Gaming On An IBM XT Using An NES Controller

December 24, 2010 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

[Frode] felt that using the keyboard for gaming on his old IBM XT computer was simply too noisy. He came up with a much quieter way to game by building an XT adapter for an original NES controller. If you haven’t explored the communication protocol used by the NES peripherals this is a great way to learn. Inside you’ll find a CMOS shift register that captures button states when it receives a latch signal. With that in mind [Frode] came up with a circuit to gather the bits from the controller, and generate input commands using the XT keyboard protocol without using a microcontroller. All of this is explained in the demo after the break.

Most of the NES controller hacks we see permanently alter the hardware. It’s nice to see one used without cracking it open.

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Adding Auto-fire To A Computer Mouse

December 20, 2010 by Mike Szczys 49 Comments

[Peter Skaarup’s] been re-living the past by playing old-school games in DOSBox. He’s using a mouse as the controller but longed for the auto-fire button that many joysticks used to have. Instead of looking around for a gamepad with this feature he decided to add an auto-fire button to the mouse. He incorporated a PIC 10F200, along with a momentary push switch and a transistor. The push switch enables the autofire feature, causing the transistor to short the left mouse button about seventeen times a second. Problem solved, and with a couple of other pins on the microcontroller there’s room for this project to grow.

Interested in an auto-fire feature for your gaming console? Perhaps this Xbox 360 rapid fire mod will give you some inspiration.

Classical VCR Head Jog Wheel

December 4, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 51 Comments

[Osgeld] takes on the classic VCR head jog wheel in this instructable. He has done a fantastic job not only in his build quality, but in the quality of the writeup. As he points out, the idea of using the head as a jog wheel isn’t new. His construction and build quality however have yielded a fantastic looking reliable device that we would be proud to have sitting on our desk.

As usual, the most interesting bits of the writeup are how he solved problems he encountered. For example, he’s using an optical mouse to detect the motion of the wheel. This requires that he print out a pattern to mount opposite the optical sensor. This sounds straight forward enough, but he found the results to be less than stellar. He documented his fix, basically reworking it in GIMP, so others can save some time. That is how tutorials should be. Great job [Osgeld].

Learn To Reverse Engineer

November 17, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 37 Comments

The most common email we get is “how do I learn how to hack things?”. It looks looks like [ladyada] gets that question a lot too. She didn’t waste any time writing up a step by step guide to reverse engineering USB devices, specifically the Kinect.

She goes into depth on how USB works, how to record the communication, what to look for, how to deconstruct what you’ve found, and how to put it all to use. This is all done with real world data from the Kinect so you could easily follow along at home. There is source code available so you can download her example and see how to control the device as well.

We wish every hack could be so well written that it could also be called a tutorial.

Paper Touchpad

November 16, 2010 by Mike Szczys 36 Comments

If you don’t mind getting your fingers a little dirty you can replace your mouse with a piece of paper. [Dr. West] made this touchpad himself, which measures signals at the corners of the paper using four voltage dividers. The paper has been completely covered with graphite from a pencil (which we see in hacks from time to time), making it conductive. The user wears an anti-static strap that grounds their hand, allowing an Arduino to calculate contact points on two axes when a finger completes the circuit. See this controlling a cursor in the video after the break.

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Czech Discovery Ressurects PS/2 Keyboard

November 8, 2010 by Joseph Thibodeau 17 Comments

Like us, you probably have piles of old PS/2 keyboards occupying strategic positions in your house and causing all sorts of trouble with the neighbours. As luck would have it, there is a way to put those lazy peripherals to work!

Our friends in the Czech Republic have successfully interfaced a PS/2 keyboard to an STM32 Discovery board (translated), and not a moment too soon—just in time for you to integrate their work into your entries for those juicy contests we told you about (the European one and the North American one).

The project page contains an in-depth walkthrough of how the PS/2 connection talks to the keyboard hardware along with source code and links, more than enough information to get started with a PS/2 keyboard hack on your Discovery application. And why stop at keyboards? Give your old PS/2 mouse a new lease on life, or even hook up your custom game controller to spice up the experience.

Futuristic 3D Mouse Originally Arduino Powered And 3D Printed

November 1, 2010 by Mike Szczys 42 Comments

We usually shy away from posting about commercial products. Strap on a bib to protect your shirt from the drool, watching the video after the break will show you why we had to post about this. [Valentin Heun] and his cohorts developed this three-dimensional controller using tools common to the hacker community. The patent-pending device uses a sphere for rotational input but can also be nudged for movement on 3 axes.

You may remember that [Valentin] as involved with that 10,000 watt flourescent lamp display. His Arduino skills were honed with that installation and used during the development of this mouse. Also joining in the prototyping fun was a 3D printer used to make the parts. From project to production, we figure the skills you use when hacking are breaking down the barriers that inventors have traditionally faced when looking to marked useful products.

This would be fantastic for 3D cad, modelling, etc. But we think it would also go well with Eagle, like the other 3D mouse hack did.

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