A simple cable tidy

Well this is an idea I saw on the makezine web site earlier, however rather that using lavatory paper rolls I had some PVC waste pipe laying about, it all fits into a celebrations sweet tub.

I plan to use a bigger pipe version for my audio and power leads at some point.

Arduino USB Commodore to PC Keyboard.

Hi

I had a spare keyboard from a C64 in my garage, I had tried to sell it on fleabay some while ago, the Princely sum of £5 must have been too much to demand (thankfully)

I searched interfaces on the net as the Keyrah is now EOL, I found the C=key, it looks very good and for reasons I will explain later, will probably purchase anyway.

I found out that Biosrythm had been there and done it already with his project! I used my arduino uno that I no longer need for the FIGnition keyboard and loaded his libraries and sketch on to it.

I had to change some wiring about, but I got it working in the end. It is a little sluggish, but I think thats my matrix.

my mapping, for reference was...

ard pin/ colour/ cbm pin/ Desc

0 Red/W 19 ColB
4 Brown 12 Row0
5 Red 11 Row1
6 Orange 10 Row2
7 Grey 5 Row7
8 Green 8 Row4
9 Blue 7 Row5
10 Purple 6 Row6
11 Yellow 9 Row3
12 Grey/W 13 ColB
A0 Orange/W 18 ColC
A1 Yellow/W 17 ColD
A2 Green/W 16 ColE
A3 Blue/W 15 ColF
A4 Purple/W 14 ColG
A5 Brown/W 20 ColA

the sketch is the fangled USB variety, I am trying to see how to convert it to PS/2 protocol, I think this is beyond my skill set so the C=Key looks like the best way to fit this to my FIGnition DIY 8 bit computer.

GPIO pin expansion for the Commodore VIC 314

Its been a little while since I have updated my Blog, but after a recent visit to '@t Bristol ' who held a Raspberry Pi open day I decided to start playing around with the GPIO pins.

Now as I had broke out all the plugs I reserved the cartridge port for this and used very simple proto board and some headers to bring these pins out to the back of the VIC.

back of VIC314 before.

sending the looms to the 'PORT'

VIC314 after.

At the event, I met Tim Cox and took a Multi Colour LED  kit from him, and now I am Bashing away with script!

some LED action!

As you can see, this machine is not too dissimilar to the FUZE which is very impressive in itself.

Sadly it looks like the Keyrah interface that I used is now hard to obtain, you should be able to use an Arduino if you have the experience, the GPIO pins can be used also, but they are then occupied so you will have to be creative to the mapping of the pins at the read of a VC like mine without a KEYRAH.


Now to get coding!

Xbox Arcade Cab.

Earlier this year I was looking around a local Cash Converters and as normal walked away with something I thought I did not need!

This time I purchased an Xbox, it had no leads or controllers  the guy said I could buy it for £9 and return it if it was not working, so what a challenge.

I managed to pick up an av lead from ebay but upon trying to acquire a controller, I discovered that they are harder to come by than I had first thought, but I managed to use an old multi format joystick I had kicking about.

Now I new that I could add a modchip and then run Mame on this, it would upgrade my Arcade cabinet with the PlayStation in it. This was even more attractive as the joysticks were mapped to some PlayStation pads already. I ordered two PlayStation to Xbox converters.

As to modding I discovered that a soft mod was easily doable, A save game file and a copy of Splinter Cell would tell the eeprom in the box to load items via a dvd, you can get the method and the file by looking on the web, you don't need another how to, believe me!

the stuff I needed

There is a great video on it here on youtube.

Using the multi format controller, that had the memory card slot on it I pulled the hack off. I obtained Mameox that had the emulator I needed and set it to boot automatically on start up.
You will have to seek your ROMs out, and ensure you have the rights to use them, just saying.

Now I have the complete Cab the way I want it, I removed the Playstations and now have the Xbox sitting on top of the Cab.

the xbox with the converters to PlayStation plugs 

with barstool!

FIGnition Keyboard Multi Shield

 I have been away doing other bits but as this is my first post of 2013, please accept my new year wishes.

As an evolution of the FIGdoper Shield that allows my to write a boot-loader to my MCUs and the prototype shield that allowed me to hook up to a PS2 keyboard, FIGnition using has been fun and the lessons learned are more than I would ever have anticipated.

My next task was to do away with the UNO board completely, looking over the Arduino sites, I found the standalone circuit that I needed to run the Oleg K keyboard sketch.

Another sketch that Oleg developed was using an Arduino uno to receive data from a PC and then 'type in' the data via a serial monitor. This is very cool for me as I want to copy and paste  from the examples web site and save them straight to my Fignition. The Arduino suite has a srials monitor, however this will not support copy and past so I used PuTTY.

Lets not forget that I started out using the 8 button keyboard for data input, then made a crude keyboard and now I am able to type and send data via a PC simultaneously,thats quite an evolutionary ride!  the Keyboard interface circuit will enable lot of new users in time, I am sure of it.

I also incorporated a reset switch and a bootloader toggle, the reset is taken from FIGnitions ATMega168 pin 1 and is linked to GND with a tack switch in line.The Idea was to save pulling at the USB plug when I crash the FIG with some daft code that I enter in to it from time to time!
This works well, but some times is erratic, this is a latching issue that I will look into, the Grey wire just connects to the board to activate the reset circuit, it comes away easily when the boards are detached.
The Bootloader toggle is sw1 linked to the switch, when you power up holding this switch you can transfer data via AVR dude, ideal for firmware updates.
 So this is the circuit that I planned to use, it differs only slightly as I soldered the chip one pin up so I had to add three link wires, where more experienced people would perhaps not make this mistake ;-)

fig1 the diagram

I added pins to my FIGnition, so it can slip in to the connectors on the board.

Complete in 'Keyboard' configuration.
(ignore the switch on the FIGnition, that 's not required)

Using this in the above configuration is perfect for using the Keyboard interface. The connections are all sound and fits my needs perfectly. You do not really need the reset or bootloader toggle if you don't want to have them on your own board.

The Figgypad interface.

As I mentioned I wanted to try to transfer data via the PC without using AVR dude, Luckily Oleg K wrote a sketch that will do just that, I experimented to see how the FIGnition would cope with two MCUs attached to it wanting to perform different tasks, many croc clips later I discovered that it would manage just fine, Providing the UNO board is powered up from the PC BEFORE the FIGnition is separately powered up.

erm??

UNO mounted to Multi Shield

side profile

All connected up!

You can get the .ino and 'h' skecthes here.....

figgy pad ino and membuffer h

keyboard h

you need keyboard ctrl + enter library 2.3 too

please read the posts in the upper two to see how the sketches work, good luck!


here is a video of it in  action......

FIGnition can write to blank chips!

Thanks to Julzs new fig doper software, I managed to rescue my bricked at mega 168 chip, it involves building a shield that slips over the pins of the FIG and then burning new firmware to the existing chip on board.

Then using AVR dude you send the proper firmware to the bricked chip sitting in the shield.

This method can be used, as I have done to write to the atMega 328p chips too.

This was the first shield I had ever tried to build, I had never needed one before, but then I saw a way I could make a new shield for my PS2 keyboard interface and Arduino so I spent this week building a sheild to slip onto the FIGnition and then a shield to slip over the Arduino, I used as many old parts as possible and completed it today!

The major hassle was when soldering the 9 pin din plug at either end, it made good contact but was inflexible, so I bit the bullet and purchased some junk connectors for a couple of pounds, probably some old TV parts ( they were dated 1985!) 

As you can see I then gave it some LEGO treatment ( what else!) this keeps the assembly stable and make it look tidy.

The Retro Computing Underground

No one can do it as well as Harry Beck, but one wet Sunday I decided to make a Pastiche for my own interests of Computing.

A version has been in Lotek64 and I hope to have it on other publications in the future.

I hope you enjoy it, please share it!

https://plus.google.com/photos/107334393622881461839/albums/5807374063554552449?authkey=CNqYuseDiJjkdA