NES Paul Game Controller

February 18, 2011 by Mike Nathan 7 Comments

nes_paul_complete

[NeoTechni] wrote in to share the new game peripheral she built, dubbed the NES Paul. The ultimate goal of the project was to build a NES-styled controller for an upcoming game she is working on, tentatively titled 8-bit Hero. The guitar is constructed primarily from wood, as well as some scrounged bits she had around the house. An Xbox 360 controller was dismantled and wired to provide input for the guitar’s buttons and D-Pad. Even the Xbox controller’s rumble packs were used in order to provide visual feedback of missed notes via LED tuning pegs on the guitar’s headstock.

The writeup is broken into several pieces as it was put together in a handful of Google Buzz posts, but it is still relatively easy to follow. We can’t wait to see how the project comes together once the game portion has been completed.

NES Game Pad Guided Robotic Arm

February 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 11 Comments

nes_robotic_arm

Instructables user [Bruno] sent in his most recent creation, a robotic arm controlled using an old NES game pad. He scavenged the majority of his parts from a pair of old HP printers, including motors pulleys, belts and more. In fact, most of the metal and plastic components that he used come from the old printer chassis as well. He has included copies of the templates he used when manufacturing both the plastic and metal components, which should come in handy should anyone try to replicate his work.

[Bruno] also included all of the source code for the robotic arm and mentions that the project required two PICs due to pinout requirements. He ultimately decided to use two cheaper models over a single more expensive unit that would have supplied all of the pins he needed. His cost conscious build is impressive and undoubtedly demonstrates just how many old components can be reused in new projects if you really put some thought into it. Great job with this build, keep up the good work!

Be sure to keep reading to see some video of the arm in action.

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NESBot Video Game Automation

February 11, 2011 by Mike Nathan 17 Comments

nesbot

If you happen to enjoy video games, but don’t actually like playing them, boy do we have the hack for you! [pjgat09] shows us how, armed with an Arduino, you can force a Nintendo to play games by itself, not unlike an old-time player piano. The hack involves programming an Arduino to accept commands mapped out in “movies”, which are actually scripted sets of button presses that one would perform while playing a game. These sorts of scripts are available from TASVideo, a community specializing in “tool assisted” speed runs of video games. These movies are typically used with emulators, so there are some adjustments that need to be made in order to make them work with a console, since the button presses are mapped to each frame that is drawn on the screen. While we are not sure quite how useful this hack is, it is a pretty novel concept. You can see video of the 5-minute SMB speed run after the jump.

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Backwards Mario

January 23, 2011 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

So you’ve long since mastered Super Mario Bros. and it no longer challenges you? Have you tried playing it from right to left? That’s what Backwards Mario is all about. The first portion of the hack is getting the image to display backwards. He’s working with an old CRT television, which uses a magnetic ring to aim the electron gun at the screen. By swapping the left and right wires from that ring you can flip the image horizontally. Now Mario will be travelling right to left, but the controller buttons will send Mario the wrong direction on screen. This is a snap to fix, just crack open the controller and swap the signals for the left and right buttons. Now it’s time to fall in love with the classic game all over again, just like [JJ’s] doing in the video after the break.

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Classic Game Emulation On The Dockstar

January 2, 2011 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

[Hunter Davis] is playing games like Contra, Monkey Island, and Quake 3 by running them on a Seagate Dockstar. We were shocked after seeing how well these run in the video after the break. [Hunter], who used the ZipIt for game emulation in the past, added a couple of hardware peripherals to get everything running. For sound he picked up an inexpensive USB sound card which was no problem to get up and running. Next he picked up a USB to DVI adapter and fired up the Linux USB DisplayLink driver. With the peripherals running he loaded up Fluxbox and the rest was history. Not bad for a small network storage adapter. Continue reading “Classic Game Emulation On The Dockstar” →

Gaming On An IBM XT Using An NES Controller

December 24, 2010 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

[Frode] felt that using the keyboard for gaming on his old IBM XT computer was simply too noisy. He came up with a much quieter way to game by building an XT adapter for an original NES controller. If you haven’t explored the communication protocol used by the NES peripherals this is a great way to learn. Inside you’ll find a CMOS shift register that captures button states when it receives a latch signal. With that in mind [Frode] came up with a circuit to gather the bits from the controller, and generate input commands using the XT keyboard protocol without using a microcontroller. All of this is explained in the demo after the break.

Most of the NES controller hacks we see permanently alter the hardware. It’s nice to see one used without cracking it open.

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Live Action Fighting Games

October 17, 2010 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

Here’s a strange one. This fighting game uses a video game interface to instruct modern-age gladiators on how to bring the pain. The costumed fighters cannot see anything other than a set of lights in their helmets instructing them to move or punch. A camera films them and overlays the footage on a digital background along with simulated blood and a health bar for each. NES controllers are used to instruct them, and switches inside the costumes register the pummeling they receive and deduct health accordingly. This wouldn’t be any good without a demonstration, which we’ve embedded after the break.

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