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Anyone want to take a wild guess as to what it may be? Hint: if you know my interests, the answer will be obvious
Sending out for some PCBs soon (after I give this a once-over) so I can build one up and see if it actually works. I have two weeks worth of events coming up, so sending this out now will mean I have something fun to do when I get back.
pcb_routing_complete.jpg239.25KB87 downloads
Pete
Pete Brown - http://10rem.net (NETMF, C++, Windows, C64, and general geekery) Twitter: @pete_brown I work for Microsoft. Opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer,our partners or customers.
At first glance I'd guess for a MIDI-module, but it looks far from it. No opto-couplers, no DIN female-connectors, so I'd discard it.
The DB9's pinout looks also strange...No: I'm out of ideas.
Any reward for who's guessing?
Cheers
Biggest fault of Netduino? It runs by electricity.
You guys got it: Commodore/Atari joystick and paddle adapter.
The five digital inputs are for the button and four directions.The analog inputs are for the two paddles each port can use.
This is one place where GoBus really shines: 10 digital and 4 analog inputs on a single module, plus 5v and 3.3v power. Some of the more advanced joysticks included 555 times for rapid fire, so it needs +5v. The voltage was also used by the paddles (which are just pots). That's why the voltage divider, because we have to keep things 3.3v on gobus.
You can find Atari style joysticks both used and new. New ones are still being manufactured and sold on eBay.
Pete
Pete Brown - http://10rem.net (NETMF, C++, Windows, C64, and general geekery) Twitter: @pete_brown I work for Microsoft. Opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer,our partners or customers.
Pete, what are you doing
I know for sure my wife won't like I need to use my credit card again...
I got some controllers for my Commodore 64 here, can't wait to connect them to something else for once.
Ps. Pete, have you tested it in combination with USB HID support? Now that would be awesome!
Pete, what are you doing
I know for sure my wife won't like I need to use my credit card again...
I got some controllers for my Commodore 64 here, can't wait to connect them to something else for once.
Ps. Pete, have you tested it in combination with USB HID support? Now that would be awesome!
I am often blamed for people having to apologize to their spouses over electronics purchases
USB HID support: I haven't tried that yet, but could be interesting. Good idea. One nice thing about the modular approach is you build something cool like this, and everyone else takes it in new directions. I love it.
Pete
Pete Brown - http://10rem.net (NETMF, C++, Windows, C64, and general geekery) Twitter: @pete_brown I work for Microsoft. Opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer,our partners or customers.
Am I right in thinking sega master system and mega drive/ genesis joypads are compatible?
Nak.
Looking at the specs, it doesn't appear so. Pins 1 through 4, 6 and 8 are the same, but pin 5 on commodore/atari is a potentiometer input, pin 5 on the sega is power. Pin 9 on the C64/Atari is the second potentiometer, but pin 9 on the sega is button.
I could work around all of those in the driver except for pin5 being power on the Sega.
Given that the board would use many of the same parts, if there's market for it, I could create a Sega-compatible version after the Atari ones.
Pete
Pete Brown - http://10rem.net (NETMF, C++, Windows, C64, and general geekery) Twitter: @pete_brown I work for Microsoft. Opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer,our partners or customers.
FWIW, I had also looked at Nintendo, but their connectors are proprietary and expensive.
Pete
Pete Brown - http://10rem.net (NETMF, C++, Windows, C64, and general geekery) Twitter: @pete_brown I work for Microsoft. Opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer,our partners or customers.
Yeah. Those and also the longer narrow ones (may have been ps/2, or later nintendo). $4 per connector with a single supplier is insane. In constrast, those male d-sub connectors ran me $0.19 each at quantity 300, and they're available anywhere.
That said, a lot more people identify with nintendo vs. Atari. Maybe as a boutique module - the driver would be more work too, as it's a shift register serial protocol rather than simple switches.
Actually, I forgot that Parallax is the one who reintroduced those sockets. Still somewhat expensive and single supplier, but half the price that site had. I think I just convinced myself.
Pete Brown - http://10rem.net (NETMF, C++, Windows, C64, and general geekery) Twitter: @pete_brown I work for Microsoft. Opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer,our partners or customers.
Pete, what are you doing
I know for sure my wife won't like I need to use my credit card again...
I got some controllers for my Commodore 64 here, can't wait to connect them to something else for once.
Ps. Pete, have you tested it in combination with USB HID support? Now that would be awesome!
Stefan, I remember back in the '80 that there was a dreaming bike branded ... (can't place ads). The Italian factory got mostly Japanese bikes, and re-tune them for adding an hundred of HP more. The price was absolutely of out of the human reason: twice or three times the base bike, but it was simply amazing.
Well, among the "real" bikers, who were dreaming for such a bike, there were a story about the wives/fianceès got angry because their partners' passion: "Hey, stop now! Either me or your bike!"...but the guy's answer was straightforward: "The bike, of course!".
Cheers
Biggest fault of Netduino? It runs by electricity.
That said, a lot more people identify with nintendo vs. Atari. Maybe as a boutique module - the driver would be more work too, as it's a shift register serial protocol rather than simple switches.
Well, among the "real" bikers, who were dreaming for such a bike, there were a story about the wives/fianceès got angry because their partners' passion: "Hey, stop now! Either me or your bike!"...but the guy's answer was straightforward: "The bike, of course!".
Sent my prototype pcb order to Seeed. Kept it on the cheap for this test run (green boards, less than $1 each in qty 10).
BTW, why is importing graphics into PCB software so hard? I couldn't find a single package that would import something like an SVG (which is already vectors) or a bitmap without requiring a blood donation. The bitmap import user script in Eagle turns out to be a complete train wreck- it creates a rectangle per pixel - impossible to move, scale, rotate, anything.
I finally gave up and drew the graphics in Eagle itself. I hate that package -- it's getting in my way.
Oh, and forget trying to move parts of a shape to another layer. I wanted to hide all those component outlines, but unfortunately, the OSHW logo was on the same layer. You can't easily change what layer the logo is on because it's defined as part of the part. :/
ngo_joy_module_prototype_design.jpg496.96KB30 downloads
Pete
Pete Brown - http://10rem.net (NETMF, C++, Windows, C64, and general geekery) Twitter: @pete_brown I work for Microsoft. Opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer,our partners or customers.
Sending out for some PCBs soon (after I give this a once-over) so I can build one up and see if it actually works. I have two weeks worth of events coming up, so sending this out now will mean I have something fun to do when I get back.
pcb_routing_complete.jpg 239.25KB
87 downloads
Pete
I know for sure my wife won't like I need to use my credit card again... 
I got some controllers for my Commodore 64 here, can't wait to connect them to something else for once.
Ps. Pete, have you tested it in combination with USB HID support? Now that would be awesome!
