Tetris Code Theory Explained

June 20, 2010 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

[Graham] designed this PIC based Tetris game on a single board. The hardware is quite nice but we enjoyed his explanation of the graphics algorithm that he used. Having coded Tetris from the ground up ourselves we understand how difficult it is to explain how the program works. Tracking pieces already on the board as well as moving pieces, making sure that rotation won’t cause a collision with another piece or go out-of-bounds, and looking for completed lines all add up to one bid headache.

[Graham’s] method for handling rotation involves choosing a point around which to rotate, measuring how this affects each pixel in the piece, and then checking those pixels for overlaps. It may take a couple of readings, but he’s done a brilliant job of making it understandable. There’s a demo after the break and the link at the top takes you to his treatise on Tetris. Continue reading “Tetris Code Theory Explained” →

Dingoo A320 RAM Upgrade

June 10, 2010 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

[Stephanie] beefed up the hardware on her Dingoo A320. She enjoyed the features that the A320 handheld gaming system offered, but wanted the 64mb of RAM available in its bigger brother, the A330. A comparison of the two led her to believe a swap might be possible and after sourcing a pair of replacement chips for $12.50 she took the plunge. Once the solder had cooled it was just a matter of flashing some different firmware to take advantage of the upgrade.

[Thanks Juan via Dingoonity]

Linux Tablet Built Around A BeagleBoard

June 9, 2010 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

[Justin] shows us how to make a Linux tablet out of a BeagleBoard. You may remember [Justin’s] work at liquid cooling an Arduino. For this one he moved past the AVR hardware but took the idea of shields along for the ride. The device above is something of a Linux tablet, with a touchscreen shield on top of the BeagleBoard, and one below it for power. He’s selling these as kits which include the 480×272 OLED display as long as you can handle the fine-pitch soldering for those headers. We’re not sure our hands are steady enough for the challenge.

[Thanks Will]

Augmenting A Cheap Android MID

June 7, 2010 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

We’ve been on the prowl for a low-cost Android MID that, you know, works well. We were originally excited by the Eken M001 but early reports about poor battery life, coupled with the fact that it only runs Android 1.6 soured our interest. [Carnivore] didn’t let those things turn him away, instead he modified the M001 to meet his needs. He added a USB hub and flash drive inside as well as a few additional connectors for external devices. He’s also inserted a front-facing camera and improved battery life from a 1600 mAh capacity up to 5200 mAh. This means he can now depend on 7-12 hours of use depending on the power saving features he chooses. This does come at a cost, he had to add room inside the case so he annexed a project box for the back cover. As you can see above, he did a beautiful job of making it look right, but it’s lost that thin-sexiness it once had. See [Carnivore’s] feature walk through after the break.

Continue reading “Augmenting A Cheap Android MID” →

Ubuntu On The ClarionMIND MID

May 21, 2010 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

[DeadHP1] has been rolling and optimizing his own Ubuntu distributions for the ClarionMIND. He calls his work Mindbuntu and he’s squeezing out quite a bit of performance from the mobile Internet device. The video is running at 800×400, as well as wireless, sound, Google Earth with GPS support, and even compiz. Install the image using unetbootin to place it on a thumb drive and you’ll have Ubuntu 9.04 to go in no time.

[Thanks Bob]

[ClarionMIND Photo courtesy of Mobile Tech Review]

Mister Gloves, Gesture Input

May 19, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 8 Comments

This two handed glove input setup, by [Sean Chen] and [Evan Levine], is one step closer to achieving that [Tony Stark] like workstation; IE, interacting with software in 3D with simple hand gestures. Dubbed the Mister Gloves, the system incorporates accelerometer, push button, and flex sensor data over RF where an MCU converts it to a standard USB device, meaning no drivers are needed and a windows PC can recognize it as a standard keyboard and mouse. Catch a video of Mister Gloves playing portal after the jump.

While amazing, we’re left wondering if gesture setups are really viable options considering one’s arm(s) surly would get tired? Continue reading “Mister Gloves, Gesture Input” →

OpenGL On The Didj

May 13, 2010 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfXI0crLTBc]

[Losinggeneration] managed to get a homebrew OpenGL application working on the Didj. It’s nice to see the community driven work advance on this device but something else also caught our attention from the forum post. Another poster pointed out that [losinggeneration] has files in one of his directories called “glquake-didj” and “glquake-didj.dbg”. We hope that means a working version of Quake is on the way for the hackable handheld.

[Thanks JJ Dasher]