Hacking Game Port Peripherals To Work With Modern PCs

April 3, 2011 by Mike Nathan 25 Comments

gameport_hack

[Atiti] has a bad habit of hanging on to old things. Some people call this sort of behavior “hoarding”, but around here we understand his affliction. It turns out that in his collection of old computer peripherals, he located a Thrustmaster Formula 1 racing wheel he used back in the day. Analog racing wheels can cost a pretty penny nowadays, depending on what you buy, so he decided to see if he could hack this outdated controller to work with his new PC.

You see, the problem with this wheel is that it utilized a “game port” connecter to interface with the computer. If you don’t remember the game port, go dig up an old PCI sound card and take a look on the back. That 15-pin connector? That’s a game port. Microsoft discontinued support for the game port once Vista was released, so [Atti] had to figure out how in the world he would get it to work on his new PC.

His solution was an Arduino, which is used to read the analog signals output by the wheel. Those signals are processed and sent to a parallel port joystick emulator, enabling him to use the wheel with any game supporting a standard joystick.

Obviously he could have just gone out to the store and bought a USB wheel, but where’s the fun in that?

Stay tuned for a video demo of his refreshed wheel in action.

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Adding Digital Storage To An Analog Scope

March 16, 2011 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

This is a hack in the finest sense of the term. It not only allows you to capture data from an analog oscilloscope for later analysis, but provides you with a great tool if you’re posting on the Internet about your projects. [J8g8j] used an empty cashew container to add a camera mount to the front of his scope. This is possible because the bezel around the display has a groove in it. A bit of careful measuring helped him make an opening that was just right.

You can see that the red cap for the jar holds the camera and gave him a bit of trouble in the original prototype. This version has a tray where camera sits, which replaces the Velcro with didn’t hold the camera level the first time around. He’s also painted the inside of the clear plastic to reduce glare on the oscilloscope readout. Black and white images seem to come out the clearest, but it can be difficult to make out the grid lines. The addition of LEDs to help them stand out is one of the improvements we might see in the future.

Analog Robot Navigates Around The Workshop With Ease

March 4, 2011 by Mike Nathan 10 Comments

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Many of the robots we feature here are driven by some sort of microcontroller, whether it be an Arduino, Launchpad, Picaxe, etc. Rarely do we see a robot however, using analog circuits to perform higher-level functions typically relegated to those more complex controllers. Instructables user [hasn0life] built such a robot recently, which he entered into a contest at his college. After hearing about the 555 design contest from a friend, he tweaked his project and created a wall-following robot using a 556 timer.

The robot is fairly simple when you take a close look, though that does not take away from the elegance of his design. A single IR sensor is used to detect objects in the robot’s periphery, guiding the robot along. When the robot gets too close to a wall, one wheel reverses, pulling the robot away. Once the robot has moved a sufficient distance, the other wheel is reversed in order to straighten out the robot. Then, both wheels work in concert to get the robot moving forward.

Take a look at the video below to watch the robot navigate its way around his workshop, and if you are interested in learning more about analog robotics, check out this post from a few days back.

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Analog Robotic Concepts

February 26, 2011 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

Everyone’s getting on board with the 555 timer projects. But [Tom] didn’t just come up with one project, he shared a slew of ideas related to analog robotics. They’re center around servo motor control. You can see in the video after the break he has a pleasing way of sharing a lot of details while also making an easy to view demonstration video. He’ll put up a schematic for about one second and then move on, saving those that don’t care about the details by not droning on.

The first schematic that flashes by is the main circuit for controlling the servo motor. The rest of the concepts build from this circuit, using light, sound, flex, and other sensors as inputs. For instance, the setup above is using a light sensor. When the ball blocks the light the servo moves that vertical rod hitting it out of the way. When it swings back the process repeats. It’s striking how lifelike the reactions are, reminding us of insect movements. But this is really just the tip of the iceberg as he’s got a lot of future video ideas that we can’t wait to see.

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Building A 555 Timer From Discrete Components

February 25, 2011 by Noah Dunker 18 Comments

The 555 Design Contest shook a whole bunch of really creative circuits out of the trees, hence the 555-heavy content lately. While not technically part of the contest, [esalazar] wanted to know what made the 555 tick, literally! He started working on the project in a circuit simulator, then ultimately ended up building the three main logic blocks inside the familiar timer on pieces of copper-clad board. He’d built a 555 using discrete components.

While this isn’t 100% compatible with the classic 555 IC, it covers the basics pretty well, and [esalazar] gets extra-credit points for embracing the hacker spirit of seeing for himself how stuff works while documenting it well and citing his references.

Mixed I/O Testing Module

February 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

Needing to test the display interface for a multitude of different sensors [Fileark] built himself this analog and digital input/output simulator. Along the bottom is a double row of trimpots that adjust analog voltages. Each voltage is measured by the Arduino inside and its value is displayed on the graphic LCD screen to confirm that the hardware you’re testing is making correct measurements. There’s also digital I/O in two different forms. To the upper left are momentary push buttons but the DIP switch bank below that allows the same connections to be toggled on and off. It’s not an automated test bed, but if you’ve got a lot of I/O, or a lot of hardware to test this will save you some real time.

Don’t miss the demonstration video after the break.

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Replace An N64’s Worn Out Joystick

February 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

As gaming consoles age the controllers will inevitably show some wear, and sadly may give out all together. [Kyle] couldn’t bear to watch his Nintendo 64 controller bite the dust so he replaced the thumb stick with one from a PlayStation. This is a bigger job than you might imagine because the two parts are fundamentally different. The original N64 stick uses a rotary encoder to output data to the control chip, while the PlayStation stick is an analog device. [Kyle’s] solution was to read the analog values using a PIC, but lower in the thread you can read about another user who pulled off a similar hack using an AVR. Both convert the signals into the rotary encoder format that the N64 chip is listening for. From the looks of the clip embedded after the break, this couldn’t work any better!

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