Forum - Recent Threads

RE: TheC64 Mini,making a replacement keyboard for it.

airbornesurfer — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 15:30:11 GMT

Looks good! That board is coming along swimmingly!

Be sure to update when you have the keycaps sorted, I'd love to see the finished product!

RE: TheC64 Mini,making a replacement keyboard for it.

bleugh — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 13:28:57 GMT

www.bleughbleugh.wordpress.com

C64 mini keyboard mod!

RE: TheC64 Mini,making a replacement keyboard for it.

davedarko — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 17:15:22 GMT

what buttons are you talking about, do you have any farnell / newark order numbers or a pic? I found these, but they seem to be unoptanium: SKEGACA010.

RE: TheC64 Mini,making a replacement keyboard for it.

airbornesurfer — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 20:24:50 GMT

It's probably going to be a little bit before I can get started on this one. I've got a few episodes of element14 presents coming up, so it'll have to take a back seat to them. Follow my blog The Surf Lab: A Place For Kooks and Dukes Alike because I will be posting there once I get started on it, though!

RE: TheC64 Mini,making a replacement keyboard for it.

grondak — Sat, 17 Aug 2019 01:22:25 GMT

I keep a C64 around for teaching purposes. There are many interesting aspects to the keyboard. I don't have a mini (yet!). The Shift Lock button is not momentary. Did you start this project yet? It would make a great set of blog entries here on element14.

RE: TheC64 Mini,making a replacement keyboard for it.

airbornesurfer — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 23:19:00 GMT

Putting a Pi0 in there gets rid of the C64 Mini front end, which would have to be recreated. A 32u4-based board like the Leonardo would do the job with less software hassle.

Unless, of course, the goal is to have an actual scaled-down C64. At that point, yeah, you could just replace everything with a Pi0 running Combian 64 and call it a day (which isn't a bad idea for funsies).

One way or another, you gotta wire a keyboard matrix.

TheC64 Mini,making a replacement keyboard for it.

spannernick — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 17:03:50 GMT

I was thinking it would need a usb keyboard controller that works with the C64 Mini,and you could use Mini Micro Momentary Tactile Push Button Switch,I think you used them on the ZX spectrum Potable you made,so basically replacing the fake keyboard with a real working keyboard...what you think..?

RE: TheC64 Mini,making a replacement keyboard for it.

clem57 — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 23:03:49 GMT

RPI 0 maybe the way to go.

RE: TheC64 Mini,making a replacement keyboard for it.

airbornesurfer — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 04:04:17 GMT

I've been considering doing something like this since picking up a C64 Mini on sale a few weeks ago. It shouldn't be too hard (in theory), but the trick lies in not giving up an external USB port and making the whole thing look stock. I'm going to put this in my side projects file and noodle on it a bit.

RE: I was wondering if this is something you'd consider taking on Ben:

andywest — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 07:35:09 GMT

This was resolved back in 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe-fs1COgr0

It has developer / diagnostic tools on it.

I was wondering if this is something you'd consider taking on Ben:

jeremiahchris7 — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 05:11:40 GMT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64Bx0WKh7M

He's looking for someone who has the know-how to figure out what's on his "mysterious blue N64 disk".

Trying to get USB to front NES ports.

darkloud — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 03:12:39 GMT

Hey guys! First post here! I am trying to get 2 standard USB ports to the front of a NES case. As in, I do not want to use the controller ports, but rather mount a single USB port per player slot. As I do not have a 3d printer, I am kind of at a loss at how to mount the ports to the front? Once the controller ports are removed you are left with a large gaping hole.

What do you guys think they best thing would be to do to get USB ports mounted to the front?

Also do any of you know where to purchase the USB connectors? As in just the metal piece that connects the devices together? I figure it would much more easier to make something to mount with that rather than a preassembled USB cable...

Best regards!

RE: Trying to get USB to front NES ports.

fomoco460 — Sun, 16 Dec 2018 20:50:35 GMT

Did you ever make anything for the nes? I fond this for mounting the pi in the nes but I haven't found anything for the back plate (power and mini hdmi) or the front.(usb) https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:319831

RE: GameCube joycon mod? That'd be awesome.

skaislove — Sun, 16 Dec 2018 04:11:51 GMT

Those are all concepts. They're within the realm of possibility.

I really liked there mod where you moved the right joystick in an effort to make the controller more suitable for larger hands. That only leaves the tiny buttons issue; this would solve that.

I'd love to see something more like the procube's handles. Those controllers for the Wii U are amazing.

What do you all think!?

GameCube joycon mod? That'd be awesome.

skaislove — Sun, 16 Dec 2018 04:05:33 GMT

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Mechanical television

aussie_bloke — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 01:47:04 GMT

G'day Ben.

I've just came across your channel when looking for videos on mechanical television as it is a big interest of mine. Anyhow I watched both episodes and totally enjoyed them and learned some things I didn't already know such as how the flying spot scanner actually works in mechanical TV! Sorry to see you were unable to get it working to display an image, so I felt prompted to share some of what I know in building mechanical televisors as well as resources you can look into.

Firstly here's some very useful sites you can visit to learn more on building mechanical TVs as well as conversion software to output mechanical video for testing:

NBTV forum Narrow-Bandwidth Television Association • Index page (this is a goldmine of project info for all sorts of mechanical TV/camera builds of many sorts from many members including myself, I highly recommend you join up and check out the projects on there)

NBTV Narrow Bandwidth Television Association NBTV Handbook (this is the main site for 32 line NBTV standard mechanical TV)

Gary's NBTV mechanical TV software Gary's web site (This Aussie guy has developed software that converts any video and pics into mechanical TV signals of various formats to display on various mechanical televisors and also software to display a mechanical TV signal on computer too, his software is awesome for testing mechanical TVs)

Now my experience with mechanical TV/camera building, I have built simple Nipkow disc televisors without sync circuits and I use Gary's software to display images and I manually sync the disc with my finger as a brake, that is the simplest way to simply get a mechanical TV to display an image, here's a couple of displays I made I've featured on my website Untitled (32 line NBTV cardboard paper Nipkow display), Untitled (32 line NBTV plywood disc Nipkow display). Later on I made a 32 line mechanical TV/camera both utilizing the same LP record disc, the beauty of this is you don't even need to synchonize it because it's all on the one disc, the disc consists of 1.5 spirals and 48 holes so what the camera captures get's displayed on the lightbox monitor side at the same time, I can run it at any speed and it will produce an image all the same, anyhow my 32 line NBTV camera/monitor project log can be seen here Narrow-Bandwidth Television Association • View topic - New NBTV camera project there's 11 pages worth of construction/testing logs, also I made many vlogs on constructing this TV/camera on my channel https://www.youtube.com/user/troysvisualarts just search NBTV camera, here's a good off the monitor camera capture of the unit in operation https://youtu.be/ZY9mwXC--ro I used an ancient B&W tube video camera for capture as it has image persistence to lessen the flicker. My version of the camera is not a flying spot but a direct lens focus to nipkow disc and behind it some condenser lenses and a dome sensor to pick up the light. Also the holes of the nipkow disc are drilled with a needle to be very small opposed to being larger like yours, this ensures a finer detailed sharp image but at the cost of light sensitivity on the sensor and brightness on the monitor side.

I hope this will be all helpful when you revisit your mechanical TV and camera project again. Your project has given me a clearer picture on how a flying spot scanner nipkow camera works and has inspired me to try out building a flying spot scanner myself, I so gotta build one in the near future. Also I like the belt drive synchronisation idea too, another idea would be to place 2 discs on a spindle and belt drive the spindle from one motor, this is what Australian radio experimenter Chris Long did building his nipkow camera/TV apparatus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ST9E8oEkpI .

Anyways best of luck with the project, look forward to a future video on it.

Cheers

Troy

RE: Mechanical television

sneb — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 16:53:42 GMT

Hi,

How do you convert an image or video to an NBTV Audio files to modulate the LED'S?

Any instructions will be much appreciated....

Mr Heckendorn have you

aolson27 — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 04:25:24 GMT

Thought about doing an add on card for the kim one computer kit that would allow owners of the original and clones of the kim one to make atari 2600 games on their kim 1 computers?.

Basicly take a tia, Cart slot, switches slap it on a card that connect to the kim 1 and turn it in to an atari 2600 dev system ?.

I would love to see that and as far ad I know no one has done this yet.

Just a thought scincerly Amanda

Atari 2600 Portable

rafe118 — Thu, 17 May 2018 22:59:09 GMT

Ben, how did you build the Atari 2600 portable remake? I'm trying to make my own for travel purposes and I want to make something portable. Can you send me the shchematics for the build? Also, where did you find the parts for it? Thanks, Rafe

RE: Atari 2600 Portable

rafe118 — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 02:56:03 GMT

Thank you!

RE: Atari 2600 Portable

Syntaxerror999 — Sun, 03 Jun 2018 20:14:15 GMT

I too would like this. However I think I may be able to point you in the right direction. The schematic of the origional 2600 Ben follows can be found here...

AtariAge - Atari 2600 Schematics - NTSC

The trick is eliminating all the unnecessary parts such as the parts for the RF A/V. In Bens book, he makes his first portable Atari and in that he cuts off everything outside the RF sheild and makes standard A/V outputs for ther portable TV it uses. Heres the page for the book which includes references files that should help.

https://benheck.com/book/

Probably not exactly what youre looking for but I hope it helps.

RE: tech review or tear down request - Kano

shosein98 — Tue, 08 May 2018 14:06:49 GMT

I tried to keep the above short, my brother got a full replacement under warranty we swapped all the cables and the screen still did not work on the original one. I have 2 short cables from amazon one with network support and one a 1.4 HDMI cable neither of them work on the original Kano my brother bought. I will try after work to plug the PI into my TV using the short cables and test if that works. what I have looked up is the schematic for the HDMI control board and found there is a design that has anti reflection signal protection but this one is not wired that way. I followed the traces and the secondary traces that loop back for the anti reflection circuit are not there maybe the board is multi layered I can't tell that.but the HDMI board is crappy quality I was thinking off re-flowing it in my oven.

tech review or tear down request - Kano

shosein98 — Tue, 08 May 2018 12:19:05 GMT

Kano computer For Kids.

My brother bought a Kano computer for my nephew for his birthday pretty cool if it worked. I found a technical issue with the crappy video controller on the screen. There is a 10 inch HDMI cable that goes from the Raspberry PI 3 to the HDMI to 40 pin video control board. I could see lights when I plugged in the Raspberry PI on but nothing on the screen so I changed the HDMI cable to a cheap 6 foot cable I have and it worked, So I ordered a 12 inch HDMI cable from amazon to replace there cable I figured was damaged but it did not work either. I believe signal reflection is cancelling out the signal or causing an error telling the HDMI board to shut off with the short HDMI cables. I do not know how to tell which direction the reflection is happening or which board is causing the issue. Is the reflection cause signal issue in the raspberry HDMI signal or is the reflection causing the Video control board to short or error and shut off.

RE: tech review or tear down request - Kano

shabaz — Tue, 08 May 2018 13:38:30 GMT

Hi Simon,

It is more likely the first one was possibly faulty, and the replacement one from amazon could be any junk. You should try to get a replacement for the Kano under warranty, or contact Kano.

They should be the ones to stand by their product. They will have tested their solution on at least one screen surely.

I have a small HDMI-connected screen and it works fine with the two-inch HDMI connection.

RE: Pi fash cartridge

lorenz15002@gmail.com — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 21:08:46 GMT

I guess I had in mind multiple games and not sure if u could take advantage of the the expansion bay and maybe live date I am really not sure all of what u could do mainly to play games like an everdrive though