Shmoocon 2006: Dan Geer Keynote

January 26, 2006 by 4 Comments

shmoocon
I attended ShmooCon 2006 Jan. 13-15th. I had been waiting for the video and slides from the con to be posted, but I figured I should start posting before I completely forget what went on. Over the next few days I’ll be posting about the various talks I attended.

Dan Geer‘s keynote was one of my favorite talks from the con. He believes that “if people respect you enough to have you deliver a keynote, respect your audience enough to write it out”. Thanks to that he’s provided the full text and a pdf of the slides from his talk. My summary won’t do it justice, but you can at least know what you are getting yourself into. Read on.

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Playstation 2 Serial Port

January 24, 2006 by 10 Comments

playstation serial

As odd as it might sound, I never paid attention to the Playstation 2 homebrew scene because I own a Playstation 2 Linux kit. The Linux kit hides the hardware behind a software layer while the PS2Dev project was an attempt to run code natively on the hardware. So the two projects didn’t really have a lot in common. Of course ignoring that part of the scene means I missed out on this serial port mod. The Playstation’s Emotion Engine core has a serial debugging interface and by wiring up a MAX3323EEPE you can watch the processor as it is running. That’s an interesting hidden feature and I hope Sony is a little more supportive of the developer community when the Playstation 3 comes out than they have been lately with the PSP scene.

[thanks fbz via Pixel]

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Full Motion Video On An 8088

January 23, 2006 by 27 Comments

8088

Trixter pulled off this awesome hack, proving that the demoscene is alive and well. It started as a silly joke “well, I can display video on my XT!” , but Trixter thought about it and came up with a way to do it on his Model 5150. The production needs 10MB of disk space, a Soundblaster Pro, a CGA card and monitor. Trixter notes at the end of the page that he’s had to use text mode to get 16 colors out of the CGA instead of the standard 4. Check out the video of the XT being pushed to its limits at his site. (video on Google Video)

[thanks ex-parrot]

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Bluetooth Playstation Controller For Axim PDA

January 22, 2006 by 14 Comments

axim

Reader [Jakeh] wanted a Bluetooth based game controller for his Axim. Unfortunately, the only commercial option didn’t fit very well. He decided to chop up the Bluetooth controller and wire it into an original Playstation controller. Wiring was slightly annoying because half the buttons in the Bluetooth controller don’t have a common ground. The final touch was modifying two mechanical pencils to provide clamping pressure on the outside of the PDA. Here’s [Jakeh]’s original post about the project and his Flickr photo set.

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Motorized Projector Screen

January 21, 2006 by 22 Comments

projector

[Brad O’Connor] has completed his motorized projector screen that we mentioned last month while covering his Lumenlab projector build. The screen is driven by a windshield washer motor using the low speed connection. The 126″ screen is supported by a copper pipe and is attached using Velcro. Brad says the wrinkles aren’t visible during playback, but he plans on adding more weight to remove them. He’s also planning on wireless control in the future.

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E-Reader For Nintendo DS

January 20, 2006 by 16 Comments

7ds

The e-Reader is an add-on product for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. It has a simple optical card swipe for loading programs off of specially encoded cards. The location of the link port adapter keeps the device from being used with the Nintendo DS. Reader [Caitsith2] has posted instructions for modifying the reader for use with the DS. If you don’t plan on using it with your GBA you can pull the entire board. Once you’ve got the e-Reader switched you can do fun stuff like printing out your own homebrew e-Reader cards.

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