Happy Halloween Extra


[Update: pumpkin carved by Team Hack-A-Day member mastershake916]

We’ve got plenty of tricks around here, and I’ve got a treat coming up – you’ll hear about it in the next podcast.

[Ronald Schaten] sent me his USB LED fader. ATMega, PWM lit LEDs, he uses it to indicate status on his pvr.

[computerguru365] sent in his cell phone car charger turned USB cable

[steve] sent in this over the top C64DTV mod.

[Everett] sent along his button activated PSP shoulder lighting.Nice tiny soldering work for that on.

[Jorge] sent in his friends latest junk art metal lathe. Not an easy thing to build – Nice!

[gijs] sent me this crazy bent Casio SK-1. We’ve had a few of these on Hackaday before.

[seniorcheez] sent in his iPod shuffle dock with integrated power and tunecast.

PSP Analog Stick Part 2


I’ve been getting some help with How-To’s over at engadget. One of our favorite hardware hackers Ben Heckendorn put up part two of his analog joystick PSP mod. When he showed me the original I was surprised at just how simple this mod is. Part one showed off the wiring, while part two puts it in a clip on enclosure. Who else would strap a jerky tin to his PSP?

PSP Firmware Downgrader

psp downgrader

[wraggster] was first to send in the latest news on PSP hacking. Yesterday a firmware downgrader was released to take PSPs running v2.71 down to the homebrew friendly v1.5 firmware. The authors took advantage of a tiff expolit to get it working and apparently bricked four PSPs in the process. Looks like it’s working, but there are plenty of caveats to read up on before giving it a shot.

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Simple GPS Setup For PSP

psp gps

[deniska] is working on a real-time GPS map viewing application. The application will determine the location using this simple PSP GPS setup. Deniska modified the connector on a $100 Holux GPS unit so that it could be read through the PSP remote port. A test program that works in kernel mode is provided. Deniska notes that this will probably work with older (read: cheaper) Holux units as well.

[thanks Will]

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PSP Remote Serial Interface

psp remote interface

This PSP remote interface article gets submitted from time to time, but keeps falling through the cracks for some reason. [XyTec] submitted it most recently and I finally remembered to post it. It’s a guide from last July on interfacing with the PSP’s remote port. The port is a serial interface at 2.5V so you need to do some level shifting. Once the cable is complete you can use it get a serial console, add GPS or dump debug info along with many other possibilities. A remote emulator program is provided.

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DDR Whack-a-mole

ddr whack a mole

Drew and Calvin built this DDR whack-a-mole game for their EECS 373 class. It’s powered by a Freescale MPC823. The processor controls eight servos with pictures of their friend Malav. The game runs for 20 seconds and then reports how many Malavs you’ve stepped on. They say that the hardest part of this project was figuring out how to properly read the Playstation DDR pad.

[thanks Ano nym ous]

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Playstation Controller PC Card

playstation connector

[timmeh] already had a parallel port PCMCIA card when he started on this Playstation controller port card. He cracked the case to discover that the circuit board only took up about two-thirds of the case. After that it was pretty easy to fit the port onto the card and wire it up. The second slot in his laptop was non functioning from factory, so using the space wasn’t an actual loss.

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