Playstation Hacks

198 Articles

PSP L2/R2 Button Mod

June 14, 2008 by 1 Comment


This is quickly becoming an unintentional “game controller Saturday”. We haven’t been covering the PSP much lately, so this is a treat. AcidMods forum member [Electro] put together a quick guide for adding two missing shoulder buttons to the PSP. The L2 and R2 buttons are used while playing Playstation 1 games and are usually mapped to directions on the joystick. This mod jumps the joystick’s contacts an relocates the buttons to the shoulders. The switches used in the post seem kind of bulky, but you’re free to use anything that fits.

[via Engadget]

PSP External Controller Wiring

May 30, 2008 by 9 Comments


Acimods contributor [Blizzrad] has just finished one of the cleanest mods we’ve seen in a while. With minimal modification to the outside of the PSP he was able to add an external PS2 controller. This naturally took a lot of internal modification. The controller and PSP use a 25 pin SMT connector salvaged from a laptop. The controller’s connector housing is from a set of component cables. Video after the break plus some wiring pictures.

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Playstation Controller Interfacing

March 7, 2008 by 14 Comments


This is an older set of hacks, but I’m surprised we haven’t covered them before. The playstation controller is an interesting alternative to normal robotic controls. This PS1 controller to serial interface is based on a Motorola HC68 series micro-controller. This even simpler version only needs some diodes to interface with a parallel port. Probably more interesting is this how-to on using a wireless PS2 controller with a basic stamp II.

Cheap 360 Degree Head Tracking

February 9, 2008 by 10 Comments


[Joel] sent in his efforts to build an inexpensive 360 degree head tracking display. He’s using a Playstation six axis controller as the key to his helmet tracking system. The demo is short and to the point. He’s using the usual Glovepie driver to provide the software interface and what looks like off the shelf hardware on the helmet.

What really grabs my attention is the low cost of getting into VR now. Assuming that you own a computer, you can build your own VR setup for the cost of a Playstation controller and a cheap heads up display. (Remember these?)