Radica Golden Tee Trackball Hack
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Hello, I've read a little on this forum but this is my first post.
I bought this Radica Golden Tee home edition last week on ebay and was a little disappointed with the game. I love the arcade and pc version but this home edition is barely the same game. The one great thing about it is the trackball quality!
This is my first electronics project, and although not too fancy, it came out great and makes playing the pc version of golden tee much better!
I crammed a couple of blue LEDs inside to make it cooler looking in the dark.
I'm waiting for a little usb hub I ordered so I can have Golden Tee on a flash drive inside of the controller to have an almost "PC Plug and Play"
-mike
I bought this Radica Golden Tee home edition last week on ebay and was a little disappointed with the game. I love the arcade and pc version but this home edition is barely the same game. The one great thing about it is the trackball quality!
This is my first electronics project, and although not too fancy, it came out great and makes playing the pc version of golden tee much better!
I crammed a couple of blue LEDs inside to make it cooler looking in the dark.
I'm waiting for a little usb hub I ordered so I can have Golden Tee on a flash drive inside of the controller to have an almost "PC Plug and Play"
-mike
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I'm sorry, I was tired when I posted.
I took out the Golden Tee plug and play PCB. Then I wired the GT trackball LED's and phototransistors to where the mouse LED and phototransistors were. The buttons on the trackball are left/right click on either side, and the ball works exactly as a mouse.
Since it's USB, I don't have to unplug my PS/2 mouse to play, it's just a second GUI but it's much better for some games. Golden Tee of course, but I also have "Rolling Madness 3d" which is an excellent Marble Madness remake that supports mouse input, has much better graphics, and is FREEware!
I have Golden Tee PC and Rolling Madness both installed on a 2G flash drive, both play right off of the drive.
Right now my device is just a USB mouse, after I recieve the USB hub I plan to cram it inside of my device and plug the mouse and flashdrive into the hub internally and the USB cord coming out of the device will plug into the male hub USB and the other end into the PC.
So when you plug the single USB cord from my trackball to (almost) any PC, I should get "windows has recognized a pointing device" and the popup window "what do you want to do?", well open to view folders of course. Double click whatever .exe and play away.
It isn't near as cool as most of the stuff here but I'm amazed it works so well.
-mike
I took out the Golden Tee plug and play PCB. Then I wired the GT trackball LED's and phototransistors to where the mouse LED and phototransistors were. The buttons on the trackball are left/right click on either side, and the ball works exactly as a mouse.
Since it's USB, I don't have to unplug my PS/2 mouse to play, it's just a second GUI but it's much better for some games. Golden Tee of course, but I also have "Rolling Madness 3d" which is an excellent Marble Madness remake that supports mouse input, has much better graphics, and is FREEware!
I have Golden Tee PC and Rolling Madness both installed on a 2G flash drive, both play right off of the drive.
Right now my device is just a USB mouse, after I recieve the USB hub I plan to cram it inside of my device and plug the mouse and flashdrive into the hub internally and the USB cord coming out of the device will plug into the male hub USB and the other end into the PC.
So when you plug the single USB cord from my trackball to (almost) any PC, I should get "windows has recognized a pointing device" and the popup window "what do you want to do?", well open to view folders of course. Double click whatever .exe and play away.
It isn't near as cool as most of the stuff here but I'm amazed it works so well.
-mike
You can make a selector program and make an autorun!
AUTORUN.INF
This makes it run "autorun.exe" when you put the disk in, have the "autorun.ico" icon on the drive, and if you right cick on the drive in My Computer, you can pick a game that way!
EDIT: This might help: msdn.microsoft
I have seen this on CDs, DVDs, and hard drives, so it should fork for a flash/thumb/USB drive.
AUTORUN.INF
Code: Select all
[autorun]
OPEN=autorun.exe
ICON=autorun.ico
shell\game1=Play Game 1
shell\game1\command=game1.exe
shell\game2=Player Game 2
shell\game2\command=game2folder\game2.exe
EDIT: This might help: msdn.microsoft
I have seen this on CDs, DVDs, and hard drives, so it should fork for a flash/thumb/USB drive.
Good News!
It works!
I recieved the USB hub I was waiting for and immediately cracked open it's case.
It was just like this one http://www.gadgetshack.co.nz/E4U041_hb0 ... 5B1%5D.jpg
Anyway, I soldered a longer USB cord onto the hub because the stock one was only like 4 inches long. Then I soldered the short cord I removed from the hub onto the mouse PCB so it reaches the hub internally without 6 feet of cord wound up inside of the Hackball case. Then I plugged both the mouse and the USB flash drive both into the hub. I had to remove a little plastic from inside of the Hackball case to fit it all, but it did fit!
There was a USB logo printed on the USB hub case that I opened. It was printed on clear plastic with silver paint on the backside. So I carefully cut the USB logo off of the case and scratched the silver paint off of the backside with steel wool. Then I hot glued it where the power switch used to be when this trackball was stock.
Also thank's to Neilk1 I investigated autorun. I guess only XP sp2 or Vista support Flash Drive autorun but there is another little freeware program which will do the next best thing. PStart adds another option to the "what do you want to do" autoplay box.
When Hackball is plugged into a USB port on a PC, I get the autoplay box, then either double click PStart or just "Enter" (since it's the first choice). Then the Pstart menu opens up and displays the games available on the drive.
Sure these are old games but for my first ever project like this, it couldn't have come out much better. If anyone wants to try something similar, I can try to answer any questions.
-mike
It works!
I recieved the USB hub I was waiting for and immediately cracked open it's case.
It was just like this one http://www.gadgetshack.co.nz/E4U041_hb0 ... 5B1%5D.jpg
Anyway, I soldered a longer USB cord onto the hub because the stock one was only like 4 inches long. Then I soldered the short cord I removed from the hub onto the mouse PCB so it reaches the hub internally without 6 feet of cord wound up inside of the Hackball case. Then I plugged both the mouse and the USB flash drive both into the hub. I had to remove a little plastic from inside of the Hackball case to fit it all, but it did fit!
There was a USB logo printed on the USB hub case that I opened. It was printed on clear plastic with silver paint on the backside. So I carefully cut the USB logo off of the case and scratched the silver paint off of the backside with steel wool. Then I hot glued it where the power switch used to be when this trackball was stock.
Also thank's to Neilk1 I investigated autorun. I guess only XP sp2 or Vista support Flash Drive autorun but there is another little freeware program which will do the next best thing. PStart adds another option to the "what do you want to do" autoplay box.
When Hackball is plugged into a USB port on a PC, I get the autoplay box, then either double click PStart or just "Enter" (since it's the first choice). Then the Pstart menu opens up and displays the games available on the drive.
Sure these are old games but for my first ever project like this, it couldn't have come out much better. If anyone wants to try something similar, I can try to answer any questions.
-mike
I'll see if the games can be directly listed in the autorun box, though I dont know where to look.
My windows XP is the media eddition, so it is also at least SP2...
I tried adding an autorun to a hard drive but it didn't work despite another autorun on a hardrive that does. Strange things...
EDIT:
Try this one, a bit of a diff attempt:
autorun.inf
This should add Rolling Madness 3D and GT Golf as options in the autorun list you showed Usb-Menu in. Try it, it might work!
EDIT2: This should/will work:
This should add full functionability to most systems.
For what you have to work, there must be an autorun with:
in it already!
My windows XP is the media eddition, so it is also at least SP2...
I tried adding an autorun to a hard drive but it didn't work despite another autorun on a hardrive that does. Strange things...
EDIT:
hmmm, interesting. A search for DRIVE_REMOVABLE or removable drive autorun might help ya out. I'll look now...The action key is only used in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) or later. It is only supported for drives of type DRIVE_REMOVABLE and DRIVE_FIXED. In the case of DRIVE_REMOVABLE, the action key is required. An action command in the Autorun.inf file of an audio CD or movie DVD is ignored and these media continue to behave as in Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) and earlier.
Try this one, a bit of a diff attempt:
autorun.inf
Code: Select all
[autorun]
label=Rolling Madness 3D and Other Games
icon=RollingMadness3D.exe
action=Rolling Madness 3D
open=RollingMadness3D.exe
action=GT Golf
open=gtgolf.exe
EDIT2: This should/will work:
Code: Select all
[autorun]
label=Rolling Madness 3D and Other Games
icon=RollingMadness3D.exe
action=Rolling Madness 3D
open=RollingMadness3D.exe
action=GT Golf
open=gtgolf.exe
shell\game1=Rolling Madness 3D
shell\game1\command=RollingMadness3D.exe
shell\game2=GT Golf
shell\game2\command=gtgolf.exe
For what you have to work, there must be an autorun with:
Code: Select all
action=Usb-Menu
open=usb-menu.exe
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Sorry, for resurrecting an old thread, but I just wanted to say thanks for the information here. I've been working on a a "kid's version" Linux livecd (lots of games and educational software, boots on almost anything, big friendly icons, etc) based on Damn Smal Linux as a present for my niece and nephews. One of the things I wanted to include was a big trackball they could use. My original plan was to try and hack a Sega Master System sports pad, but I'm loath to destroy the one sports pad I own. These Golden Tee trackballs are only around $17 now. Excellent.
I was wondering if you'd considered using something like damn small linux installed on a USB key to hack the Golden Tee track ball into a near-true standalone gaming system. Sure, it would still require a computer to plug in to, but that's ok. Alternately, you COULD create a TRUE standalone game system with DSL on a USB key combined with a "system on a chip" computer like the Gumstix.
I was wondering if you'd considered using something like damn small linux installed on a USB key to hack the Golden Tee track ball into a near-true standalone gaming system. Sure, it would still require a computer to plug in to, but that's ok. Alternately, you COULD create a TRUE standalone game system with DSL on a USB key combined with a "system on a chip" computer like the Gumstix.
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Sorry, for resurrecting an old thread, but I just wanted to say thanks for the information here. I've been working on a a "kid's version" Linux livecd (lots of games and educational software, boots on almost anything, big friendly icons, etc) based on Damn Smal Linux as a present for my niece and nephews. One of the things I wanted to include was a big trackball they could use. My original plan was to try and hack a Sega Master System sports pad, but I'm loath to destroy the one sports pad I own. These Golden Tee trackballs are only around $17 now. Excellent.
I was wondering if you'd considered using something like damn small linux installed on a USB key to hack the Golden Tee track ball into a near-true standalone gaming system. Sure, it would still require a computer to plug in to, but that's ok. Alternately, you COULD create a TRUE standalone game system with DSL on a USB key combined with a "system on a chip" computer like the Gumstix.
I was wondering if you'd considered using something like damn small linux installed on a USB key to hack the Golden Tee track ball into a near-true standalone gaming system. Sure, it would still require a computer to plug in to, but that's ok. Alternately, you COULD create a TRUE standalone game system with DSL on a USB key combined with a "system on a chip" computer like the Gumstix.
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