Hackaday Links: February 13, 2022

February 13, 2022 by Dan Maloney 31 Comments

If you need evidence that our outwardly peaceful little neck of the solar system is actually a dangerous place, look no further than the 40 newly launched Starlink satellites that were just clobbered out of orbit. It seems that the SpaceX launch on February 3 was ill-timed, as it coincided with the arrival of energetic plasma from a solar storm that occurred a few days before. The coronal mass ejection followed an M-class flare on the Sun, which was aimed just right to hit just as the 49-satellite addition to the Starlink constellation was being released. This resulted in an expansion of the upper atmosphere sufficient to increase drag on the newborn satellites — up to 50% more drag than previous launches had encountered. Operators put the satellites into safe mode, but it appears that 40 of them have already met a fiery demise, or soon will. Space is a tough place to make a living.

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Arduino And An OLED Make This Space Invaders Cabinet Tiny

January 12, 2022 by Dan Maloney 15 Comments

For as simple as it appears now, Space Invaders was one machine from the Golden Age of video games that always seemed to have a long line waiting for a chance to lose a couple of quarters. And by way of celebrating the seminal game’s influence, [Nick Cranch] has executed what might just be the world’s smallest Space Invaders replica.

It appears that this started mainly as an exercise in what’s possible with what’s on hand, which included a couple of quite small OLED displays. For the build photos it looks like there’s an Arduino Nano running the show; [Nick] relates that the chosen hardware proved challenging, and that he had to hack the driver library to make it work. Once he got a working game, [Nick] didn’t rest on his laurels. Rather, he went the extra mile and built a miniature cabinet to house everything in.

The video quality below may be poor, but it’s more than enough to see how much work he put into detailing the cabinet. The graphics of the original US release of the game cabinet are accurately represented, right down to the art on the front glass. The cabinet itself is made from 1.5 mm plywood which he cut by hand. It even looks like he recreated the original scheme of cellophane overlays on the monochrome screen to add a little color to the game. Nice touch!

We really appreciate the attention to detail here, with our only quibble being no schematics or code being posted. Hopefully, we’ll see those later, but for now, this looks like a fun project and a nice trip down memory lane. But if you think it’s too small, no worries — we’ve got a much, much bigger version of the game too.

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Simple MicroPython Game Is A 30 Minute Game Dev Course

May 25, 2021 by Donald Papp 7 Comments

Sometimes, it’s really useful to watch a project’s parts come together one piece at a time in order to get a complete understanding and mental picture of the whole, and we found that to be the case with this simple, retro-inspired sample game from [ezContents]. (Video, embedded below.) The code is on GitHub but if you’re at all interested in what goes on behind the scenes in a game like that, don’t miss the video.

In the video, each game element and function is illustrated, showing exactly what gets done and why. This part is collision detection (click to enlarge.)

These sprite-based games are mostly about moving a small graphical object (a sprite) around a screen in response to user input, and managing what happens when collisions are detected between the player’s sprite and other sprites like enemies, projectiles, and so forth. The development process is wonderfully documented and demonstrated in a video, as each separate part of functionality gets built and explained one piece at a time.

The simple game is made using ArduPy (which is MicroPython combined with Arduino APIs) using Seeed Studios’ Wio Terminal, a small microcontroller development board with integrated screen, sensors, and button inputs including a little directional clicker that [ezContents] uses as a joystick.

The video of the whole process is embedded below; give it a watch and you’ll maybe come away with inspiration, but you’ll definitely have a much better understanding of how these types of games are developed, even if you’re not using the same hardware or development environment.

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The random logic section implmented using I2L

Space Invaders Sound Chip Went Old School With I2L

June 8, 2018 by Steven Dufresne 6 Comments

It must be everyone’s birthday today because [Ken Shirriff] has come out with a gift for us. He’s done another pass at reverse engineering the 76477 Space Invaders sound chip from the 1970s and found it’s full of integrated injection logic (I²L), making it a double treat: we get to explore the more of this chip which made sounds for so many of our favorite games, and we explore a type of logic which was to be the successor to TTL until CMOS came along.

This article has a similar shape to his last one, first introducing I²L, followed by showing us what it looks like on the die, and then covering the different functional elements which make heavy use of it. The first of these is the noise generator made up of a section of shift registers and a ring oscillator. That’s followed by a noise filter which doesn’t use I²L but does use current mirrors. And lastly, he talks about the mixer which mixes output from the noise generator and elements covered in his previous article, the voltage-controlled oscillator, and the super-low frequency oscillator. Oddly enough, and as he points out, it isn’t an analog mixer. Instead, it just ANDs together the various inputs.

[Ken’s] no stranger to putting dies under the microscope. Check out our coverage of his talk at the 2016 Hackaday SuperConference where he shows us the guts of such favorites as the Z80 and the 555 timer IC.

Reverse Engineering Space Invaders Sound Chip

May 6, 2017 by Al Williams 7 Comments

Around here, a new blog post from [Ken Shirriff] is almost as exciting as a new Star Trek movie. This time, [Ken] tears apart a 76477 sound effects chip. This chip was state-of-the-art in 1978 and used in Space Invaders, along with plenty of other pinball machines and games.

[Ken] started out with a die photo from [Sean Riddle] and mapped its functions. Unlike a modern sound chip, this one created sounds based on networks of attached resistors and capacitors. Even if you aren’t interested in the chip, per se, [Ken] explains how the die implements active and passive devices, along with some key analog design principles like current mirrors (although we are pretty sure he got his right and his left mixed up, or maybe it was a very subtle mirror joke).

Before electronics magazines were full of computer projects, they were full of music synthesis projects and the 76477 is like a crude synthesizer on a chip. It has voltage controlled oscillators (VCOs), and generates envelopes with specific attack and decay times to create the sounds of interest.

This reminded us a little of the sounds from the more advanced MOS6581. [Ken] has looked inside a lot of ICs, including at the 2016 Hackaday SuperConference.

Real-Life Space Invaders With Drones And Lasers

September 19, 2016 by Elliot Williams 18 Comments

We’ve seen a proliferation of real-life video game builds lately, but this one is a jaw-dropper! [Tomer Daniel] and his crew of twelve hackers, welders, and coders built a Space Invaders game for GeekCon 2016.

[Tomer] et al spent more time on the project than the writeup, so you’re going to have to content yourselves with the video, embedded below, and a raft of photos that they sent us. ([Tomer] wrote in and wanted to thank each of you, and his sponsors, by name, but that would be a couple paragraphs on its own. Condider yourselves all thanked!)
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Most Beautiful Mini-Galaga-Pi Ever!

January 30, 2016 by Elliot Williams 21 Comments

The problem with click-bait titles, besides the fact that they make the reader feel cheated and maybe a little bit dirty for reading the article, is that they leave us with nothing to say when something is truly outstanding. But the video of [Tiburcio de la Carcova] building up a mini-Galaga cabinet (complete with actual tiny CRT screen from an old portable 5″ TV) is actually the best we’ve ever seen.

Plywood is laser-cut. Custom 3D printed parts are manufactured and assembled, including the joysticks and coin door. Aluminum panels are cut on a bandsaw and bent with a hand brake. Parts are super-glued. In short, it’s a complete, sped-up video of the cutting-edge of modern DIY fab. If that’s not enough reason to spend four minutes of your time, we don’t know what is.

[Tiburcio] has also made a mini Space Invaders, and is thinking of completing the top-20 of his youth. Pacman, Asteroids, and Missile Command are next. We can’t wait.

There are (ahem) a couple of Raspberry-Pi-powered video game emulators on Hackaday, so it’s a little awkward to pick one or two to link in. We’ll leave you with this build that also uses a small CRT monitor to good effect albeit in less-fancy clothing.

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