Hackaday Links August 31, 2012

August 31, 2012 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

Landing a fixed-wing through hotel balcony french doors

As you can see, launching an RC airplane off of a hotel balcony is easy. But watch the video and you’ll find out trying to fly through the french doors for a landing is another story. [Team BlackSheep] hits (har, har) Thailand in this collection of breathtaking flights.

Quieting rack-mount switch for home use

[VictorB] got his hands on this switch to beef up his home network. Since the three fans on the back sound like a jet engine he did some cutting to use a larger, quieter fan.

Component package alphabet

Sure, you probably know what SOIC stands for, but what is a CSP? You can clear things up a bit by studying your IC Alphabet.

ZX Spectrum audio card

For those still looking to squeeze everything they can out of a classic ZX Spectrum, here’s a way to improve the audio with a custom sound card (translated).

AVR programmer reprogrammed as an NES controller interface

[Slack] modified his USBasp programmer to uses as an NES controller interface. The hardware can be had on eBay for under $10, and he was already using one as a dev board. After seeing this USB to NES dongle post it didn’t take long to make the programmer into a gaming tool.

Vintage Peripheral Hacks Roundup

June 8, 2011 by Mike Nathan 13 Comments

A few days ago, we featured an Apple ][ USB keyboard mod, and several readers chimed in sharing their own retro conversions in the comments section. We had no idea that many of you had made similar modifications of your own, so here’s a quick roundup of what your fellow Hackaday readers have put together.

Optical Atari STM1 Mouse

atari_stm1_usb

[JJ] had a 25-year old Atari STM1 mouse sitting around and was wondering how to get it to work with his new computer. Instead of interfacing the old mouse with his computer via a custom circuit board, he gutted the STM1 and replaced the innards with those of a much newer optical mouse. He did a bit of trimming to get the new PCB to fit, aiming the optical sensor through the now-empty “ball hole”. According to [JJ] it works just as good as it looks.

ZX Spectrum USB keyboard conversion

sinclair_zx_spectrum_usb

[Lee] is a sucker for vintage hardware, and with the help of his friend [LanceR], resurrected an old Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer into a working USB keyboard. After replacing the deteriorated membrane, the pair mapped out the keyboard to figure out how the matrix was wired. With that done, they built a prototype USB interface board, which they later replaced with a proper PCB.

BBC Master Compact USB keyboard conversion

bbc_master_compact_usb

A friend of [MoJo’s] had a BBC Master Compact computer from back in the day and wanted to have the keyboard converted to USB in order to use it with certain emulators. [MoJo] gladly took on the project, stripping some of the old motherboard components out to make room for his new circuitry. He built a USB interface board around an ATMega162, and even got the old built-in speaker working properly. From the outside, the keyboard looks like it has never been touched – nice job!