Linux Kernel Module For Nintendo Powerglove

antistatickid writes: "I've dusted off some schematics for a simple parallel interface to the nintendo powerglove (circa 1990), and have written a linux kernel module for the device since none of the old code works anymore. I'm hoping to generate some interest in homebrew vr: the gloves are cheap, and can be used for things like controlling midi synthesizers with the wave of your hand (a demo of which I've included on the project page)."

Comments

Bad Old Days

[Anonymous Coward]

I really had a hard time using the Power Glove for its intended purpose. I have an equally hard time believing that this particular piece of hardware will produce a pleasant experience in its new role. Anybody else remember how terrible these things were?

Re:Bad Old Days

[antibryce]

A friend of mine used powergloves as part of a research project in college, and he said if you stripped out the sensors and mounted them on a pair of thin leather gloves they're MUCH more responsive. I dunno how accurate that is, but it would make sense that a huge rubber/plastic glove would affect things a bit.

More information...

[cdrj]

More information on the glove and its applications on the computer can be found at http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/~cph/pg.html

Wrong use!

[Scutter]

Screw synths! You should be playing Black & White!

Applications for lazy people...

[deke_2503]

Use it instead of a mouse, sort of a touchscreen without touch.
Or, make it wireless and use it as a remote for a TV. Imagine waving your hand to change the channel, volume, etc.
Connect it to your stereo in a similar fashion.
Use it to steer the lawnmower around the yard--just move your hand and fingers, while sipping daquiries from a lawnchair.

Think of the possibilities! It's almost like being a jedi!

Motion Macros anyone?

[antis0c]

Just like Mouse Gestures, one could have Motion Macros, move your hand in a specific pattern while typing, and have it insert predefined text. Depending on sensitivity, one could do really cool stuff while typing with the Power Glove on.

Wireless Mod?

[TibbonZero]

I wonder if there is anyway to mod the Powerglove even more to make it wireless? (I am thinking of performance live)
Just hack open a wireless Nintendo controller? And use the insides of it? Use batteries to power the glove?
Electronics on the compenent level isn't my type of thing, but I feel that it's possible. Is it?

About the Power Glove

[TheFrood]

Seanbaby has some rather amusing remarks about the Power Glove (and other useless Nintendo peripherals.)

TheFrood

original author/hacker

[ThePurpleBuffalo]

As I recall, the original hack was done by Steve Ciarcia, who was working for Byte Magazine at the time. Now he runs an equally interesting magazine/website Circuit Cellar Inc. (http://www.circuitcellar.com/)

Steve has a number of projects that the average lay-person could do, including a touch screen for computers (used the parallel port). He also has a crapload of funny stories about "one-up'ing" his neighbour in some of his older books.

Beware TPB

Sweet!

[GoRK]

Very cool! I built this hack in like 1993, and it was hard to find a power glove even then. Now, it must be rather impossible.

A tip for hax0rs: The power glove is very SMALL (even the large one). I completely dispensed with the original glove that came with it to make mine. I took the control pad off and put a simple belt clip on it. Next, i extended the hand part and the ultrasonic sounders away from the controller with some 15 conductor cable. Finally, I sewed the finger bend sensors onto the fingers of a golf glove that went on the right hand and had the fingertips cut out (the original power glove is a lefty device.) Anyway, the idea was to get rid of the bulky garbage of the powerglove in order to make a little dataglove that i could still type while wearing.

I still have it here. Heck, I still have the monitor with the velcro on it! I'm very excited to break it out again and fiddle with this.

~GoRK

Force Grip

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Oooh. Now I can be just like Darth Vader! I can Force Grip rogue processes!
Someone please port this to Windows so I can Force Grip the whole OS. :p

Linux is really chugging along now!

[NanoGator]

So now Linux is supporting the Power Glove. At this rate, I expect we'll see lightpen support by the end of next year. Heh.

Better Linux applications...

[Mulletproof]

Top 10 Linux Adaptations

10) Linux Litebrite support
9) Linux dishwasher drivers
8) My Little Pony Linux kit
7) Linux on the Atari 2600
6) Linux bubblegum
5) A Tux vibrator (worked for Hello Kitty)
4) Linux for your coffee makers
3) Linux for Windows (Oooooh, that oughta do it)
2) Your Mom

And the #1 Linux application is....
(drumroll)

1) Linux for the Strawberry Shortcake Muffin Maker!

Damn, people, you've been a serious news rut. Doncha wish you could mod more than -1s? Kinda like I wish I could mod the freakin editors.
GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY! I'll be here 7-12 Monday through Friday! Don't forget to tip your waitress on the way out ^__^

wonderful..

[DarkHelmet]

Great, so now whenever somebody writes something stupid on slashdot I can mod them down by punching the monitor and giving them the bird.

I can then proceed to mod people up by virtually scratching my balls.

Good slashdot posts inspire thought, and in the words of Maynard James Keenan, "Whenever I get an idea my balls itch."

"The Wizard" (1989) with Fred Savage

[CMiYC]

All I remember is... "Whoa! The Power Glove!!"

Re:"The Wizard" (1989) with Fred Savage

[Myco]

You don't remember the oft-repeated line, "Califoooornia," in a whine that would make Luke Skywalker wince? Hmm, what else... I believe that Lucas (the glove-owning character) actually uttered the line "love the glove" or something like that.

Another odd thing I remember about that movie is a scene from the sub-plot where the dad and the older brother are on the road trying to find the kids. The dad stays up all night playing TMNT, and says something like "I can't stop now, I just got the scroll weapon!" Which is ludicrous for a couple of reasons. First, the scroll weapon is available reasonably early in the game (though I guess if he just sucks at the game he could be proud anyway). Second, I don't think the game ever actually referred to it as "the scroll weapon." I remember playing the game and wondering why everyone called it that. Probably came from Nintendo Power or something.

Ah, thinking about The Wizard brings back memories. Remember the third player in the final round? Okay, show of hands, who thought she had any chance at all of winning? Anyone? She was so obviously the fall guy (fall girl?) it was absurd.

Why don't they make heartwarming movies about exploiting autistic savants anymore? The Wizard, Rain Man... is that the end of the genre?

Real DataGloves

[f00Dave]

Why hasn't anyone built a *REAL* dataglove for the masses yet? The PowerGlove is a lame-ass mockery of a real 3-space input device and is only good for use in simplistic games or other 'toy' applications!

Wow, that reads like a Flamebait. ;-)

What I'd really like to see is a cheap-in-volume 'glove pair' input device (say 100$ for the MS version and 30$ for the Logitech one, like mice or keyboards) that would stream the positions of the fingers and hands over a hot-pluggable USB connection. I have a bazillion applications for that sort of device, and even a good headstart on a way to produce one on my own for about 300$ per pair (and a whole lot of time I just don't have). I'm sure *someone* has already had similar thoughts....

For reference purposes, my (rather fluid) specifications are for a system that:
- spits out positions of the fingertips accurate to 1 cubic mm or so within a cubic meter in your 'work area' (ie: a volume sitting above a traditional keyboard's location at a desk)
- tethered or wireless, as the case may be (wireless is an extra cost, of course, but not THAT much extra - it's mainly the short battery life that sucks for this)
- 60 Hz or better refresh rate for each of the sensed positions
- serial or USB input stream, similar to a 2D mouse's, only with a LOT more coordinates ... this is emminently compressible data, too, should bandwidth prove an issue (though there's always FireWire and USB2.0, I guess)

So, why should everyone have one of these? Well, I can't give away ALL my secrets, but people laughed at the mouse, didn't they? =) A 3D desktop metaphor requires a 3D interface device, and 'air mice' sort of suck. Wands are only good for limited applications ... remember light pens? (They're the same thing as a mouse, in a 2D sense, and you don't see many light pens kicking around today, do you? =] )

How would you like to type on a virtual keyboard, configured any way you want it to be, anywhere in space you chose to place it? How about a 20-DoF controller for videogames? Music synthesis with 20+ DoFs, each affecting a different component of the sound (left hand for timber and right for pitch, volume and sequencing)? Just as the mouse hardware drove the creation of a billion 2D applications, so will 3D 'glove' hardware drive a billion more.

But only, ONLY if it's CHEAP. If anyone knows an electrical engineer that wants to work on the hardware end of a project with me (I've got the hardware feasability, sample applications and reconstruction algorithms mostly worked out ... but no time to spend on implementation), give 'em my email.... f00Dave@bigfoot.com

God, that was a lot longer that I'd expected it to be. Must be the heat. =)

Re:Real DataGloves

[rusty0101]

- spits out positions of the fingertips accurate to 1 cubic mm or so within a cubic meter in your 'work area' (ie: a volume sitting above a traditional keyboard's location at a desk)
- tethered or wireless, as the case may be (wireless is an extra cost, of course, but not THAT much extra - it's mainly the short battery life that sucks for this)
- 60 Hz or better refresh rate for each of the sensed positions
- serial or USB input stream, similar to a 2D mouse's, only with a LOT more coordinates ... this is emminently compressible data, too, should bandwidth prove an issue (though there's always FireWire and USB2.0, I guess)


Not to dampen your intentions, I think they are admirable, however I do have a couple of notes on this for you. A meter is a bit arbitrary, and will give you problems with limits and data bandwidth.

For example, most people work en an environment where reaching a meter above their keyboard is only done when they are about to impart excessive forces on the keyboard in frustration. Unless you are doing something that requires position sensitive gogles as well, you are probably going to be better off working with half a meter vertically.

On the other hand reaching out to each side is not particularly unusual, and will easily exceed one meter side to side for most people. A range of either a meter and a half, or two meters would be safer.

This resolution of 1 cubic mm is also going to be expensive. I would think that it would make much more sense to vector track the hands, perhaps with a palm sensor which would give rough estimates of direction and speed while moving, then provide more accurate positioning data once stopped relative to the earlier movement. A surgon using such a glove is going to consider one millimeter to be aufull sloppy if he has to make an incision. At the same time, when reaching out towards the ends of our reaches, we are less interested in that 1 mm sensitivity. With a little bit of thought, you could use this area as broader spectrum navigation. Similar to using edge detection to move from one virtual screen to another, if you cross the edge of the sensors range, your virtual working area changes. If you are doing distance surgury, reaching into some areas would activate instrument changes.

Also of note is that the fingertips are rarely more than 150 mm from the center of your palm. You could easily use different resolutions for different fingers as well. As an example, you could use a sensitivity of 1 mm for your thumb, and .1 mm resolution for your index finger. You could also reduce the number of sensors required by recognizing that the ring finger is rarely as strong as the rest of the fingers, and eliminate that sensor. (for most movements, other than typing and musical instruments, the ring finger acts in concert with the pinkey.)

For purposes of the calculations of bandwidth I will use the dimensions you have provided however. You are free to use whatever of the ideas I have noted to finetune these. (given the fact that the fingers on each hand are always close together, you could compress the information by giving one finger's position at 10 bits x, 10 bits y, 10 bits z, then offset the remaining fingers from that position with 7 bits per dimension.

In any case, if you give each dimension a seprate holder, the smallest number of bits you can send per sample is 300. (10 bits per direction, [2^10=1024] three dimensions per finger, 10 fingers) multiply this by 60 samples per second, and you are running 18kbps. Even if you ad overhead, such as a stop bit every dimension, and a start bit for every sample, the bandwidth requirements are not high. At least not by modern communications standards anyway. The problem is that we do not have that many devices that are both moving (which will cause wire and fibres to ultimately breakdown) and sensing their environment that use this kind of bandwidth.

I suspect that whatever solution you put together will be regularly susceptible to failure due the the multiple moving parts required to track the hands of the user. You might be able to find a way to do it with fingertip and palm sensors that wirelessly communicate with each other, or that each communicate with a base station of some sort. One example would be a two camera system working with florescent fingertips that the user would wear. Similar in effect to a motion capture system.

Oh, well, best of luck to you in your venture...

-Rusty

Hindsight is always unfair

[madman2002]

We're talking about the era of 8-bit gaming here not the 21st century. The NES was one step up from the Atari, the video-game industry was still in it's infancy when these peripherials was designed. Sure they make MUCH better wireless controllers now, but where do you think the basis for these Super Peripherials came from? The shoddy NES peripherials of course! Sure the pads were a bad idea (which is why we don't see many similar ones produced today) but give them a break, they thought it would be cool so they did it. It wasn' so they dumped it. The people that created these peripherials were pioneers and innovators, trying out new ideas in a new market, which is why you can go out and buy a beautifully designed and implemented wavebird now :).

Of course I'm sure consumers would have been happier if the crappier of the peripherials (such as the pads) had never gotten out of the labs but we can't forget that this was before the days of the internet (well at least as a popular communication medium). If they wanted to see how people would respond to an idea (wireless controllers) they had to make them and see how well they sold, I'm willing to bet that the profits from those shoddy peripherials went into the R&D of better versions which leads us to the 21st century and all the neat toys we have now.

In short, yesterdays peripherials may have been bulky and error prone but they paved the way for the light and near-perfect ones we have today. Just my $.02