WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?!

No reason to be here when you could be checking out the New Super Awesome #1 Couchified website…

It’s the new home for all of my projects… change your links now because web-nine might be taking a long walk off a short cliff soon-ish.

If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been you can read my weekly rants on:
thoughtead.com
Or see what video games I’ve been playing

… you know if you got an Xbox 360 we could probably game together daily…

I also have another big web project I’ve been working on but I’d rather not talk about it here, ask me about it if you’re interested.

web|nine probably wont get much attention for a while, the layout is broken and I’ve focused my attention on more directed projects as opposed to just random blogging.

Now that the project is done I’ve submitted it to a few news sites. Xbox-Scene, and Hack-A-Day both featured it!. Slashdot rejected the story but I didn’t really expect them to feature it anyway. If you’ve got a Slashdot or Digg (I haven’t submitted it there because I don’t have a Digg account) account do me a favor and submit it. I’m trying to get as much feedback as possible.

In both cases I linked back to the Xbox-Scene forums for reference figuring that I wouldn’t want to overload my servers here. with the video on YouTube and each of those sites re-hosting the pictures themselves I think my server here is safe…

EDIT: I made Team Xbox news too
Some Forum posts too.

EDIT #2: …and Planet Xbox 360

EDIT #3: …engadget

EDIT #4: xbox360.qj.net and hellogamer

EDIT #5: kotaku, MaxConsole, IGN Boards, 360 Insider, FreeXbox, OnTheXbox, PC Fastlane, Digiplay Initiative, Austech, and Giga beat

Here’s a wrap up for those just joining us…

The V1 Prototype of the Sat-2-360 Controller Adapter is now finished after two and a half months. The intent of the adapter was to be able to use a completely unmodified Sega Saturn controller to play Xbox 360 Games. More specifically I wanted a good 2D gamepad to play upcoming Xbox Live Arcade titles such as Street Fighter 2 Hyper Fighting and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Thankfully I was able to complete my adapter before either of the game have been release… so I’ll be ready The adapter accomplishes everything I set out to do and then some. Seeing as I used a Wireless Xbox 360 controller the whole adapter is wireless and runs on batteries. Here’s a Video of the adapter in action:

The Adapter connects to the Saturn controller using a cut up controller cable extender I wired it into a pin header keeping the same order as the controller socket. From there it goes into a Microchip PIC16F690 Where the Saturn’s Joypad protocol is decoded into a parallel output. I was able to do ever button but the “Start” button due to the PIC chip being one I/O port shy of what I needed, being the least integral to gameplay that was the button that got the axe. Once the data is in Parallel form you could easily adapt the Saturn controller to just about anything you wanted to. Adapting it to a Wireless Xbox 360 controller was a particular challenge however. MS utilizes an interesting button matrix to help reduce the pin count of their controller’s encoder chip. This means that the buttons don’t work with a simple logic high/logic low interface. Without the equipment to properly analyze the controller to work with this unique system I simply used an array of Analog Switches that emulated a button press on the 360 controller. This proved to work well.

From there the outputs of the Analog switches are wired into another custom pin header and into a ribbon cable which connects to the appropriate points on the Xbox 360 controller. I chose points that were easier to solder to as opposed to points that were apparent as to what they attached to, and for the sake of easier construction.

The whole thing is on a breadboard at the moment. I plan on eventually revisiting this project and using a larger chip build an adapter that will work with other types of controllers such as the Saturn Analog controller or perhaps older controllers like the NES and SNES. At that point I might clean up the circuit into a professional looking PCB and project box.

References:
Saturn Joypad Protocol and Pinout:
RDC’s Xbox 360 PCB Scans: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=512342

Project Info:
PIC16F690 Code: http://www.web-nine.com/files/SATto360/Sat-2-360_V1.txt
PIC16F690 Hex: http://www.web-nine.com/files/SATto360/sat2parV1.HEX
Circut Diagram: http://www.web-nine.com/albums/Xbox360/Sat_2_360.png
Prototype Circuit: http://web-nine.com/albums/Xbox360/proto2a.jpg
360 Controller Interface: http://web-nine.com/albums/Xbox360/ctrlrbn.jpg
Video Demonstration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiP0WLx7V7Q

Special Thanks to:
Zero_Cool for helping me understand demultiplexers (and why they won’t work for this )
pablot for the MCU advice
RDC for the awesome Controller PCB scans, and helpful advice throughout the project not to mention the Awesome [url=http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f320/RDCXBG/XBOX%20Stuff/saturn_360_logo.jpg]logo[/url] for the project.
SaturnAR the wealth of knowledge about Saturn controller protocols and helping me optimize my PIC code.
My Brother for helping me film the above video.
And everyone else that provided advice or encouragement

My brother came over today and helped me make a video… I apologize for how dark it is… the original video looks fine but when I put it up on You tube it was like I turned down the brightness a few knotches

anywhere here’s the video of the first prototype in action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiP0WLx7V7Q

enjoy

SUCCESS!!!

I swapped the original analog stick pots over to the left stick side then used some low tolerance resistors to fake a couple 10K pots on the right stick. No more wondering analogs!!!

I fired it up and play tested it in DOA sparing mode for about an hour, it works fantastic

I went to go make a video but all I’ve got is a digital camera, it takes ok picture but the video is garbage. It can only do up to 3 minute clips and after looking at the results it was too dark to see anything anyway <_<

I’ll see if I can get my brother to come over some time this weekend since he has a REAL video camera and can probably make a better quality recording (he better come over, I helped him pay for the camera )

In the mean time I’ll probably work on getting the 360’s triggers mapped to the Saturn’s shoulder buttons

… I am very happy right now ^_^

Years ago a good friend of mine turned me on to a great card game called Killer Bunnies. I instantly fell in love with the game and like most of my hobbies I decided to actively collect all the different expansions and rarities associated with it. The starter box holds a number of cards and Dice and had room to spare for 2 or 3 of the expansion packs. Past that I purchased 4 more expansions but never used them, simply because they wouldn’t fit in the box and carrying a whole stack of boxes around with you when visiting friends and family is rather cumbersome. Not to mention using the starter box you had to be creative when putting the game away to ensure that everything fit.

For months I looked for a reasonable case, poker cases were nice but they only held a small number of cards and the rest of the space was dedicated to chips, not easily modified either. Card cases for baseball collectors were either cheap cardboard boxes that held cards en-masse for storage or books where the cards were made be looked at rather then used. Even card holders for other games were almost always emblazoned with logos and artwork dedicated to that game (like Pokémon or Yugi-oh). I eventually found a company called Vanguard who makes cases for photo equipment. The cases are nice looking sturdy and contain half-cut foam cubes that you can remove to appropriately store your equipment. Most of the cases were too thin or small for what I needed but I finally found a case with a depth appropriate to fit cards, the Vanguard VGP-3202.

Removing a few foam peaces you can easily create rectangular shapes just popping out foam with your hands. Each foam square is 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch and there are 2 depths, half way down the case and all the way down the case. (~2 3/4 inches total depth)

After determining the layout I wanted to use I removed all the appropriate foam pieces and did a test fit. I was careful to nail down the layout before I started and not break-off any foam that I didn’t intend to. I suppose I could have tried to glue some of it back on if I made a mistake but luckily that didn’t happen.

now that I have the cards in it would seem that the lid requires pressure to close completely. This would be find if I was using it to hold camera equipment but I’d rather not put pressure across the cards. They have a slight amount of pressure across them horizontally and that holds them in place, I would imagine vertical pressure from the uneven foam lid could potentially cause damage to the cards down the road.

Checking the depth of the lid’s foam with a needle there is more then enough space for the lid to close comfortably if I remove the foam. Carefully pulling the foam out and testing this proves correct. But now I have a different problem.

The glue used on the lid is some nasty stuff, breaking out my trusty Goo-Gone (never failed me in the past) only seemed to make it worse! After scrubbing at it for a half hour and wasting nearly a quarter bottle of goo-gone to no avail i decided it might be best to cover it up. The walls of the case are covered with a a thin foam material similar to what you might find in a crafts store. Off to Walmart down the street I picked up 2 sheets of foam for 48 cents a piece, even better the foam has a peel and stick backing, so I wont even have to break out the spray adhesive. While I was there I had the idea to affix an envelope to the lid to hold the manuals. Now that the original egg-carton foam has been removed there is ample head-room for the game manuals. So picked up some envelopes while I was there.

A single sheet of the foam covered the base of the lid perfectly covering up the bulk of the ugliness

Unfortunately there was some glue spillage from the original foam on the walls as well so using a razor blade (and a scrap 2×4 as a backer to protect my desk) I cut some strips out of the second piece of foam and re-covered the inside walls of the lid

Once the lid was completely lined in fresh foam I put an envelope down for a test fit. I specifically went for a square flapped envelope as opposed to a triangle cut. I also have enough foam left over that I’ll be able to cover the envelope once it’s in palace.

I peel off the backing from the remaining foam sheet and center the envelop with the bottom aligned along once edge. I then cut off a bit of the envelope’s top so it’s the same size as the foam. The foam should hold it in palace once installed but to keep from accidentally putting the manuals BEHIND the envelope as opposed to IN the envelope I placed a thin strip of electrical tape along the back edge of the envelop that will create a smooth connection between the lid and the envelope making it easier to open the pocket and slide in papers.

Once that’s done the case is ready for use, and holds all the current decks as well as leaving space for the future installments

I’m very please with how the case turned out, it’s portable and durable and holds everything current and future which is exactly what I was looking for. Since it was originally intended as a camera case it has locks on the latches which is also very beneficial considering the card collection inside is easily worth over $100.

ok I got the pictures back up (if you didn’t notice) and I got my 3rd party controller in… apparently the Pelican controller is a COMPLETE rip-off of the official controller… the way everything works is just exactly the same as the official one… The mechanism for the triggers is the same, the D-Pad, guide button, etc are all exactly the same. even the way the electronics work…. <_<

So I’m going to stick with the wireless controller but I’m going to convert it to a wired one by simply making my own hardwired Play and Charge cable…

Not sure when I’ll get a chance to work on this next but I’ll post here when I do.

Ok… So I went wild today on this thing…

I completely ripped apart the circuit I built downstream of the MCU and I got sick of fumbling with kynar wire I was using to tap the controller… so I cut up an old IDE cable soldered it to every last button point on the controller and built a custom harness out of chip socket. connected it to the protoboard with a pin header and rebuilt the interface using the quad analog switches I had laying around…

I wired up just the d-pad and the A button, and went to test it and IT WORKED GREAT!

I went back and wired the rest of it and it started acting wonky… It would seem that the quad analog switches while they switch everything properly they apparently drain enough power that the MCU stops functioning properly.

I could probably fix this by using some ideas from ladyada’s minty boost but that would only further grow the circuit… As it is right now the switches triple it’s size <_<

So we'll see how the wired 3rd party controller goes.

Here's the circuit:

It’s actually more complex then that now because this was just with the D-Pad wired up

And here’s the sweet soldering job for the IDE harness

actually it sucks but it works so I’m not complaining

Alright, it’s official: Transistors wont work, at least not the ones I’m using. If I had to guess I’d say the signals being generated by MS’s encoder are PULSE based… and I have a feeling the transistors I’m using just arn’t up to the bandwidth. If I had access to an oscilliscope I could get a clear picture of what’s going on… but since I don’t I’m stuck in a rut of guess and check…

I bought a cheap 3rd party wired controller on Ebay so We’ll take a look at the prospects it offers, hopefully pelican uses a NORMAL method of making controllers. Is it just me or does MS go out of their way to make things unnecessarily difficult.

I mean yeah, great they lowered the number of pins needed to accecpt the button inputs on the controller. But it’s not like that actually accomplished much. the controller isn’t getting any smaller and a few extra traces probably wouldn’t even change the cost at all.

Who would have thought the EASY part was learning Assembly and programing the microcontroller