Hackaday Links: October 16, 2016

October 16, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 35 Comments

You need only look at the weekly user account leak from a popular web service or platform to know there’s a problem with security. Reusing passwords is the dumbest thing you can do right now, and the Mooltipass Mini is the answer to that problem. The Mooltipass originally began as a Developed on Hackaday series, and we log frequent sightings of the Multipass (maxi?) at security cons. The Mini is smaller, has exactly the same capability, and is completely unrepairable. It’s very cool, and if your email password is the same as your banking account passwords, you kind of need this yesterday.

Last weekend was the Open Hardware Summit in Portland. All the talks were worth watching, but editing the talks down into something sensible takes time. In lieu of this, OSHPark has gone through the livestream and timestamped everything

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Update From Wayback: AVGA Reborn As RetroWiz

January 25, 2014 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

retrowiz-vga-avr-gaming-system

This one has been a long time coming. We’re finally seeing an update to [Jaromir’s] retro gaming platform based around and ATmega chip. The thing that was novel about it back in 2009, and continues to be to this day, is the use of VGA output (PAL) from an AVR chip rather than composite video like most offerings.

Good projects never die and recently he picked the hardware up again, spinning a mostly surface mount board and putting together a new website to feature his work. Above you can see a demo of Commander Keen 4 running on the hardware (video below). He’s also has a rather trippy Super Mario port and adapted [Albert Seward’s] PacMan source for the hardware.

The chip is being clocked at 32MHz with VGA clock running at 19.6608 MHz. This gives him sixteen colors with a resolution of 192×144. He concedes that you get better resolution out of composite video, but who needs resolution for retro gaming?

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The Bitbox Console: An Open Source Gaming Rig

September 18, 2013 by Eric Evenchick 23 Comments

A simple resistive DAC is all you need to drive a VGA display. Combining that with an on-chip DAC for audio, the STM32F405RGT6 looks like a good choice for a DIY game console. [Makapuf’s] Bitbox console is a single chip gaming machine based on the STM32 ARM processor.

We’ve seen some DIY consoles in the past. The Uzebox is a popular 8 bit open source game system, and [makapuf] was inspired by its design. His console’s use of a more powerful 32 bit processor will allow for more complex games. It will also provide more colors and higher quality audio.

One of the keys of the Uzebox’s success is the development tools around it. There’s a full emulator which allows for debugging with GDB. [Makapuf] has already built an SDL based emulator, and can debug the target remotely using GDB. This will certainly speed up game development.

After the break, check out a demo of the first game for the Bitbox: JUMP. Also be sure to read through [makapuf]’s blog for detailed information on the build.

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Uzebox Coding Challenge

February 28, 2013 by Eric Evenchick 9 Comments

The 2013 Uzebox Coding Challenge is currently underway. This competition runs until June 1st, with registration open until April 1st. The Uzebox is an open source, 8 bit game console that uses only two chips: an ATmega644 microcontroller and a AD725 RGB to NTSC converter. We’ve featured it a few times in the past.

The competition rules are pretty loose: build a game or a useful piece of software that runs on the Uzebox, and fits in 61 kB. Entries will be judged on game play, originality, graphics, sound, completeness, and technical prowess. There’s prizes for the top six entries, including a few Uzeboxes and cash.

If you don’t have an Uzebox, check out the Uzem emulator. This lets you emulate the Uzebox hardware on Windows, Mac, or Linux. The emulator also has an internal GDB debug server to help with development. The low cost console can be built for about $30, and a number of kits are available.

Thanks to [Ben] for sending this in.

Redbull Sends Marketing Doodad To Hackerspace Using An Open Source Product

March 24, 2011 by Mike Szczys 39 Comments

Posts

Looks like Redbull is harnessing the power of open source hardware to market their product to hackers everywhere. We’d say that it worked because here we are, posting up some free advertising for them. It seems that a rep for the company dropped off a package at a hackerspace in LA called Null Space Labs. It came in what is obviously a laser cut wooden box, a material that tends to make hackers salivate. Inside they found the board you see above. It took a bit of time to look over the hardware was eventually identified as an Uzebox. Sure enough, then plugged in an original NES controller to the controller port on the back of the board and were playing a version of Pac-man in no time.

Marketing and advertising have their place in our lives which can be annoying and intrusive at times. But we have no problem with it when done creatively and targeted to our interests. Good job Redbull, and might we add, that’s a heck of a routing path for your PCB outline!

Uzebox In An NES Controller

November 19, 2009 by James Munns 6 Comments

[David Cranor] has managed to fit a fully working Uzebox system into an old NES controller. Uzebox, an open source gaming platform based on the ATmega 644 and an AD725 NTSC encoder, is one of a couple systems that are becoming more and more widespread and accessible. There are a number of ready-to-go Uzebox kits available, but for the more hands-on types, [David] has been very generous with his schematics and step by step instructions. These schematics can all be readily reshaped, and would easily fit into controllers with less fun applications and sentimental value.

Uzebox Video Player

September 10, 2009 by Jake W 12 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWWsSn_QKLM]
Everyone’s favorite open source game console, the Uzebox (also cloned as the Fuzebox), just got a new feature hacked into it – a video player. At reduced quality (8-bit color), the Uzebox was able to play ‘The Matrix’ off an SD card @ 30fps plus the audio @15kHz. That’s a pretty impressive feat when one considers it is running on 4096 bytes of RAM. The video file had to first be converted into a series of pictures through a Photoshop macro in order to be playable. A Uzebox can be built with little more than a few resistors in addition to an overclocked ATmega644P, and AD725 (which has been skirted in certain incarnations).