Author Archives: Allen Huffman

About Allen Huffman

Co-founder of Sub-Etha Software.

Arduino Pac-Man project

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See also: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9 and part 10.

Here is a quick demo of something I wrote last night for an Arduino UNO. I have an iTead Studios Screw Shield attached to it ($3.50, to simplify hooking up wires), and an iTead Joystick Shield ($4.50, for input). Then, using only two resistors and an RCA cable, plus a clever library, I was able to start programming a Pac-Man style game on the Arduino. This is the first of a multi-part series of articles explaining the steps in this project.

When I first began playing with an Arduinio Duemilanove at work in 2012,  I learned how to program it by reading through the reference material at the main Arduino website. I had heard of Arduino, but had never learned anything about it, so I was quite impressed with all the various libraries that were available to handle everything from serial communication to I2C protocol. One of the more surprising discoveries was that you could do  video output by wiring up two resistors to an RCA phono jack. Clever programming allowed the Arduino to create the scan line signals that would produce a low resolution black and white composite video screen. Here is the information page on it, showing a simple diagram of how you wire things up:

http://playground.arduino.cc/Main/TVout

At the time, I thought we might be able to use low-cost Arduinos to output some information displays at a local haunted house event (wait times, “now serving” queue management systems, etc.) but I never pursued it.

Later, I found out about two projects that were based on this TVout concept to produce retro Arduino video games: Hackvision, and the Video Game Shield.

The Hackvision was a custom Arduino device (based around the UNO) with directional and fire buttons right on the circuit board, as well as RCA jacks for audio and video output. It is currently available in a kit for $33.95, or fully assembled for $43.95.

The Video Game Shield is an add-on shield for an Arduino UNO that provided RCA jacks for audio and video output, as well as connectors for two Nintendo Wii nunchuck controllers. It is available in a kit for $22.50.

A third, similar project, called the Gamby, is a shield that includes a low resolution LCD display as well as bottoms, and turns an Arduinio in to a portable Gameboy-style gaming device. It is available in a kit for $25.

If you visit the project websites, you will find some example videos of games written for these add-ons. Due to the different ways that input is handled, games written for one platform do not play on the others (and I think the Gamby has a different video system). It does appear that games written for the generic TVout library are easily ported between systems.

Some of the games that have been written include clones of Space Invaders, Pong, Tetris, and Asteroids. The Gamby site has quite a few other titles (like a Joust clone) that I do not think have been ported to the other platforms.

I have recently become re-interested in retro video games. Two  retro video arcades have recently opened here in Des Moines, Iowa. (UP-DOWN opened in October 2013, followed by  Barcadium opened in January 2014.) Being able to step back in time and play games like Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980) makes me feel both young again, and very old, as I realize most of the visitors to these arcades were not even born when I was first inserting quarters in these machines when they were brand new.

This led me to dusting off the old MAME emulator and once again exploring various classic arcade games. I was particularly intrigued by some of the late 1970s games that came out before the arcade scene got popular. These games used low resolution, black and white graphics and simple sound effects. I couldn’t help but think “I could have written this.” But back then, “no one” had a computer – especially not some seven year old kid growing up in Houston, Texas (like I was). So no, I could not have written any of those games, back then, two decades later, I did create and sell my own Space Invaders clone for the Radio Shack Color Computer running under OS-9. If I could have done that in 1978, maybe I would be a millionaire right now ;-)

Up next: It lives!

OUYA as a retro arcade emulator (MAME, etc.)

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I sometimes get things from Amazon.com to write reviews about. I will be doing a review on the OUYA “game machine” soon, but wanted to start documenting some technical things here.

OUYA is a cheap ($99 list price) Android based game console:

It is about the shape and size of a Rubik’s Cube, and it comes with a wireless joypad that looks like a Playstation or Xbox style controller. It has a power supply and HDMI cable included, and batteries for the remote. What they include for “documentation” doesn’t even tell you where the batteries go.

Installing batteries requires popping off the joystick palm covers on the left and right side. Here is a site that explained how to do this:

https://support.ouya.tv/entries/24235612-Where-do-I-insert-the-batteries-

Once you hook the box up to a TV using the HDMI cable, you power it up (note: the power switch goes on top; I had mine upside down for the first day I had it), and then use the joypad to hook it up to your WiFi network. (Tip: Make an OUYA account, which you will need, on a computer beforehand. It will be much easier than using the joypad.)

The system will want to download software updates. Mine spent hours, appearing to just be stuck. I started it over and over, and eventually it worked, and the system restarted so I could use it.

The next steps will be installing emulators (MAME4droid, and various others), and a file manager utility (pwnfile). I also installed an FTP server (easier for me than copying files over from a USB stick) but if you plan to have your game ROMs on a USB stick, you won’t need anything else, really.

I will document some of the things I ran in to, and how I got all the files configured.

More to come…

2014 Arduino projects for Halloween

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I have been tasked with creating two control systems for some Halloween attractions this year. I have a small budget for building the prototypes, and if they work, then I will be building a dozen or so of the units. I thought it might be fun to document the entire process here.

There are two projects:

1. A device will sense motion, then begin playing sound and toggle four outlets in a sequence that goes along with the audio.

2. A device will sense its location, and play a specific sound based on that location. It will have a fallback mode where buttons will trigger the sounds, for manual operation.

I plan to use low-cost Arduinos since there are many add-on Shields available for it to handle things like this.

Audio could be played in high quality using a cheap ($20) MP3 add-on, or, with a small amount of hardware (and a cheap SD card reader), lower quality audio can be played directly by the Arduino.

For triggering, the I/O pins will be used, hooked to a motion sensor. For the proximity sensor, I am researching iBeacon style tech (BLE, bluetooth low energy) or IR (infrared). Right now, it seems we could use cheap IR remotes, with a button taped down beaming and endless pulse. The Arduino can hook up a $1 IR receiver and software could decode the pulses to see which zone it is in.

For the outlets, there are $8 high voltage relay boards that can be wired to the Arduino’s Digital Out pins, and even a cheap $7.50 4-channel relay shield that can handle 120 volts 3 amps on each relay. The Shield is a nice idea, but dumping 120V in to the Arduino could be a problem if there was any kind of short.

I will document the various products I have found so far, soon.

To be continue…

TRON arcade game joystick research

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  • 2014/01/28: Updated information on 4-way restrictor for flight stick.
  • 2015/02/18: A note about the HAPP joystick, and restrictor plates being made for it.

A friend of mine is in the process of building a custom arcade controller for home use. Here is some of the research that may be of interest to others trying to replicate the 1982 TRON arcade game controls. (A flight stick with a trigger button, and a paddle spinner controller).

The TRON handle can be bought from Groovy Game Gear. They claim they are using the original molds and also used the original color key chip to match the color as close as possible to the originals that were made in 1982:

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=319

This handle is designed to replace the one for an original arcade stick, but folks have been modifying other types of joysticks to make it attach. No details on this, yet.

Next, there is a low-cost trigger stick from RetroCade.us. It is available in several places:

$20 – Paradise Arcade Shop in Hawaii:

http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/imported-joysticks/299-import-flight-stick.html

They also sell it on Amazon.com, for $22, but shipping is cheaper there (currently $26.83 for the stick and shipping):

RetroCade.us also sells it direct through Holland Computers:

http://www.hollandcomputers.com/store/pc/Arcade-flight-yoke-stick-Joystick-eight-way-joystick-with-two-fire-buttons-and-firm-grip-p8069.htm

The stick is incorrectly described (on Amazon and at Holland) as a 4/8 way switchable stick. It is not. You need a restrictor plate to make it 4-way like the arcade TRON stick is. I have not located a restrictor plate for this joystick yet, but Paradise Arcade Shop says they may be able to custom make one.

Update: There is also a higher priced HAPP joystick commonly used for TRON:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=78233.0

That stick is also an 8-way, but my same friend who is building the custom arcade controller now has a 3-D printer and has designed a 4-way restrictor plate for this. He will be offering them for sale, so contact me if you are interested.

As for spinner controllers, there seems to be two candidates. One is sold by Groovy Game Gear. It is the Turbo Twist 2 and it runs about $70:

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=268

Ultimarc also sells a spinner for the same price called the SpinTrak:

http://www.ultimarc.com/SpinTrak.html

No details on which one is better for this purpose.

More to come…

Adafruit EZ-Key makes Bluetooth keyboard support cheap ($20)

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Check this out — the new EZ-Key module from Adafruit:

http://www.adafruit.com/products/1535

This tiny device is a “ready to use” Bluetooth interface. Give it power, and then hook up to 12 (?) switches and when they are switched, a keyboard signal will be sent out via Bluetooth. The device can also be reprogrammed to send different keystrokes for each switch, or hooked to a micro (like Arduino or Teensy) and used to send whatever you want, such as iCade “key up, key down” characters.

As soon as I get one to review, I will post more details.

Back to work… Soon… Arduino arcade interface.

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Last August, I got very busy with side jobs that kept me from working on any of these Arduino-related projects. I hope to get back to work on them soon. Right now, I pretty much don’t work on anything unless it’s tied to generating some form of income.

I hope to get around to posting the work I did on a USB joystick to iCade interface. The code used an Arduino with USB HID support (Leonardo, I believe), and a cheap USB Host add-on shield. A standard USB Playstation style joystick could be plugged in, then it would emit USB keypresses that match the iCade protocol. Ultimately, I want this code to be configurable, so you could open up a USB serial console on a host computer and walk through text menus to configure what you want each joystick button to send (similar to programming MAME input controls). That way, it would work with “anything”.

I also want it to accept standard key inputs (like the XArcade Tankstick emits) and convert them, as well, allowing it to basically convert anything to an iCade format.

With the recent discovery of a $20 USB HID transmitter from ADAFruit (http://www.adafruit.com/products/1535), it would now be possible to make it send the iCade commands via Bluetooth, though this is not plug-n-play. Ultimately, I’d like to see that part made in to an Arduino shield. The requirement of soldering and complex wiring kills these things from being used by casual hobbyists.

More to come…

UltraProjector (v1) and Mac and ffmpeg

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I have previously been able to convert video files to work with the UltraProjector using an old (2006) copy of “mencoder”. I now have been able to do it using the standard “ffmpeg” command. Here are the options, and I will try to clean them up and explain later:

I downloaded the “ffmpeg” command line utility from here:

http://www.evermeet.cx/ffmpeg/

And these are the options I was using to convert an MPEG4 video file to an AVI file that plays on the UltraProjector:

ffmpeg -i creepy.mp4 -c:v libxvid -vtag XVID -r 24 -b:a 128K -ar 44100 -acodec mp2 -b:v 512k -s qvga creepy.avi

  • -c:v libxvid … use the xvid video converter
  • -vtag XVID … put “XVID” as the video tag inside the file (not sure if this is necessary)
  • -r 24 … 24 fps (higher frame rate may work for simple videos, but may play slower)
  • -b:a 128k … audio quality 128kbits
  • -ar 44100 … audio sample rate 44khz
  • -acodec mp2 … audio codec MP2 (not sure if it handles other formats or not)
  • -b:v 512K … max video bitrate. Experiment with larger numbers for better video, but at some point it will break.
  • -s qvga … output size to 320×240

Account signups temporarily disabled

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Due to getting what seems like hundreds of spam account signups per day (each sending me a nice e-mail), I have had to turn off account registrations. I will re-enable when I find some kind of spam solution that the ‘bots can’t just drift through.

I guess no commenting until I get that fixed, but you can always e-mail me as webmaster@ this site.