Game Controllers For The Feet?

Cmdr_Pooky asks: "I like to play a lot of online games and like to use such things like Roger Wilco and play a LOT of Half-life. Is there a device that acts like a switch that can be activated with the feet? I would love to be able to touch a button with my left foot for talking to my clan mates and hold down another button to prime grenades. Anyone know of such a device?" As if game controllers didn't have enough buttons already, this might actually be something that may help some gamers (and get some of the annoying buttons off of the hand controllers!). Are there any such devices for PCs or consoles?

Comments

Re:"Activator" ring - D'oh

[sharkey]

Brings back memories. Sniff. The zapper was great. Duck Hunt was fun as hell, and my brother and I wasted many an afternoon playing it.

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"Activator" ring - D'oh

[sharkey]

Sega, of course. The only thing that really stuck in my head about it was being afraid of rupturing myself trying to do a fatality in Mortal Kombat. Now that i'm thinking about it, didn't the NES have a VR glove? Maybe with a needle, thread, some duct tape and a little creativity, you could get it on your foot.

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Re:"Activator" ring - D'oh

[drinkypoo]

Sega, of course. The only thing that really stuck in my head about it was being afraid of rupturing myself trying to do a fatality in Mortal Kombat. Now that i'm thinking about it, didn't the NES have a VR glove? Maybe with a needle, thread, some duct tape and a little creativity, you could get it on your foot.

Yes, it was called the "power glove". Apparently someone at Nintendo has a complex about powerlessness. Anyway, we revisit the peripherals page at nesfan.com to find this information:

The 'Power Glove', released by Mattel in 1989, was an attempt at incorporating virtual reality with the NES. The glove emitted the movement information (left, right, up, down, etc.) of the gamers hand and fingers to sensors that were placed on each corner of the tv screen. Although the 'Power Glove' would work with almost every game available, it didn't work well unless it was with a game that was designed for it (i.e., 'Super Glove Ball'). With a costly price tag of $79.99 (U.S.) being coupled with the peripheral's unreliable control, the 'Power Glove' was quickly forgotten.

It however was not forgotten at all. There is a device called the PGSI which is a preconstructed serial interface for the power glove. It also seems to support the Sega LCD shutter goggles for 3D, but I don't know much about that. As an aside, if anyone has a set of the Sega Master System shutter goggles, and is willing to part with them, I need a pair. I have the interface controller but not the goggles.

See also:

• Powerglove FAQ
• Aminet Amiga Hardware Drivers
• Another powerglove faq

power pad

[beckett]

i remember that thing! i think it was invented to address a growing concern that many nintendo players were prepubescent fat kids. (hey look, Johnny's running!)

the fatal flaw was discovered by these same fat kids, when faced with the possibility they would have to excercise to beat a video game. they discovered that slapping the power pad with their hands produced the same result as having to run and jump on the pad.

Practice: 1 Theory: 0

Re:power pad

[modemboy]

I still have a working power pad and nes, plus two games for the power pad. Old school rulez!

Floor Pedals

[anacron]

What about modifying an existing product that's made for racing games that comes with a gas and brake pedal? I've never used one of these, but the connect would have to be USB or PS/2. Get a USB mouse, and one of these guys, and you should be good to go. If the drivers let you bind things to keys, that is.

anacron

Possibility?

[ch2]

I've just read a review of what seems to be a rather novel game called "Let's Dance Europe", which comes with a floor mat with ten touch sensors on it (the aim being to hit them in a particular order as you "dance"). It might possible to hack it to work with something other than the game - it plugs into a PS/2 keyboard port. The manufacturer's site is here.

Re:Possibility?

[Aunt Mable]

Another dancing mat game was out a few months ago: a tie-in with Disney's The Jungle Book, called Rhythm N' Groove (ugh.).

-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!

Re:Nintendo

[drinkypoo]

I seem to remeber the old 8-bit NES had an "action mat" type controller. I think it looked kind of like a Twister mat, with contacts under the dots. Perhaps with a little work someone could get it rewired to talk over a serial port?

Yes, NES had a peripheral like this called the "power pad". A friend of mine had one, but I was a po white child living in a trailer at the time. GameFAQs is ordinarily the place to look for this info. However, there appears to only be a brief mention (as in, name only) of the Power Pad in ANY of the FAQs there. I did manage to find it at nesfan.com:

Released by Nintendo in 1988, the 'Power Pad' was a unique type of game controller for the NES that was marketed as a way to get fit, while playing video games. By laying the two-sided 'Power Pad' onto the floor and connected it to the NES, the Power Pad could manipulate the onscreen characters by moving ones feet (or hands, if you preffered), around on the blue and red touchpads, which worked as buttons. There were 12 touchpads on one side, and 8 touchpads on the other. Very few games were designed for the 'Power Pad' (most notably 'World Class Track Meet' and 'Dance Aerobics'), and before long it was abandoned by the development community.
Peripherals list

There are pads much like it for the Dreamcast, which are used to play games like Dance Dance Revolution Remix 2.

I am pretty sure they had "fight ring" that was a big circle of plastic and sensors you laid on the floor and stood inside.

The "fight ring" device you are thinking of is the "Activator" for the Sega Genesis. According to the Genesis FAQ by Barry Cantin):

Activator - Karate/fighting game aid. Large ring of motion sensors that determine one's moves and translate them to actions in games.

There's also mention of it in this other, smaller FAQ by Chris Foulger:

One of the more unusual Sega add ons was this controller that was a sort of virtual reality controller. The Activator had eight sides and was placed flat on the floor. Infra red beams were projected up from each of the sides. The player stood in the middle and broke the beams at different hights and combinations to produce the moves on screen. Compatible mostly with fighting games although a manual included in the pack displayed combinations for some of the more popular Genesis titles. Only released in America.

I seem to recall some other FAQ or website claiming that it pretty much sucked, as IR is not an ideal application. A friend of mine used to have a IR controller for the original NES which opened much like a laptop, and also had a T-bar adapter which you could plug into a socket in the unit. The socket only served to keep the T-bar in the right location, however. There were also handles you could snap onto the T-bar which had a button on the top; The button would move a flap on the bottom of each handle which had a white surface on it (reflected the IR more strongly) and a black surface (still reflected IR, but not so much.) I can't remember what it was called, because it sucked.

Re:Nintendo

[Fryed]

Yes, those things exist (one's sitting in my closet right now) They were fairly common, but they're kind of old now; if you call a few stores that specialize in old games, you'll likely find one.

As for wiring it up, that's really easy, because it's already been done. Check out the SNESpad website, which has all the instructions one needs to wire up a nes or snes or almost any other type of console controller for use as a regular joystick, as well as drivers, I believe they mention a linux driver as well. The connection is extremely simple to do.

Using something like this, it should not be too difficult to very cheaply allow yourself a few extra buttons you can use with your feet.

Build one!

[krismon]

It's really simple, I built a pedal set with a pair of linear potentiometers(X2, Y2), a few springs, and some sweat.. I later added a couple of big switches that corresponded to switches 3 & 4 of the joystick. This was a some years back, but now that there are more and more USB joysticks and such, the gameport should be freed up for use with simple stuff like this, you can get some pots and switches and make your own controller, I've used to gameport hooked up to a thermometer.

This is real simple stuff beginners can get started on.

Good start for technical info on joystick ports.

Kris.

I suppose...

[TDScott]

That you could make a reality the old geek joke, and (this is serious), put a mouse by each foot and use it as a foot pedal. Just make sure it's durable, cheap, and has good 'feedback'.

Keyboards

[Bojay Iverson]

A Microsoft Natural Keyboard(or similar clone) might suit, you could get a cheap keyboard but with the layout beling split into two parts, you could cover the keys on the left and right side with board, and map a key on each side to favored functions. It might need a bit of woodwork, though.

Nintendo

[sharkey]

I seem to remeber the old 8-bit NES had an "action mat" type controller. I think it looked kind of like a Twister mat, with contacts under the dots. Perhaps with a little work someone could get it rewired to talk over a serial port? I am pretty sure they had "fight ring" that was a big circle of plastic and sensors you laid on the floor and stood inside. It supposedly sensed your actions, and you could actually control fighting games more realistically, or some such. Perhaps that could be modified to work as well. Hmmm. What action could be mapped to scratching your nuts?

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Foot Controllers

[HomeySmurf]

There is a company, Bilbo Innvoations that makes foot controllers similar to those used for an organ or sewing machine. They mainly are used as meta keys (shift, alt, control), but I am sure they could be mapped to other things inside of a game. Links and pictures here . If you are looking for a directional syste, then Infogrips No-Hands Mouse may be a better choice. Info and pics here . I am not sure how this would work in a game though. I know that the Hacker's Dictionary mentions that the original 'space cadet' keyboard at MIT was supposed to have foot pedals, but in the end it was opted out. I think that was a bad decision, made prior to the GUI revolution, and that the mouse was a poor choice. Picking your hand up from the keyboard is a waste of time. Future interface devices need to include a mixture of hand, feet, maybe some sort of head mounted directional stuff (like the things in airplanes that monitor where your are looking for targetting) and perhaps a little bit of voice recognition.

Been there, done that!

[IronChef]

A while back, I hacked a PC keyboard up so I could plug hand buzzers and other controls into it. Idea being, you mash a button and it registers a keystroke.

On my site I cover, with photos, how to dissect a keyboard for this purpose. The photos are crummy, sorry, this was years ago before I had a nicer digital camera.

Once you have wired up the keyboard, get an industrial foot pedal or three and stomp away! You can get foot pedals at Grainger.com. I bought one and used it for a home-made Time Crisis reload pedal.

infogrip

[fat_hot]

yes, take a look at http://infogrip.com, they have various foot-operated devices such as mice and switches. I used to use the "no hands mouse" myself.