Breadboard testing

The circuit for the SNES is identical to the NES one. Breadboarding was a cinch, as I was already familiar with everything. The only difference is the PIC program.

Soldering everything together

I ran out of thin red wire putting everything together, which is why you can see a big green thick wire on the left there! Luckily I had enough thin red wire for all the delicate work.

Fitting everything in place

The SNES controller has a lot more space inside it than the NES one, but putting it back together once you’re ready to close up is a complete bugger! The shoulder switches have loose little circuit boards, which you can see at the top of the pic in brown. They’re quite fiddly to get in place, as well as the plastic switches which cover them. It took quite a few trys to get it closed up; helped with a good prod from a small screwdriver through the edges to get everything in place! I put a recharging socket on the top of the controller, so hopefully (fingers crossed) I won’t have to open it again!

Finished and working, next to it’s little brother

Ta-Dar! Isn’t it pretty! The D-Pad on the SNES controller has quite a nicer feel to it than the NES original. It just fits perfectly in the hand saying, play with me! .. I can almost hear the Mario theme tune.. and I’m getting Street Fighter II flashbacks

A few months ago my good friend Robert came to me with Marks URL and demanded that I make him a wireless NES controller for his Wii/MAME Cab, then after a few eyebrow raisings from myself (no not that kind!) he offered to sump up the costs for the hardware and we had ourselves a deal!

The wireless works by using an AM radio transmitter/receiver pair to send the buttons signals. At each end there is PIC16F84A to encode and decode the button signals.. and that’s pretty much it! Simple huh! Woo that was quick, cya!

… Oh ok! ok! Here’s some pretty pictures!

Programming the PIC Chip

Programming the PIC chip. This circuit board hooks up via the serial cable to my computer and I can download programs onto the chip. There’s a very simple test setup on the board to allow me to take inputs from the press switch on the right and control the LEDs.

Receiver Assembly

On the left you can see m soldering together the receiver board. The little clampy things that are holding it for me while I work on it are actually called “Helping hands” On the right I’m making sure it fits in the box! I wanted my receiver to look a little more Wii-like than Marks one, so I used a white box with rounded edges. I’m really happy with the result!

Transmitter Circuit testing

This is the transmitter circuit being Breadboarded. Breadboard is a special electronics testing thing. It lets you plug all your components together to test it, but without making it permanent. Each wire you can see is easily unplugged from the board and swapped to a different socket to allow the electricity to flow to somewhere else. It makes testing stuff super easy!

Transmitter Assembly

Squeezing everything in here was a bitch! But I finally got it all in! The transmitter is powered by an iPod nano battery! It’s small.. but it could be smaller! I’ve flattened out all the pins on the PIC chip so that it’ll fit under the original Nintendo circuit board. On the right pic you can see I’ve got an on/off switch and a little charging socket. The on/off switch toggles the battery between the PIC chip and the charging socket.

Finally all together and working!

The final product! In use (left) and on charge (right).

Now Robert and I can play the original Super Mario on the Wii Virtual Console using the original controller!

Then we moved in and slowly accumulated “stuff”.. “things”.. and “bits’n'bobs”. They piled up.. evolved.. and formed gangs, which attacked us on the way to the fridge. We fought back with charity shop donations and car boot sales, but the onslaught eventually overpowered us.

So, in capitulation to their demands, we thus embark on “Project Shed”. A shiny new home for our devious captors.

Day 1

The old shed. Dirty, leaky, unsafe for human habitation. Project shed stage #1: DESTROY!

My mate Jon the builder, who pretty much did this entire thing while I sat around eating biscuits and taking pictures

Day 2

To maximise the available space, we rebuilt the outer wall to be in line with the garage, giving us an extra foot of space inside. In the pic on the right, you can see all the plumbing coming out of the laundry room. That all had to go! We’re not having a sink in my sexy new room.

Door frame in place, while we wait for the wall to dry.

Day 3

Level up!

Day 4

Render on the outside wall, new roof and insulation inside! Behind the plaster board are wood batons with foil backed insulation material. This place is going to be nice and warm in winter! Outside you can see the edge of a huge pile of crap! That pile extends down the entire length of the garden and when we were finished, took two cars, 4 trips to the dump to get rid of! (Thanks little sis for helping out!)

Day 5

Most of the floor is interlocking wood flooring placed on wood batons for extra insulation, but this space in the top left was too shallow. The dark wet patch is levelling fluid, which you just poor on the floor and it drys completely flat. When the room is finished this totally flat area will be completely level and perfect for my pinball machine! On the right, you can see the laminate flooring being stuck down to give a nice finish.

When I started I said to Rachel that I wanted this to be 100% her space for her to work in. I was a little hesitant when she said she wanted one wall to be red and do a film montage on another, but check it out! Doesn’t it look awesome!

Day 6

Finally finished! Complete with sofa bed!

.. and of course, Pinball!!

I proposed in front of the Atomium in Brussels. I think I picked a pretty romantic spot It was snowing softly and the lighting was very pretty.

Check it out! Isn’t it awesome?! It makes such cute noises too!

For those of your who don’t know or haven’t guessed, the Roomba is a cleaning robot that automatically vacuums your house. It’s about a foot in diameter and as you can tell by the video, it’s pretty quiet compared to a full size vacuum.

Inside it, it’s got two counter rotating brushes which pick up large bits of dirt, then behind that, there is a vacuum which sucks up the remaining dust. It’s a pretty clever system because it means the vacuum doesn’t have to be as powerful. Oh yeah, and it’s got like robot AI n’shit.

I put the charging station under the cupboard at the back, so it’s got it’s own little home When it’s done cleaning, or when it needs recharging, it automatically finds it way back and docks

When it first arrived, I was so excited! Now, I’m not an extremely excitable person, but I have to admit, when I first saw Roomba go, I actually (yes, for really reals yo) jumped up and down with excitement! When it’s backing off it’s docking station it makes a beep beep reversing noise like a lorry does, it’s pretty cute.. then when it’s done cleaning and it’s docked successfully, it plays a little happy “Tar dar, I’m done!” tune.. It’s like the pet I never had! Plus, it’s cleaning the house! I heart Roomba.

In other related news, I also ordered myself a RooTooth. This is a Roomba bluetooth interface that plugs into Roomba’s little expansion port, so now I can hack it with my PC, mobile or other bluetooth devices Watch this space for a mobile phone controlled Roomba rolling around my house