The video above supposedly shows a Playstation 3 booting a game from the hard drive by booting a legitimate game from disc. There aren’t many other details besides a comment that backing up Blu-ray discs takes a lot of space. So, if this does actually work, it’s doubtful we’ll see much piracy because of it.
[via PS3Scene]
[astralpancakes] wireless arcade stick project looks like a great place to start if you want a simple project. Well constructed arcade sticks can cost $100+, but with all the MAME cabinet builders, the parts have become easy to acquire. The stick has a rigid wooden case with a metal faceplate. All of the component connections are soldered to the pads of a Logitech wireless controller. [astralpancakes] built this specifically to play Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.
The people at Near Future Laboratory are trying to spoof the behavior of a Playstation 2 controller using just a microcontroller. They wrote some initial code using the controller info found here, but decided the best way to figure out what was going on, was to probe the interface. They’re using a Logicport, which features 34 channels plus two clock channels. They only need six channels because the PS2 implements an SPI protocol plus an ACK line. The post is just a preliminary investigation, but will give you a little insight into how the Logicport works and why you might find it useful.
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]
We’re often asked what a simple way to add a display to a project is and we even hinted at this yesterday with the HMD comparison. The answer is: we’re not really sure. In the past, the go to was PSOne add on displays. They accept composite input which means you can painlessly attach almost any other consumer device with video out. The problem is they’re a little large. Then there’s the spy video car HMD. It’s black and white and accepts composite video too. It’s a little small though, which makes it difficult to work with outside of the original application. So, Hack-a-Day readers, what have you used as a simple palm sized portable display in your projects?
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.
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.
