An Open Source Game Boy Printer That Doesn’t Print

October 22, 2021 by Tom Nardi 11 Comments

While we’ll admit seeing your Game Boy Camera shots come out on a little slip of thermal paper was pretty neat back in 1998, anyone who’s still using the Game Boy Printer these days is probably more interested in getting their images in digital form. Which is why the open source NeoGB Printer is so exciting.

A collaborative effort between [Rafael Zenaro], [Raphaël BOICHOT], and [Brian Khuu], the project combines an ESP32 development board and some common components with their GPLv3 firmware to fully emulate the Game Boy Printer hardware. Once plugged into your Game Boy, any of the 110 titles that support Nintendo’s paper-pushing peripheral will recognize the NeoGB Printer as the real deal and happily send along the image.

But rather than committing it to paper, the NeoGB Printer saves the image to an SD card. From there, you can put the card in your computer and do whatever you wish with the captured files. Incidentally, it turns out there’s already a commercial gadget on the market that does something very similar, but this DIY approach comes well under its $99 USD price tag. In fact, if you’ve got a Game Boy Link Cable you don’t mind cutting up, you’ve probably got everything you need to pull this off in the parts bin right now.

We particularly like how the team has went out of their way to support different hardware configurations for the NeoGB Printer. If you want to go all out and add status LEDs and an OLED display, go for it. But if you just plan on using the thing once to grab a copy of the Pokémon diploma you earned 20 years ago, then you can skip the bells and whistles.

If you’re only worried about getting your snaps out of the Game Boy Camera, we’ve covered projects that will extract them directly from the cartridge. But this approach certainly has its appeal, as works with a much wider variety of games. We’re glad this project exists, as it means a whole new generation can explore all the wacky ways developers came up with to utilize the Game Boy Printer back in the day.

Refining The Greatest Joystick Of The 1980s

October 20, 2021 by Tom Nardi 24 Comments

The Competition Pro joystick is often considered to be the pinnacle of input devices, at least as far as the 1980s gaming goes. But the design isn’t perfect, and time hasn’t been kind to certain aspects of its mechanism. For example, the large rubber disc used to keep the stick centered on early generations of the hardware will invariably be hardened up on any surviving specimens. Looking to return these classic controllers to their former glory, and then some, [mageb] has released a number of 3D printed modifications for the Competition Pro that should be of great interest to the vintage gamer.

First and foremost is the deletion of the original rubber disc for a new spring mechanism. Even if this is the only modification you do, [mageb] says you’ll already have a better and longer-lasting joystick to show for it. But if you want to continue with the full rebuild, be aware that there’s no going back to stock. Once you start cutting the original parts, you’re committed to taking it all the way.

Assuming you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty, the next step is cutting the metal contacts from the bottom of the face buttons so they’ll work with the new microswitch array he’s designed. Each button gets its switch, and four handle movement of the joystick. You can try out different switches to adjust the feel of the joystick, but [mageb] assures us that he’s already done the research and put the best quality switches in the bill of materials.

The end result is a Competition Pro joystick that looks more or less the same from the outside, but is considerably improved internally. That’s always a win in our books, though we’re sure somebody out there is going to get mad that the brittle old rubber disc wasn’t sent to the Smithsonian.

Arduino Brings USB Mouse To Homebrew Computer

October 18, 2021 by Tom Nardi 2 Comments

When building your own homebrew computer, everything is a challenge. Ultimately, that’s kind of the point. If you didn’t want to really get your hands dirty with the nuts and bolts of the thing, you wouldn’t have built it in the first place. For example, take the lengths to which [rehsd] was willing to go in order to support standard USB mice on their 6502 machine.

Code for mapping mouse movement to digital output.

The idea early on was to leverage existing Arduino libraries to connect with a standard USB mouse, specifically, the hardware would take the form of an Arduino Mega 2560 with a USB Host Shield. There was plenty of code and examples that showed how you could read the mouse position and clicks from the Arduino, but [rehsd] still had to figure out a way to get that information into the 6502.

In the end, [rehsd] connected one of the digital pins from the Arduino to an interrupt pin on the computer’s W65C22 versatile interface adapter (VIA). Then eleven more digital pins were connected to the computer, each one representing a state for the mouse and buttons, such as MOUSE_CLICK_RIGHT and MOUSE_LEFT_DOWN.

Admittedly, [rehsd] says the mouse action is far from perfect. But as you can see in the video after the break, it’s at least functional. While the code could likely be tightened up, there’s obviously some improvements to be made in terms of the electrical interface. The use of shift registers could reduce the number of wires between the Arduino and VIA, which would be a start. It’s also possible a chip like the CH375 could be used, taking the microcontroller out of the equation entirely.

From classic breadboard builds to some impressively practical portable machines, we’ve seen our fair share of 6502 computers over the years. Despite the incredible variation to be found in these homebrew systems, one thing is always the same: they’re built by some of the most passionate folks out there.

Continue reading “Arduino Brings USB Mouse To Homebrew Computer” →

Illustrated Kristina with an IBM Model M keyboard floating between her hands.

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Curved Typewriter

October 13, 2021 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

Aerodox Flies on Wireless Wings

[Simon Merrett] didn’t know anything about keyboards when he started this project, but he didn’t let that stop him. [Simon] did what any of us would do — figure out what you like, learn enough to be dangerous, and then start fiddling around, taking all that inspiration and making a mashup of influences that suits your needs.

The Aerodox design became a cross between the ErgoDox‘s key layout and the logic and communication of the Redox Wireless, itself a reduced-size version of the ErgoDox. Interestingly, [Simon] chose the ErgoDox’s dimensions and spacing, and not those of the Redox. Like a lot of people out there, I found the ErgoDox to be too big for my hands, mostly in that the thumb cluster is too far away from the mainland. It’s nice to see that it suits some people, though.

[Simon] worked up a custom hot-swap footprint that makes the board reversible, much like the ErgoDox. Each half has an NRF51822 for a brain, and there’s a third one that acts as a receiver. This external NRF board is connected over UART to an Arduino Pro Micro, which acts as the USB HID and runs QMK. It’s an interesting journey for sure, so go dig into the logs.

Continue reading “Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Curved Typewriter” →

Inside the making of a cylindrical keyboard that doubles as a tea cup.

Can’t Spill Coffee On Your Keyboard If It’s Already Inside

October 11, 2021 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

No matter where you live in the world or what beverage you enjoy, it’s too easy to spill it on the keyboard. Obviously, the solution is to combine the two. That’s exactly what Google Japan did this past April Fool’s Day when they released the Gboard — a cylindrical keyboard wrapped around a removable cup. But is it still a joke once you’ve open-sourced it and made a build guide, more or less?

Here’s where it gets weird: each kanji on the keyboard represents a different kind of fish, and they’re laid out in Japanese phonetic order. You’re not stuck with the fish, though — one of the 60 keys switches between fish input and regular Hiragana (the basic Japanese phonetic alphabet). Underneath all those fish are low-profile Kailh chocs hooked up to an ATMega32u4. We only wish it were wireless.

We love that they open-sourced this keyboard, and it even makes sense in a way. In order to produce a good April Fool’s video, you actually have to make the fake product. The better it is (i.e. weird but plausible), the more people will like it and probably want one. So if you’re going to go to all that trouble, why not set it free on GitHub? Note that the second line of the readme is “this is not an officially-supported Google product”, which we suppose goes without saying.

Be sure to check out the short video after the break. If you don’t understand Japanese, you’ll want to turn on the closed captions.

You know, now that Raspberry Pi have made their answer to the Arduino, it’s about time that Apple made their answer to the Raspberry Pi.

Continue reading “Can’t Spill Coffee On Your Keyboard If It’s Already Inside” →

The Ultimate BRRRT Simulator: Fully Featured A-10 Warthog Cockpit

September 30, 2021 by Danie Conradie 26 Comments

The Fairchild Republic A-10 “Warthog” with its 30 mm rotary cannon has captured the imagination of friendly soldiers and military aviation enthusiasts on the ground for as long as it’s been flying. One such enthusiast created the Warthog Project, a fully functional A-10 cockpit for Digital Combat Simulator, that’s almost an exact copy of the real thing.

It started as a four monitor gaming cockpit, with a Thrustmaster Warthog H.O.T.A.S. The first physical instrument panels were fuel and electrical panels bought through eBay, and over time more and more panels were added and eventually moved to dedicated left and right side units. All the panels communicate with the main PC over USB, either using Arduinos or purpose-made gaming interface boards. The Arduinos take input from switches and control knobs, but also run 7-segment displays and analog dials driven by servos. The panels were all laser-cut using MDF or perspex and backlit using LEDs.

The main instrument panel is a normal monitor masked with laser-cut MDF and Thrustmaster multi-function display bezels. The cockpit is run by the open source Helios Cockpit Simulator for DCS. The main monitors were replaced by a large custom-built curved projection panel lit up by a pair of projectors. It seems this is one of those projects that is never quite finished, and small details like a compass get added from time to time. Everything is documented in detail, and all the design files are available for free if you want to build your own.

We’ve seen a few impressive simulator cockpit builds from hardcore enthusiasts over the years, including a Boeing 737, P-51 Mustang, and even a Mech cockpit for Steel Battalion. Continue reading “The Ultimate BRRRT Simulator: Fully Featured A-10 Warthog Cockpit” →

Raspberry Pi Pico Makes For Expeditious Input Device

September 29, 2021 by Tom Nardi 28 Comments

With its copious number of GPIO pins and native USB, the Raspberry Pi Pico is arguably the ideal microcontroller for developing your own platform agnostic USB Human Input Devices. But you don’t have to take our word for it. Check out how quickly the $4 USD board allowed [Alberto Nunez] to put together a pair of foot pedals for his computer.

Wiring doesn’t get much easier than this.

A peek inside the enclosure reveals…well, not a whole lot. All that’s hiding inside that heavy-duty plastic box is the Pi Pico and some screw down terminals that let [Alberto] easily wire up the female bulkhead connectors for the pedals themselves. Incidentally, while you could certainly make your own pedals, the ones used for this project appear to be the sort of commercially available units we’ve seen used in similar projects.

With the hardware sorted, [Alberto] just needed to write the software. While he could have taken the easy way out and hard coded everything, we appreciate that his CircuitPython script loads its configuration from a text file. This allows you to easily configure which GPIO pins are hooked up to buttons, and what key codes to associate them with. He didn’t really need to go through this much effort for his own purposes, but it makes the project far easier to adapt for others, so our hats off to him.

If you’re looking for a bit more inspiration, our very own [Kristina Panos] put together a Python-powered macro foot stool that you can put under your desk for rapid fire keyboard shortcuts. Plus you can stand on it to reach the top shelf, if need be.