Accessibility build idea

Hi Ben,

I've been a big fan of your work for since your original 2600 portable and the Ben Heck Show is a constant delight. Like you, and as a game developer, I'm highy interested in gaming accessibility.

I've had this build idea for while, but I don't have a personal need for it or even know if it is something that would be useful. The idea is to take the stereo audio output from a game and display it spatially so that people with hearing impairment can be aware of important audio cues. I envision a row of RGB LEDs that could mounted on top of a monitor, possibly keying color to audio frequency and brightness to volume, and as I said mapped spatially so that sounds from the left light up LEDs on the left end of the device, sounds in the middle light the middle of the device, and so forth. What do you think?

0 benheck over 14 years ago

That's a pretty cool idea. All we would need to do is convert sound intensity into RGB LED intensity for left and right, correct?

Might be a good idea for a future build, if you have further ideas or want to refine, contact me!
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0 colecago over 14 years ago

I've always wanted to do a sound -> visual translation, moreso of frequencies animals would hear so I could see what my dogs have to put up with. I wonder how you would figure out if something was left/right/center, maybe compare levels at the different frequencies of both left and right and if they are similar they are in the center? This chip would be a great base for this
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10468
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