Here’s a classic project for the weekend. This KT88 based tube amplifier is surprisingly simple. The parts count is low, but the sound produced by the amplifier is considered quite pleasing. For the budget conscious, there are several optional tubes that can be used in place of the primary KT88.
home entertainment hacks770 Articles
Nintendo DrumAxe Controller
We can’t remember the last time a new cart or peripheral for the NES was released, but [Tony Amendolare] at ElektroKraft has just changed that. In conjunction with Nesdev.com, [Amendolare] created Super Synth Drums, a NES-compatible cartridge that turns button presses on the NES gamepad into drum sounds synthesized by the NES’s sound chips. To complement his software, he created the Sonic DrumAxe, a controller that looks a bit like a potato gun and is played like a guitar.
Wii Menu 3.3 Already Circumvented
Well, that didn’t take long. Three days after the release of the Wii Menu 3.3 update (which prevents homebrew loading on the Wii by killing a special hack), the update has been circumvented. The update targeted the ubiquitous Twilight Hack, which allows homebrew software to be loaded from the Wii’s SD card slot by using a special game save. The team at HackMii were quick to disassemble, analyze, and scoff at the update, with member [bushing] quipping “we are not impressed.” The team found bug exploits for new code in the the update that cause it to ignore the Twilight Hack. They have yet to release the fix to the public, but its likely that they’ll do so at least as fast as they developed it.
[via Wii Fanboy]
[photo: cibomahto]
Boxee Social Media Center Public Alpha
Boxee is the latest piece of software to enter the home theater PC space. It’s recently become available as a public alpha. The first build is only for OSX 10.5, but Ubuntu is coming. Built on the XBMC code base-they even hosted the XBMC developer con last weekend-it has the same goal of letting you navigate and watch/listen to all of your media from your using just a remote. There’s more than just that though.
Wii Upgrade Breaks Twilight Hack
Nintendo’s latest menu upgrade for the Wii, version 3.3, has broken the long standing Twilight Hack. In the past, you could load a hacked Twilight Princess save game to execute arbitrary code. After the upgrade, the Wii now deletes the hacked save game. The Homebrew Channel seems to have remained intact. So, if you’ve already added it and you upgrade, you should be fine. There’s no telling how long before homebrew code will be completely locked out though.
[photo: cibomahto]
Multiband Nixie VU Meter
This VU meter project by [Daniel Naito] is a great piece of Russian electrocouture. It’s made up of 14 Nixie tubes that display seven frequency bands for the two audio channels. He found this similar project, but wanted to keep the cost low by avoiding such exotic ICs. First, the two input channels are amplified and then split using seven bandpass filters covering 60, 150, 400, 1000, 2500, 6000, and 15000Hz. Then, the AC audio is converted to DC. The final stage converts the logarithmic scale to a linear output. Besides the semirare Nixie tubes, the majority of the parts are just cheap opamps and comparators. The post is an excellent read and you can see it in action in the video below.
UPDATE: Yep, it’s a repost. I’m awesome like that. The True RMS Plasma Vu-meter seems to be new to us though.
Wii Fit World Of Warcraft
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucEV7N0N9Pw&hl=en]
By now you’ve probably seen the video of two researchers from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) navigating through maps on Google Earth by using the Wii Fit Balance Board. They’ve gone even further now by using the board to navigate World of Warcraft. It’s obvious that the board is usable with any 3D environment. The hack is entirely software based, as the board is completely unmodified. It relays data to a laptop via Bluetooth, where the pressure data in converted to directional instructions by their custom app written in C#. No notes on the project are available on DFKI’s site, but we’re betting they’ll release the software to the public once all the kinks are worked out.
[via Balance Board Blog]
