The Afternoon projects thread.
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- Metallica Man X
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THE STORY:
I had not touched my Dreamcast in a while, so the other day, I decided to fire it up and play some Street Fighter III. However, moments into starting a match, I suddenly remembered how much I HATE the Dreamcast controller (in my opinion, it's one of the worst controller designs ever devised...)
The cause of the hate? Two things:
1.) That accursed double VMU plug on the controller. Darn thing is large, and when I hold the contrlller, my fingers get crunched against it, and they get raw from rubbing against it after playing for a while.
2.) The really stupid bottom placement of the controller wire. Not as big a problem as the VMU, but still annoying just the same.
So I decided to rectify those problems once and for all.
Now Presenting the VMU-less/properly corded Dreamcast controller!
Looks nice up top...
Still a little rough around the edges, but that's not a big deal since the point of this was to make the controller more functional (for what I'm using it for).
Although, I was actually thinking about grinding down the edges some more and painting it...but that's a projekt for some other time.
It may lack the ability to save games now, but that's a non-issue when it comes to playing fighting games like SFIII and what not.
I had not touched my Dreamcast in a while, so the other day, I decided to fire it up and play some Street Fighter III. However, moments into starting a match, I suddenly remembered how much I HATE the Dreamcast controller (in my opinion, it's one of the worst controller designs ever devised...)
The cause of the hate? Two things:
1.) That accursed double VMU plug on the controller. Darn thing is large, and when I hold the contrlller, my fingers get crunched against it, and they get raw from rubbing against it after playing for a while.
2.) The really stupid bottom placement of the controller wire. Not as big a problem as the VMU, but still annoying just the same.
So I decided to rectify those problems once and for all.
Now Presenting the VMU-less/properly corded Dreamcast controller!
Looks nice up top...
Still a little rough around the edges, but that's not a big deal since the point of this was to make the controller more functional (for what I'm using it for).
Although, I was actually thinking about grinding down the edges some more and painting it...but that's a projekt for some other time.
It may lack the ability to save games now, but that's a non-issue when it comes to playing fighting games like SFIII and what not.
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- gamax92
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
Now make a controller less vmu thing. LOL
That looks nice. I always got my hand blistered from that. So i put electrical tape over the area.
GHETTO Right. But yeah i would love a vmu less controller.
That looks nice. I always got my hand blistered from that. So i put electrical tape over the area.
GHETTO Right. But yeah i would love a vmu less controller.
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- Triton
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
i love the dreamcast controller, the massive bulge on the back is ugly but i never had a problem with holding the controller ya'll must have huge ass hands or hold the controller with a deathgrip or something
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- dragonhead
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
yeah really, ive got gigantic hands (i think the xbox duke is made for me) and i dont have a problem with the dreamcast controller. you must be holding it wrong.Triton wrote:i love the dreamcast controller, the massive bulge on the back is ugly but i never had a problem with holding the controller ya'll must have huge ass hands or hold the controller with a deathgrip or something
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
I love the DC controller! YEE
- Triton
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
one day last week i dissasembled my beogram CD playerfrom 1985 and fixed some bad solder joints it had and gave it a good cleaning, it works like a champ now, 25 years old and reads CDs no other CD player i have will! if the audio doesnt work try the video at 480p
1985 Bang & Olufsen Beogram CDX
the green LEDs light up based on the number of tracks, up to either 19 or 21 iirc. and yes, other than the power and eject buttons its a fully touch interface with a glass touch panel, and this was made in 1985!
1985 Bang & Olufsen Beogram CDX
the green LEDs light up based on the number of tracks, up to either 19 or 21 iirc. and yes, other than the power and eject buttons its a fully touch interface with a glass touch panel, and this was made in 1985!
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
That cd player is awesome. Makes me want to get one so I can jam out to some oldies. I would what their value is at.
- eagle5953
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
With regards to dreamcast controllers, I find the same two issues. My fingers also bump up against the VMU slot, and I would prefer the cord come out the front.
My biggest issue with it though is that the "wings" do not splay out at all. It feels uncomfortable compared to almost any other pad.
My biggest issue with it though is that the "wings" do not splay out at all. It feels uncomfortable compared to almost any other pad.
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
are you asking what they were worth or what they cost? in 1985 this retailed for £349, which was $450 in 1985 money. adjusted for inflation and using the current exchange rate this CD player would retail for £635, or $989 approximately. when these turn up on ebay they sell for 150-300$ with pristine examples (original box etc) fetching moreRemmnever wrote:That cd player is awesome. Makes me want to get one so I can jam out to some oldies. I would what their value is at.
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
Pretty cool. I'll keep my eyes open for one.Triton wrote:are you asking what they were worth or what they cost? in 1985 this retailed for £349, which was $450 in 1985 money. adjusted for inflation and using the current exchange rate this CD player would retail for £635, or $989 approximately. when these turn up on ebay they sell for 150-300$ with pristine examples (original box etc) fetching moreRemmnever wrote:That cd player is awesome. Makes me want to get one so I can jam out to some oldies. I would what their value is at.
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
feel free to make me a cash offer on mine, for the right price i would probably sell it. but it would take a pretty sweet deal to convince me to sell
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
Dunno if any of you remember this, but I recently modified the design to get my piano in there as well!
Keyboard's all hooked up to my iMac and it works amazingly with Synthesia.
khaag wrote:Oh hai, I build my own furniture too:
It's cool, cause I can unbolt the back support piece and then fold the legs inwards for easy transportation! Made out of Maple ply and elbow grease. I still need to varnish it and get a piece of glass cut for the top.
Keyboard's all hooked up to my iMac and it works amazingly with Synthesia.
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- jdmlight
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Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
That's awesome. I may have to copy that...khaag wrote:Dunno if any of you remember this, but I recently modified the design to get my piano in there as well!
-snip-
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Fight MS Paint abominations! If you don't have a camera, go here, and pick something 3 megapixels or higher.
Fight MS Paint abominations! If you don't have a camera, go here, and pick something 3 megapixels or higher.
Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
So, I just got a Kindle and want to automate the downloading of news feeds to it. I wanted a PC to turn on when I woke up in the morning, download the feeds, transfer them to my Kindle, then shut off.
First problem: The spare PC I put together for this does not support automatic startup in the BIOS, and neither do any of the other motherboards I had. So, I thought of a way to use an alarm clock to turn it on.
When the alarm clock would go off, it had a speaker that would produce a tone. This means it was switching power to the speaker on and off very quickly. This would not drive a relay directly, so I made a "filtering" circuit consisting of a few transistors and a capacitor. When the clock goes off, it charges the capacitor through a transistor. This buffers the on's and off's into a kind of pulsating DC current.
The capacitor drains into another transistor, turning it on. This activates two relays at once. One presses the button to turn off the alarm, and the other turns on the computer. Since the alarm was turned off just a moment ago, the speaker does not sound again and it does not turn the computer back off.
In the first picture, you see two sets of black and white wires going into the PC. One comes from the relay to short the power switch momentarily, and the other goes to the +5VSB on the power supply. This line provides +5v at low currents, even when the computer is off. The 5v powers the buffering circuit.
That was the difficult part and took about 4 hours. Everything else was easy. When you get a Kindle, Amazon gives you a free email address you can use to send files to it. I installed Calibre (an awesome free e-book manager) on the PC and had it run on startup. I set it up to download the feeds then email them to the Kindle through WiFi.
Turning the computer back off was easy as well. All you need to do it make a shortcut to "shutdown.exe -f -s -t x" and add it to the startup folder. The .exe is the Windows shutdown program. -f force-closes any open programs, -s specifies a shutdown (instead of restart, logout, etc) and -t x is how much time it will wait before shutting down, in seconds. I set it to a half-hour.
So, now I can have my news feeds on my Kindle before I leave for school.
First problem: The spare PC I put together for this does not support automatic startup in the BIOS, and neither do any of the other motherboards I had. So, I thought of a way to use an alarm clock to turn it on.
When the alarm clock would go off, it had a speaker that would produce a tone. This means it was switching power to the speaker on and off very quickly. This would not drive a relay directly, so I made a "filtering" circuit consisting of a few transistors and a capacitor. When the clock goes off, it charges the capacitor through a transistor. This buffers the on's and off's into a kind of pulsating DC current.
The capacitor drains into another transistor, turning it on. This activates two relays at once. One presses the button to turn off the alarm, and the other turns on the computer. Since the alarm was turned off just a moment ago, the speaker does not sound again and it does not turn the computer back off.
In the first picture, you see two sets of black and white wires going into the PC. One comes from the relay to short the power switch momentarily, and the other goes to the +5VSB on the power supply. This line provides +5v at low currents, even when the computer is off. The 5v powers the buffering circuit.
That was the difficult part and took about 4 hours. Everything else was easy. When you get a Kindle, Amazon gives you a free email address you can use to send files to it. I installed Calibre (an awesome free e-book manager) on the PC and had it run on startup. I set it up to download the feeds then email them to the Kindle through WiFi.
Turning the computer back off was easy as well. All you need to do it make a shortcut to "shutdown.exe -f -s -t x" and add it to the startup folder. The .exe is the Windows shutdown program. -f force-closes any open programs, -s specifies a shutdown (instead of restart, logout, etc) and -t x is how much time it will wait before shutting down, in seconds. I set it to a half-hour.
So, now I can have my news feeds on my Kindle before I leave for school.
Re: The Afternoon projects thread.
Return home from uni to find my "junk" being thrown away, including a recently deceased psonep and a toy keyboard. I had no choice:
Need to build some housing around it, and maybe figure out how to display some sort of visuals based on the sound.
Need to build some housing around it, and maybe figure out how to display some sort of visuals based on the sound.