[Jesse] sent in this one. [Raphaël] decided to take NES practice to a new level by dedicating a NES console to run the arcade version full time. This is more than merely a ROM loading exercise, there are several differences between the NES and it’s dedicated arcade sibling, the Unisys VS. Memory was upgrade, several io pins are tapped and brought out for manual access via the newly added controls up front. At the very least, it’s a nice exercise in schematic reading. Given the mods and a few arcade accessories, you could reconstruct your own fully functional arcade machine.
home entertainment hacks796 Articles
Ben Heck’s Xbox 360 Laptop Mk II
I’ve known this was coming for a while. [Ben]’s been working hard on this for a while. He’s built his second Xbox 360 laptop. But this time he’s putting up a three part How-To series on building it for engadget. Here’s a nice gallery of hi-res project pics. As usual, I’ll let you know when they’re posted. Aside from the new color scheme, this one features six fans instead of water cooling – so it should be easier for the how-to reader to construct their own.
Divx Player + WAP = Wireless Media Player
[Jkx] sent in this great little hack. He slapped Openwrt onto a Netgear WGT634U (wireless router with USB) and used it to play host to a hard drive based divx playing Dvico 3100. Now he can update his player via his wireless network without having to drag the player back to a host pc for updates. The cost of the two is still less than an apple TV, and it’s a deal if you’ve already got one of the devices.
Checkpoint VPN To Mediacenter
[Sasha] sent along this video. It’s a rather long (8 minutes) log of converting a checkpoint firewall into a home media player. The one in the video just needed a PCI video card, a and a USB hub to become a normal (yet still 1U) machine. I’m not sure what CPU was in it, but it was enough to run XP.
DIY Colorimeter
[brian] tipped me to this excellent colormeter project for calibrating your home theater/HD/etc It was designed specifically for the HCFR Colormeter software project. The project page is in english, but the probe writeup is in french. The fish well help you understand it while you resist the taunts avoid the flying cows. The device has at least one color sensor (a second is optional as well as an IR led or two for computer hardware controls) and connects to your computer via USB. The brain is a PIC 18F2550 (the fish calls it a PEAK) – no in circuit programming, you’ll need a programmer to build it.
DIY A/V Switch
I knew this was coming out, but [mike] was kind enough to remind me. [Ben Heckendorn]’s latest How-To is up on engadget. He provides a method of building your own A/V switch with as many inputs as you want, cheap. Each input uses a $.50 bus switch – literally, you could build one with 20 inputs if you really wanted to. (add some shielding if you do) If you’ve got too many game consoles, this might be your ticket. You can probably use the same trick to build a component video switch if HD’s your thing.
Robotic Beer Launching Fridge
This robotic beer launching fridge is one of those ultimate projects that you are guaranteed to see posted all over the internet today. Robots, beer, the possibility of maiming innocent bystanders… what’s not to love? I’d be lying if I said my mechanical engineering friends and I weren’t contemplating this at many points during college. Kudos to John W. Cornwell of Duke for actually pulling it off. The mini-fridge has three servos: one to elevate beer from the 10 can magazine, one to rotate the turntable, and one for cocking. Spring power is used to catapult the beer across the room. The brains of the system is an ATMega8535 and 3 intelligent H-bridges. It’s controlled by an adapted key-less entry system. It looks like they’ve wisely placed it pointing away from the tv, but I don’t know if referring to your apartment as the “man-pit” is nearly as smart. Check out some of John’s other projects: the Mentos booby-trap and the touch activated paintball gun.
[via Dirk]
