USB Typewriter

August 30, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 25 Comments

clickety-clackity-clickety-clackety-DING

[Jackzylkin] has posted an instructible showing, in detail, the process of creating a USB typewriter. He takes us through the process of disassembling the typewriter, mounting all the sensors where the little hammers strike, and wiring it all up to a custom board to interface with the computer via USB. While he is selling the board, the schematics are available if you want to build your own. We think the clickety-clack of a real typewriter could be very satisfying to the touch, though it might drive your co workers insane. The younger ones might also quiz you as to what that archaic machine is. We’ve actually seen this done before, way back in 2005.

Microsoft Engineers Reinvent The Optimus Keyboard

August 20, 2010 by Mike Szczys 46 Comments

Looks like Microsoft has come up with a pretty slick little keyboard. It’s very much like the Optimus, which has an OLED screen in every key, except that it doesn’t have a screen in every key. Instead there’s just one screen on the whole unit and they keys have been overlayed on top while allowing the image to show through. Brilliant really, since this should drastically reduce the $2400 price tag of the original. That is, if you could buy the device. Microsoft’s not selling this hardware (yet anyway), but offering it up as test hardware for the UIST Innovation Contest. It will be interesting to see what the students come up with. This keyboard should be easier to program for since it involves manipulating just one screen. There is also extra space at the top that is touch-sensitive. See for yourself after the break.

Continue reading “Microsoft Engineers Reinvent The Optimus Keyboard” →

Brain Wave Skimming On The Go

August 16, 2010 by James Munns 16 Comments

Mentok: The Mind Taker

Master EEG hackers [MOG] and [Tim] over at the Makers Local 256 have been working on creating a Bluetooth EEG listener made from a Mattel Mindflex. This build is based on an earlier build of a group called [Frontier Nerds] (thanks for the heads up [Nathan]!), but this version ditches the Arduino in favor of a basic serial to bluetooth adapter for the sake of power efficiency (as well as not having to keep an Arduino strapped to you head). We have covered a few Mindflex hacks before, but this seems to be the most useful in a practical sense. They have included the code for a Bluetooth serial data logger, and the earlier build shows a good example of captured data visualization.

One-handed GameCube Controller

August 12, 2010 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

[Hasse] built a one-handed video game controller for his brother. He fit everything he needed into the body of an existing controller and came up with a very usable system. The controller will be right-hand only, so the left shoulder button was moved underneath the right side where your middle finger can get at it. This leaves the d-pad and the left analog stick to account for. By combining an ATtiny44A, an accelerometer, and a digital to analog converter the controller can sense motion. The microcontroller reads in the accelerometer data, gives user feedback via four added LEDs on the d-pad, and the DAC feeds the appropriate signals back into the controller as if you were using the stick. There is even a switch to select whether the motion data is mapped to the analog stick or to the d-pad. We’ve included a demo video after the break.

Find that you also need some one-armed typing assistance? Check out this half-qwerty keyboard hack. Continue reading “One-handed GameCube Controller” →

Make Your Own Mindstorm Sensors

August 6, 2010 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

[Stewart Allen] acquired a Mindstorm kit about a month ago and he’s already building his own sensors for it. He wanted a more accurate range finder with a narrower measurement field than the stock sensor. Mindstorm has the option to communicate with sensors via an I2C bus. [Stewart] set up an ATtiny45 to act as a the slave on the bus, facilitating the analog measurement of the distance voltage by using and lookup table, and handling the data transfer with the NXT brick. His testing setup is pictured above, with an AVR Dragon for programming the tiny45 and a Bus Pirate for sniffing the I2C data during the development process. The sensor, looking great on a professionally made PCB he ordered, requires a simple driver that [Stewart] hammered out for use with leJOS, the alternative Mindstorm firmware we’ve seen before.

RGB VU Meter

August 5, 2010 by Mike Szczys 18 Comments

[Simon Inns] turned out this VU meter with a 16 RGB LEDs. He’s using three 16-bit TLC5940NTG LED drivers for the project. They’re not cheap chips but they do a great job. If you were looking to save on parts [Simon] found there’s more than enough brightness and any loss due to multiplexing would not be a problem. The device connects to a computer via USB thanks to the PIC 18F2550 which he’s used in his past VU meter projects. One of the design choices he made was to use a switching power supply. The LM2576 (datasheet) has no problem sourcing 3A at 5V and in addition to two electrolytic capacitors which are commonly used with linear regulators, you just need to add a diode and an inductor.

The meter offers several different configurations which are set on the PC side of things. These include the colors that are used and if the entire bars is used as one meter or split into sections to display both audio channels. Check it out after the break.

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Teensy Credit Card Reader

July 24, 2010 by Mike Szczys 26 Comments

Here’s a hack that makes business sense. [PT] recalls last year’s HOPE conference when their booth was using a virtual credit card terminal for purchases that required manual entry of card information. This year they’ll have the same virtual terminal but this magnetic stripe reader will fill it out automatically.

A magstripe reader (reading only, no funny business here) from Mouser grabs data from the card. A Teensy microcontroller board, which identifies itself as a USB keyboard, automatically fills out the virtual terminal from the parsed data. The real question, are his customers comfortable sliding their plastic through a hacked reader?