USB Host Comes To Zipit

September 18, 2010 by Mike Szczys 26 Comments

This USB to Zipit Dock adapter and a special kernel makes USB host mode for the Zipit possible. Previously, the cheap and hackable wireless client needed a hardware modification to enable USB support. The new kernel bootloader, called U-Boot, makes the internal alterations unnecessary (see the demo after the break). Now the only caveat is one of voltage. Zipit only supplies 3.3V when running on battery so your choices are to only use USB when the Zipit is plugged into a charger, or use a powered USB hub. But if you’re already building a hub adapter it shouldn’t be too much trouble to add in the option for a battery-powered hub.

So can we play our NES games using a USB controller now?

Continue reading “USB Host Comes To Zipit” →

Indestructible TI-89

August 23, 2010 by James Munns 63 Comments

Sometimes, expensive calculators hit the floor. It’s happened to almost anyone with a graphing calculator from TI or HP. Sadly, they don’t always bounce. After this happened to [Howard C.], an Industrial Engineering student from U. of Iowa, he decided to spend $50 on milling his own replacement case out of aluminum rather than trashing the device over a broken battery compartment. [Howard] chose to send us the story rather than write his own blog, so we’ve included all the great pictures he sent us after the break.

Continue reading “Indestructible TI-89” →

GBA Emulator Ported To Didj

August 12, 2010 by Mike Szczys 18 Comments

Tired of messing with the hardware of the Didj you picked up? Now you can use it for gaming on that last road trip of the summer. A Game Boy Advanced emulator has been ported for use on both the Didj and the Explorer. You’ll have to dig up a copy of the original bios for a GBA as well as some ROMs, but the rest seems pretty straight forward. We are still holding out hope for Doom or Quake on the Didj, but this will help us wait a bit longer.

[Thanks Nirvous via Rosincore]

Open Graphing Calculator: Beagleboard + R

August 6, 2010 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

It looks like we missed the boat on this one but just in case you missed it everywhere else on the Internet, last Saturday [Matt Stack] introduced the world to a completely open source calculator. This marries two heartily tested open source projects; the R Project for Statistical Computing and the Beagleboard. The hardware side of things is very similar to that Linux tablet from back in June. It uses a stock Beagleboard with the BeagleTouch module.

Why do we care? First off, don’t forget what’s under the hood. That ARM processor kicks the 6 MHz Z80 processor found in TI’s calculators to the curb. The R language is a boon as well, offering plots of almost limitless quality and allowing extensibility that can’t be equaled with the current non-open offerings. But mostly because it’s a hack. We like seeing software run on hardware it wasn’t intended for.

Handheld Plays SNES And NES Carts

August 2, 2010 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

[Lovable Chevy] finished her portable build, ending up with a handheld that takes both SNES and NES cartridges. We’ve got to say congratulations on reaching the finish line as her first build log post was in March of ’08. But it was worth the wait. The little device, which is a mash-up of the hardware from a Retro Duo along with a PSone screen and 4250 mAh battery, looks quite nice thanks to her skill and patience when building the case. Take a look at the obligatory demo video after the break. Continue reading →

16-pixel Handheld Gaming

July 11, 2010 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

What we need in today’s handhelds is LESS resolution. Take a look at the video after the break to see the exciting action that [Bruno Pasquini] 4×4 LED matrix handheld game delivers. The device is made up of 16 bi-color LEDs, four buttons, and a PIC 16F628. There’s no schematic yet but it looks like there’s no need for shift registers, just some transistors to handle the current load for the rows of each color. We’ve seen a 64-pixel handheld that plays Super Mario Brothers, but this portable brings a top scrolling racing game with just 25% of that display size.

Continue reading “16-pixel Handheld Gaming” →

Adding Speech Recognition To Your Embedded Platform.

July 11, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 26 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEUeJb6Pwt4&feature=player_embedded]

Last week, we posted a story about how to configure speech recognition at a beginner level. Several of the commenters expressed an interest in doing speech recognition for embedded devices. [Nickolay Shmyrev] volunteered to write some directions for those people. In this article, [Nickolay] will be taking you through the basics of setting up your embedded device with CMUsphinx an open source toolkit for speech recognition. He gives programming examples in both C and python. Though we are hosting this, we haven’t set it up and tried it, so please direct any questions you have at [Nickolay] in the comments.
Continue reading “Adding Speech Recognition To Your Embedded Platform.” →