Comic-Con 2008… I Played Nothing

Video Games, Events Comments »

At this year’s Comic-Con, there were playable versions of Dead Space, Little Big Planet, Saints Row 2, and many others. Unfortunately, the lines were too long for my liking so I did not play anything. That’s right, I didn’t even play Street Fighter IV or see the Mirrors Edge demonstration. I need to stop going on Sunday’s (Kids Day). At any rate, it was fun and I got a ton of free lewt. What more can you ask for?

Comic-Con 2008 Capcom Booth Comic-Con 2008 Konami Booth Comic-Con 2008 Lego Batman Comic-Con 2008 Lewt

Super Awesome Rally

Video Games, Online, Projects Comments »

After getting addicted to DiRT for the Xbox 360, I started making a top-down, rally game in flash. Assuming I have the time, I’d like to have a ton of tracks and cars as well as online racing/tournaments. It is very unpolished at this point and only has 1 track and 1 car… but here it is after a few hours.

Indie Games: Synaesthete

PC, Video Games, Windows Comments »

Synaesthete

Synaesthete is an interesting mix of genres. It is part shooter and part rhythm. Imagine playing Geometry Wars but instead of pointing where you want to shoot, you have to press buttons to match the rhythm much like Dance Dance Revolution. If you are interested in trying it out, it can be downloaded for free here. Synaesthete is a finalist for the Independant Games Festival so be sure to vote for it if you like it.

Atari, Amiga, Commodore Joystick Port For Xbox 360/PC

Computing, Windows, Xbox 360, Projects Comments »

I added an Atari/Amiga/Commodore joystick port to my Xbox 360 X-Arcade stick today… Why you ask? Sensible World of Soccer of course! Although I never played the older versions, I have become very addicted to the recent Xbox Live Arcade release. The guys at sensiblesoccer.de seem to prefer an Amiga joystick over any other type of control method so I decided I would give it a shot. Since the Xbox 360 controller can be used on the PC, I figured this project would also be good for emulation.

Relay Inside X-Arcade Stick Outside X-Arcade Stick

The gamepad I used is a wired Xbox 360 MicroCon Game Pad Pro. I had to use a relay (TF2E-4.5v-1-H50  ATF20620) on the left and right buttons because they don’t share a common ground. If you decide to do this and just want a joystick port on the controller and not the X-Arcade stick, you should use an opto-isolator instead of a relay as they are smaller.

Atari/Commodore/Amiga Controller Port

1 UP
2 DOWN
3 LEFT
4 RIGHT
6 BUTTON
8 GND

On my controller, pins 3 and 4 go to the following relays which connect to the left and right d-pad buttons. Other controllers may be set up differently. Any button that does not share a common ground needs a relay or an opto-isolator.

Xbox 360 MicroCon Game Pad Pro Relays

Gadgets - Super Joy III

Gadgets, NES/Famicom Comments »

I picked up a used Super Joy III a few weeks ago to mess around with. I knew that the quality would be fairly low and it would not come with the amount of games it promised, but it was worse than I thought. It promises about 76,000 games and comes with around 100. The graphics are a little worse than the originals as well. That being said, it does have a connection to plug in Famicom games. With an adapter, original NES games  can be played on it as well.

I was thinking of doing some sort of controller mod with it but it doesn’t seem worth it to me. I am pretty disappointed with the amount of games on it (although I would have known this with a bit of research). Some of the guys at benheck.com have done some interesting things with it if you want to check it out. I might do something with it later on.

Super Joy III

Join The NooberoUno Folding@Home Team

Mac OS, Linux, Windows, Playstation 3 Comments »

  

A NooberoUno Folding@home team has been created and anyone can now join. You will need to have downloaded the Folding@home software or own a Playstation 3 in order to participate. Once you have it up and running, just enter 91933 as the team number. If you have no idea what Folding@home is then read the following:

What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease?
Proteins are biology’s workhorses — its “nanomachines.” Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or “fold.” The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.

Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. “misfold”), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

You can help by simply running a piece of software.
Folding@home is a distributed computing project — people from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer takes the project closer to our goals. Folding@home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems millions of times more challenging than previously achieved.”

Linux On The Playstation 3

Linux, Playstation 3 Comments »

Having recently acquired a PS3, I decided to install Linux on it. If you are only interested in playing games, specifically newer games that require a graphics accelerator, then don’t bother. If you are looking for something that has the potential to be the next XBMC, can run many emulators, and has a ton of built in apps including Thunderbird (e-mail) and Open Office (MS Office equivelant) then this is something you need to do. Unfortunately for us, Sony only allows other operating systems to use a fraction of the processing power the PS3 has to offer. This means that linux can run a tad slow but is still able to run the majority of apps I was interested in.

Linux On Playstation 3   Linux On Playstation 3

Read on for instructions…

Read the rest of this entry »

Be a Nintendo DS DJ

DS Comments »

I have been meaning to try this out for a while and finally got around to it. It is extremely easy to set everything up and works just like the video shows.

For easy to follow instructions visit the DS Music Interface website.

The Not So Perfect Wii - Part 2

Wii Comments »

Melted Wii

After getting my first Wii replaced, I turned it on for a few minutes to see that it was working properly and it was. I hadn’t turned it on until today when I decided to start Super Paper Mario. After about 30 minutes of playing, the Wii shut down. There was no power getting to the Wii at all. After unplugging it and plugging it back in, I turned it on and it seemed to work again. After five seconds of investigation, I narrowed the problem down to overheating due to the fan not working. Time to send it back to Nintendo.

From what I gather this does not seem to be a common problem.

Nintendo DS on Two Tablet PC Screens

DS Comments »

How awesome is that? Unfortunately the project costs approx. $600 and there are no real instructions. Check out the original source for more info.