Hackaday Podcast 019: Extreme Clock Accuracy, Mobius Gears And Planetary Stunts, Jamming All Fobs, Pi In Your Wii

May 17, 2019 by Mike Szczys 4 Comments

Join Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams as they riff on the coolest hacks from the past week. Clocks and 3D printing seem to keep coming up this week as we look at using an FPGA plus GPS receiver for better accuracy than we’re used to, and we haggle over what to call the robot arms that nudge the hands on a shelf-clock. There’s a wicked 3D-printed planetary gear design, and brackets that turn flat cardboard into boxes (more useful than you might think). We close out with great reads on the Supermicro fallout of the last 7 months, and a pretty big oops-moment as a hacker knocks out keyfobs for an entire neighborhood.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (60 MB or so.)

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Prototype Proves Wii Was Two Gamecubes Taped Together All Along

October 29, 2018 by Drew Littrell 26 Comments

Say what you will about Nintendo’s little purple lunchbox, the Gamecube, but it was home to many delightful experiences from Super Smash Bros. Melee to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. We now know it was also home to one of the very first Nintendo Wii remotes as well thanks to the recent listing from [Kuriaisu1122] on Yahoo Auctions.

The prototype Wii remote is a wired design and features a proprietary Gamecube controller cable. Notable differences include the two buttons toward the bottom are labeled ‘B’ and ‘A’ respectively. This shows that Nintendo always intended to have players hold the remote sideways in order to play Virtual console games. The large white button next to the directional pad is unlabeled, and along the middle are the traditional ‘Start’ and ‘Select’ labels on either side of ‘Home’. However, these all would go through multiple revisions on the way to the final design. Interestingly there is an Ethernet jack at the base used to connect accessories. That connector would eventually become the often maligned “Nunchuk interface”, but what modder wouldn’t have loved it if that Ethernet port had carried on to the final design?

Much like the “invaluable” Mario Party 6 microphone, the prototype’s IR sensor bar communicates via the Gamecube memory card port. The auction listing featured a photo size comparison of the prototype sensor bar is around four inches wider than the final design. Missing from the prototype Wii remote is the small tinny speaker, but that always seemed like an after thought anyway.

Credence as to the controller’s validity was given in a tweet from WayForward’s James Montagna who said on Twitter, “Wow, it’s the prototype Wii Remote & Nunchuk! I remember seeing these back when it was still known as the Nintendo Revolution!”. Montagna would go on to post photos of the Wii remote from E3 2006 that featured ‘Back’ and ‘Pause’ buttons where the plus and minus buttons would ultimately reside on the final design. These photos of the missing links in the evolution of the Wii remote help fill in the design process at Nintendo. They also further the idea that Nintendo always wanted players to measure each of their new consoles’ processing power in “X number of Gamecubes duct taped together”.

[via Nintendo Life]

For more on the console formerly known as the Nintendo Revolution, check out this incredible Wii console mod in an Altoids tin featured on Hackaday.

Using Modern Nintendo Controllers On The C64

August 23, 2018 by Tom Nardi 12 Comments

There are plenty of people out there who still enjoy playing games on vintage computers like the Commodore 64. But while they likely return to these classic games themselves out of a sense of nostalgia, the feeling doesn’t always extend to the hardware itself. For example, one can enjoy playing Impossible Mission without having to use a contemporary C64 joystick.

Thanks to an open source project developed by [Robert Grasböck], C64 owners who want to take advantage of the improvements made to gaming controllers in the nearly 40 years since the system’s release now have another option. Called Nunchuk64, it allows you to use various Nintendo controllers which make use of the Wii “Nunchuk” interface on original C64 hardware. This includes the controllers from the recent “Classic Edition” NES and SNES systems, which offer a decidedly retro feel with all the benefits of modern technology and construction techniques.

Both the hardware and software for Nunchuck64 are open source, and everything you need to build your own version is in the project’s repository. [Robert] even has assembly instructions, complete with images, which walk you through building your own copy of the hardware and flashing the firmware onto it. This is a nice touch that we very rarely see even in open source projects. The board is populated with a ATmega328P microcontroller and a handful of passive components, making assembly fairly straightforward assuming you are comfortable with SMD work.

Bringing more modern controllers to classic systems seems to be gaining popularity recently, within the last few months we’ve seen Xbox 360 controllers on the Nintendo 64, and newly manufactured pads for the Atari 5200.

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The Incredible Shrinking Coin Cell Battery Pack

December 7, 2017 by Kristina Panos 15 Comments

How’s it going with your project for the coin cell challenge? You can only use a single one, but Hackaday alum [Jeremy S Cook] has a great way to package coin cells into a sleek little power packs whether you need one, two, or even four.

[Jeremy] is building a wireless Wii nunchuk, so he needs a small battery that won’t short out or get punctured in the confines of the controller body. A single coin cell holder is already a bit bulky, and he needs to use two in series. He thought, why not try shrink wrapping them together? The only downside here is that the biggest tube that came with your average heat shrink multi-pack is probably a bit too tight to fit around them, so you might have to buy more (aw, shucks!).

After trying a few ways to make a good connection between the leads and the bare coin cell faces, [Jeremy] settled on generously stripping stranded wire and wrapping the long strands around the end to form a conductive swab. This slides in nicely between the coin cell and preshrunk tube. A little more heat will make a good connection, and some hot glue secures the wires. Click past the break for his build video and the other connection methods he tried. Have you come up with something better? Let us know in the comments.

Stray a bit further from the bench and you might come up with something like this googly eye battery holder we saw a few months ago.

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The Self-Balancing Sideways Segway

August 1, 2015 by James Hobson 13 Comments

[Jason Dorie] has been hard at work on his two-wheeled, self-balancing skateboard. He calls it the Sideway.

Similar to the Segway, it relies on the user shifting their weight to control the speed at which it will run. A Wii Nunchuk controller is used to steer, which varies each wheels output, which allows for some tight maneuvering!

Under the deck is a pair of 24V 280W (about 1/3HP each) scooter motors which are driven by two 32A Sabertooth speed controllers. They’re run off a pair of 3 cell 5Ah LiPos which get him about 40 minutes of use — not too shabby! To handle the control algorithm for the IMU, he’s using a Parallax Propeller with custom software.

To demonstrate, he takes us of a tour of one of his favorite stores — Michael’s.

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Space Invaders Played On A 16×2 Character Display

February 4, 2013 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

This Space Invaders game does more with less. [Rjk79] managed to make a video game using a two-line character display. The game consists of a wave of invaders on the top line, with the defender cannon on the bottom. The invader isn’t just stationary, but randomly moves to the left and the right. The image above captured a little bit of motion blur from the defender moving into position before firing on the enemy.

An Arduino board controls the 16×2 HD44780 character display. The game also includes sounds generated by the piezo buzzer seen on the breadboard. All the way to the right you can see the Wii Nunchuk breakout board which provides directional control and the firing trigger. If you want to recreate this one for yourself [Rjk79] is sharing the source code on Pastebin. There’s also a demo video found after the jump.

If you don’t have a character LCD on hand you might try this other Space Invaders clone that uses an 8×8 led matrix.

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The Put-put Golf Course Every Hackerspace Must Build

April 16, 2012 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

Ever played a mini-golf course that includes a vacuum powered tube transport and Wii Nunchuk controlled labyrinth? We’d bet the answer is no on both counts, unless you’re friends with [Tom Scott]. He enlisted his local hacker friends to build a uniquely geeky mini-golf course to help him celebrate a milestone birthday — 10k days on this Earth. Last month we looked in on one of the Portal themed holes, but the finished course is almost unbelievably larger and more amazing.

Our count puts the course at twelve holes. We’re already familiar with the Companion Sphere Incinerator hole, but joining in that theme is a Turret Hole (whith lasers!), and a clever hack that uses hidden balls to simulate a portal jump. The image above shows the Real Turf hole which starts with a put up some living sod into the indoor/outdoor carpet lined labyrinth. The Twin Looper hole will suck a well placed putt through thirty meters of tubing. And of course there’s the Minecraft hole which includes a Creeper and TNT block.

Don’t miss the clip after the break which shows off the course. And if you’d like to hit these links yourself they’ll be making an appearance at the Derby Maker Faire (in the UK) on June 3rd. Continue reading “The Put-put Golf Course Every Hackerspace Must Build” →