core, it has recently been split up into 2 events so everyone gets to have some fun.

The Jam is pretty relaxed in the rules. Lets say you and 4 buddies want to make the ultimate zelda remix using fan sprites and free music. This is where you want to be. Its there to give people who want to join in the fun but not make serious obligations.

The Compo is the real deal for those who are insane, or really good. You are given a theme at the start of the contest and 48 hours. You must then work solo and create all original content to use within your game. You can however use premade frameworks, game engines, libraries etc to accomplish your goal, but if you really wanted to you could make a 3D engine with brain fu*k during the competition. (though I would not advise it)

Prizes include internet bragging rights, and quite possibility the best darn feeling of accomplishment possible IF you manage to come up with some form of game, based on a voted theme, by yourself, in less than 48 hours.

Be sure to check out the rules and guide page for all details and I hope to see you there.

Apple II Weather Display (part 2)

April 19, 2011 by Kevin Dady 1 Comment

In part one of the Apple II weather display I quickly went over how data is fetched and phrased. Now its time to do something with it in part 2. In the order of functions I do the text parts first, and though its very similar to the process that the radar image goes through, its in monochrome and a bit simpler to explain. Before I go into how it works I should explain how I am dividing the Apple II’s screen.

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