$16 is a lot of money for a few parts, considering you can buy an entire USB gamepad with 4 buttons for a few dollars these days.
A far cheaper option, if less elegant, is this:
Run a trace from every switch on the NES pad onto the corresponding switch on the USB gamepad. If you're clever enough, you can house the guts of the USB pad (it's basically a very thin PCB) in a small enclosure, and leave that part close to your tower (or whatever), while still having a nice long cord for your NES pad.
Console/games - surprisingly, the console itself is rarely the problem, and there's not a lot you can do to fix it if it is. Usually, it's the cartridges themselves. A LOT of corrosion can build up on these things in 15-20 years. Easy fix: soak a Q-tip in isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, and scrub the hell out of the cartridge contacts. Do it on BOTH sides of the cart, of course. There's just enough room in an NES cart to be able to do this without opening it. Opening the console and trying to fix the cart connector on the mainboard is not only tricky, but usually pointless. I've salvaged over 100 NES consoles in the past 5 years, and not one has had a single problem there. There is still someone out there who sells replacement cartridge connectors, but I can't say as that's a soldering job I'd want to volunteer for. Anyway, follow the steps above, repeat as necessary (some carts are VERY dirty - it's common to make the Q-tip black). I've managed to get pretty much every cart I have (1000+) work on every console I've ever tried using this method. Blowing, shaking, moving side-to-side, putting weight on it - all of these only temporarily help the cartridges make contact. Clean 'em up good, and you'll never have to play these games again!
Batteries - every NES cart that I've seen uses a CR2032 cell battery. These things can be found for free everywhere, most notably on modern PC motherboards (BIOS settings backup). Find a dead motherboard that's not too old and its battery will have years of life left. In an NES game, they lasted anywhere from 5-20 years, depending on use and storage. I still have a Zelda cart with save games on it from at least 10 years ago, whereas some carts died within a few years of purchase. At this point, nearly all of the battery-backed games are dead. Now, replacing these things is a real bitch. Nintendo (mostly) used these idiotic security screws on their cartridges, which means most people can't open them easily. If you're lucky (some Zeldas were made this way) it's just a Phillips (star) head. Otherwise, you'll need a special bit to open them (or an awful lot of persistence). Once open of course, you can replace with whatever easy to use screw you like.
The batteries themselves were set into a socket on the game PCB, and a metal clip folded over top. The problem is, this clip was spot-welded (or something similar) to the battery, making it very tricky to remove without damaging the clip. With patience however, and some gentle hands, you can. A replacement battery just slips in. Here comes the tricky part - that metal clip doesn't hold too tightly to the battery now. Soldering the clip to the battery is a very dangerous operation - the heat from your iron can kill the battery. I've seen replacement battery harnesses for sale in the past, you'd just have to solder these into the PCB of the game and your battery clips in nicely.
And yeah, I'd have to agree 110% with your comment about CD-based systems. I have pretty much every pre-CD system still in perfect working condition here. It takes a LOT to kill a cartridge-based machine, usually fire or water or both:) But over half the Playstations I come across are already toast. Give it another 10 years and very few will even work, yet the 2600s/NESs/Genesii will keep chugging away.
For anyone who collects these things, if they're actually modelled after original 7800 sticks, this unit will be a godsend. Finding working 7800 sticks is damn hard these days. And in a year or so when this thing hits the $10 bargain bins... *droooool*
Too bad they didn't do it with the 5200 sticks. THOSE are some seriously hard to find items, still in working condition:(
Considering that the only other serious cartridge-based contenders in the history of portable gaming went under because of battery life...
I'd have to say yes. Battery life really IS that important.
It wasn't technical (Lynx and GameGear were so much more advanced than a Gameboy it wasn't even funny). It wasn't game libraries (both of the Gameboy's competitors had a lot of good games for them - and this is back before the Gameboy had 1000's of titles). It was battery life, pure and simple. The Gameboy was a complete and utter piece of garbage when compared to a GG or Lynx. However, you could ACTUALLY USE IT AS A PORTABLE. Well, that and it had Tetris:)
Gameboy beat its competitors by the biggest margin in the industry. The PSP will have to get at LEAST 4-6 hours on a charge to survive kids taking it to school, trips, etc. And honestly, with people accustomed to the 20+ hours on a GBA, it's going to be really hard to convince people that you have to charge the thing up *every single time you use it*.
Would you want one of these things flying over your neighborhood, piloted (yes, piloted, not driven) by someone who could be a total moron, yakking on his cell phone, or maybe just drank a six pack?
Nope. I also wouldn't want to have a CAR driving through my neighbourhood, driven by someone who could be a total moron, yakking on his cell phone, or maybe just drank a six pack. But it's better than having no cars driving at all.
New technology happens whether it scares you or not. If these "take off" (pun intended), we'll just bring in some safety measures and laws to help mediate the risks.
Just like we did with cars in the first place. "They frighten the horses and can cause injury as a result!" was one of the oft-repeated arguments against mass adoption of cars. Didn't stop progress.
You ever stop to think that perhaps some of us aren't clueless, we in fact do know the reference, but just find that repeating the same joke on every single story regarding storage technology to be...
Overrated?
Or are you one of the types that feels the need to preface joke posts with "Ob: simpsons" or "Someone had to say it"?
Hint: if you ever, *ever* have to explain a joke, reference its source, or defend its use - it probably just isn't all that funny.
The speed of cooling isn't the issue here - or at least, not the big issue. The same thing can happen if you put a can of carbonated drink in a deep freeze - takes forever to cool it, but once it begins to freeze, it foams all over the place, and generally bursts the can. Trust me, nothing sucks more than spending a Sunday cleaning our your deep freeze because you forgot about the extra 12-pack of beer your buddy wanted to chill "faster".
Remember, water *expands* as it gets colder, for the most part:)
I too live in a state that doesn't allow liquor sales in grocery stores.
I live in a COUNTRY that doesn't allow liquor sales in grocery stores. We call it Canada. Although to be fair, in Quebec this isn't the case, and also some very small rural communities get away with it too.
The ban on not selling cold beer basically comes down to one thing: public drinking. If it's not cold, you won't drink it right away (at least, that's the theory). If you aren't drinking it right away, presumably you have to go home first, chill it, etc. Keeps people from walking around on the street getting loaded.
Notice the ban on cold beer at places that sell gas - something tells me drinking and driving issues are the driving (ha-ha) factor here.
Sometimes for fun I'll strap a week's worth of gear to my back, and hike 20 miles into the bush. Set up camp, stay a day or 2, pack up, hike another 20 miles, wash, rinse, repeat.
Do this in the Rockies in late summer. There's usually a fire ban on, so if you want any of your food cooked or even warmed, you need to bring another several pounds of gear for a mini stove and fuel. Self-heating cans would be a godsend. And when it's 30C outside and you've been hiking all day with 40lbs strapped to your back, NOTHING would be better than a nice, cold drink. I'd pay a helluva premium for something like this, personally.
Anything that brings a few creature comforts is nice. Anything that does this without adding another 10lbs to my pack... that's heaven.
No one in either of the Google IPO stories today has commented on this, that I've seen.
Why do the Yahoo charts show the stock as having been as high as $140 right off the hop, and dropping like a rock before settling around the $100 mark? Anyone with more insight as to the stock market or how Yahoo charts this able to comment?
I can't be the only one on Slashdot who's noticed this...
When I was growing up, the last thing I wanted to do was sit inside and surf the internet.
Ah, instead you sat inside and watched
Saturday Morning Cartoons
?
Notice a connection at all? Personally, I woulda killed for BBS access on the C64 durnig a rainy day. Too bad long distance used to cost a small fortune back then:(
There might still be a problem with a hardware-based keystroke recorder, but that level of expertise is unlikely, I think. A thief who could do that could get a good job, and wouldn't need to be a thief.
You laugh, but last year's competition had a robot with something similar to a sword. Dunno if it's in this year's, I'll download the movies when I get home.
There are rules limiting how long your arms can be, so one team did something clever - they made arms that could basically fold in half (imagine an elbow, that bends backwards). The "extension" part of the arm was officially used to help the robot get back on its feet - and it performed amazingly well at this. However, it also tapered at the end. It looked just like robot thing was holding a sword.
They had one programmed move where the arm would extend out, and the robot would swing itself around. Just like a sword stroke. They actually managed to pull parts off at least one other robot:)
As the other poster explained, Optimus himself is actually the front unit. The rest is just the trailer that magically disappears when he turns into a robot. And it's not white. At least in North America, the trailer is a silver-grey colour. That comic picture is really, really wrong.
Yes, I'm posting about the correct colour of a 20 year old toy. I officially get my geek membership card now:)
I'll put this back on-topic: my former machine learning prof (I hate the term AI) is heavily involved in humanoid robotics. It's a very, very immature field, but the last couple of years have seen some amazing advances. For those that haven't seen the videos, watch them. Some of what these little guys (they're about 18-30" tall roughly) can do is simply amazing, if you know anything about the state of the art. They're not quite Azimo yet, but all of "his" moves are 100% pre-programmed - these use dynamic walks, etc. The human operators (for those that want to bemoan the lack of AI) only control the gross movements. It is a very hard problem space, making a humanoid simply walk, let alone what these do.
Honestly, adding the autonomous behaviours to them afterwards is the easy part. A group of 4 of us programmed a team of wheeled Mindstorms robots to play fully autonomous soccer in a couple of months (our team won the tournament, yay!), with no previous experience. A similar sized group has spent 2 years trying to make a humanoid walk as good as these things, and they're not even close. A lot of it is having very sensitive servos, and being able to do quick adjustments to movement in realtime. Remember, human walking is basically a continual fall.
That only works temporarily, it seems. I had it set to 0 for months on my laptop without problems. One day, I started getting the annoying balloon tips again. All the time (semi-flaky router disconnects at least once a day). Checked the registry, it's still set to 0. Reboots, config changes, nothing seems to work. It's at 0, I get balloon tips.
Somewhere, buried, is another setting for this that overrides the one most people know about.
Gotta love user friendly software! Oh well, at least my wireless card works (grumble grumble TI grumble grumble).
Where exactly does your right to beathe air come from? I tried to look up the 29th amendment, but couldn't find it.
Yeesh, I'm Canadian, and I think I know more about how the US legal system works than a lot of Americans. Constitutional amendments aren't a shopping list of "rights" that you have, merely modifictions to the original document to expand and clarify. Hell, I believe they even added one to EXPLICITLY state this.
Heh. And Bush talks of adding an amendment to ban gay marriage. So some amendments can even be used to remove (or prevent the obtaining of, depending on which side of the fence you sit) rights.
The pigeonhole principle says that if you shoot N pigeons with N+1 bullets, and don't miss, one pigeon has two holes... or something like that.
Hahahaha!
It's rare to see a correct, informative post with a really clever joke in it. My hat's off to you, sir/madam:)
(For those not getting it, the pigeonhole principle refers to having N+1 pigeons and putting them in N holes, which guarantees you will have at least one hole with 2 pigeons in it. I think I'll use this explanation in the future though, it's much more fun!)
Slashdot Mirror
$16 is a lot of money for a few parts, considering you can buy an entire USB gamepad with 4 buttons for a few dollars these days.
A far cheaper option, if less elegant, is this:
Run a trace from every switch on the NES pad onto the corresponding switch on the USB gamepad. If you're clever enough, you can house the guts of the USB pad (it's basically a very thin PCB) in a small enclosure, and leave that part close to your tower (or whatever), while still having a nice long cord for your NES pad.
Again, less elegant, but a hell of a lot cheaper.
Heh. The thread aimed squarely at me :)
:) But over half the Playstations I come across are already toast. Give it another 10 years and very few will even work, yet the 2600s/NESs/Genesii will keep chugging away.
Console/games - surprisingly, the console itself is rarely the problem, and there's not a lot you can do to fix it if it is. Usually, it's the cartridges themselves. A LOT of corrosion can build up on these things in 15-20 years. Easy fix: soak a Q-tip in isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, and scrub the hell out of the cartridge contacts. Do it on BOTH sides of the cart, of course. There's just enough room in an NES cart to be able to do this without opening it. Opening the console and trying to fix the cart connector on the mainboard is not only tricky, but usually pointless. I've salvaged over 100 NES consoles in the past 5 years, and not one has had a single problem there. There is still someone out there who sells replacement cartridge connectors, but I can't say as that's a soldering job I'd want to volunteer for. Anyway, follow the steps above, repeat as necessary (some carts are VERY dirty - it's common to make the Q-tip black). I've managed to get pretty much every cart I have (1000+) work on every console I've ever tried using this method. Blowing, shaking, moving side-to-side, putting weight on it - all of these only temporarily help the cartridges make contact. Clean 'em up good, and you'll never have to play these games again!
Batteries - every NES cart that I've seen uses a CR2032 cell battery. These things can be found for free everywhere, most notably on modern PC motherboards (BIOS settings backup). Find a dead motherboard that's not too old and its battery will have years of life left. In an NES game, they lasted anywhere from 5-20 years, depending on use and storage. I still have a Zelda cart with save games on it from at least 10 years ago, whereas some carts died within a few years of purchase. At this point, nearly all of the battery-backed games are dead. Now, replacing these things is a real bitch. Nintendo (mostly) used these idiotic security screws on their cartridges, which means most people can't open them easily. If you're lucky (some Zeldas were made this way) it's just a Phillips (star) head. Otherwise, you'll need a special bit to open them (or an awful lot of persistence). Once open of course, you can replace with whatever easy to use screw you like.
The batteries themselves were set into a socket on the game PCB, and a metal clip folded over top. The problem is, this clip was spot-welded (or something similar) to the battery, making it very tricky to remove without damaging the clip. With patience however, and some gentle hands, you can. A replacement battery just slips in. Here comes the tricky part - that metal clip doesn't hold too tightly to the battery now. Soldering the clip to the battery is a very dangerous operation - the heat from your iron can kill the battery. I've seen replacement battery harnesses for sale in the past, you'd just have to solder these into the PCB of the game and your battery clips in nicely.
And yeah, I'd have to agree 110% with your comment about CD-based systems. I have pretty much every pre-CD system still in perfect working condition here. It takes a LOT to kill a cartridge-based machine, usually fire or water or both
Is it just me, or are those joysticks removable??
:(
For anyone who collects these things, if they're actually modelled after original 7800 sticks, this unit will be a godsend. Finding working 7800 sticks is damn hard these days. And in a year or so when this thing hits the $10 bargain bins... *droooool*
Too bad they didn't do it with the 5200 sticks. THOSE are some seriously hard to find items, still in working condition
Considering that the only other serious cartridge-based contenders in the history of portable gaming went under because of battery life...
:)
I'd have to say yes. Battery life really IS that important.
It wasn't technical (Lynx and GameGear were so much more advanced than a Gameboy it wasn't even funny). It wasn't game libraries (both of the Gameboy's competitors had a lot of good games for them - and this is back before the Gameboy had 1000's of titles). It was battery life, pure and simple. The Gameboy was a complete and utter piece of garbage when compared to a GG or Lynx. However, you could ACTUALLY USE IT AS A PORTABLE. Well, that and it had Tetris
Gameboy beat its competitors by the biggest margin in the industry. The PSP will have to get at LEAST 4-6 hours on a charge to survive kids taking it to school, trips, etc. And honestly, with people accustomed to the 20+ hours on a GBA, it's going to be really hard to convince people that you have to charge the thing up *every single time you use it*.
Would you want one of these things flying over your neighborhood, piloted (yes, piloted, not driven) by someone who could be a total moron, yakking on his cell phone, or maybe just drank a six pack?
Nope. I also wouldn't want to have a CAR driving through my neighbourhood, driven by someone who could be a total moron, yakking on his cell phone, or maybe just drank a six pack. But it's better than having no cars driving at all.
New technology happens whether it scares you or not. If these "take off" (pun intended), we'll just bring in some safety measures and laws to help mediate the risks.
Just like we did with cars in the first place. "They frighten the horses and can cause injury as a result!" was one of the oft-repeated arguments against mass adoption of cars. Didn't stop progress.
Clicky
:)
Heh. All that I could find are > 2 years old. You're absolved
You ever stop to think that perhaps some of us aren't clueless, we in fact do know the reference, but just find that repeating the same joke on every single story regarding storage technology to be...
Overrated?
Or are you one of the types that feels the need to preface joke posts with "Ob: simpsons" or "Someone had to say it"?
Hint: if you ever, *ever* have to explain a joke, reference its source, or defend its use - it probably just isn't all that funny.
The speed of cooling isn't the issue here - or at least, not the big issue. The same thing can happen if you put a can of carbonated drink in a deep freeze - takes forever to cool it, but once it begins to freeze, it foams all over the place, and generally bursts the can. Trust me, nothing sucks more than spending a Sunday cleaning our your deep freeze because you forgot about the extra 12-pack of beer your buddy wanted to chill "faster".
:)
Remember, water *expands* as it gets colder, for the most part
I too live in a state that doesn't allow liquor sales in grocery stores.
I live in a COUNTRY that doesn't allow liquor sales in grocery stores. We call it Canada. Although to be fair, in Quebec this isn't the case, and also some very small rural communities get away with it too.
The ban on not selling cold beer basically comes down to one thing: public drinking. If it's not cold, you won't drink it right away (at least, that's the theory). If you aren't drinking it right away, presumably you have to go home first, chill it, etc. Keeps people from walking around on the street getting loaded.
Notice the ban on cold beer at places that sell gas - something tells me drinking and driving issues are the driving (ha-ha) factor here.
I couldn't agree more.
Sometimes for fun I'll strap a week's worth of gear to my back, and hike 20 miles into the bush. Set up camp, stay a day or 2, pack up, hike another 20 miles, wash, rinse, repeat.
Do this in the Rockies in late summer. There's usually a fire ban on, so if you want any of your food cooked or even warmed, you need to bring another several pounds of gear for a mini stove and fuel. Self-heating cans would be a godsend. And when it's 30C outside and you've been hiking all day with 40lbs strapped to your back, NOTHING would be better than a nice, cold drink. I'd pay a helluva premium for something like this, personally.
Anything that brings a few creature comforts is nice. Anything that does this without adding another 10lbs to my pack... that's heaven.
No one in either of the Google IPO stories today has commented on this, that I've seen.
Why do the Yahoo charts show the stock as having been as high as $140 right off the hop, and dropping like a rock before settling around the $100 mark? Anyone with more insight as to the stock market or how Yahoo charts this able to comment?
I can't be the only one on Slashdot who's noticed this...
When I was growing up, the last thing I wanted to do was sit inside and surf the internet.
:(
Ah, instead you sat inside and watched
Saturday Morning Cartoons
?
Notice a connection at all? Personally, I woulda killed for BBS access on the C64 durnig a rainy day. Too bad long distance used to cost a small fortune back then
eats batteries like Cowboy Neal eats tacos
Check out the w3schools stats for Moz. 8% to 14.6% since January.
Colour me impressed, although as everyone will now respond to me, take those stats with a grain (mountain) of salt.
That'e because it hasn't been updated yet.
.com has July's stats, the .ca only has June's.
The
You know how people write obscenities in the dirt of car windshields?
:)
I leave the rest to you. Please provide some pictures in your next Slashdot post
Um... thanks for lovely explanation, and entirely missing the point.
The grandparent asked mods to "feel free not to mod me", I pointed out that no one had modded him/her, and said "hey, looks like it's working".
What part of "don't mod me" "hey, you didn't get modded" did you miss?
There might still be a problem with a hardware-based keystroke recorder, but that level of expertise is unlikely, I think. A thief who could do that could get a good job, and wouldn't need to be a thief.
Hire me, please!
Feel free not to moderate me at all.
:P
Starting Score: 1 point
Karma-Bonus Modifier +1 (Edit)
Total Score: 2
Looks like it's working so far. Betcha I get a Funny + or two tho
You laugh, but last year's competition had a robot with something similar to a sword. Dunno if it's in this year's, I'll download the movies when I get home.
:)
There are rules limiting how long your arms can be, so one team did something clever - they made arms that could basically fold in half (imagine an elbow, that bends backwards). The "extension" part of the arm was officially used to help the robot get back on its feet - and it performed amazingly well at this. However, it also tapered at the end. It looked just like robot thing was holding a sword.
They had one programmed move where the arm would extend out, and the robot would swing itself around. Just like a sword stroke. They actually managed to pull parts off at least one other robot
As the other poster explained, Optimus himself is actually the front unit. The rest is just the trailer that magically disappears when he turns into a robot. And it's not white. At least in North America, the trailer is a silver-grey colour. That comic picture is really, really wrong.
:)
Yes, I'm posting about the correct colour of a 20 year old toy. I officially get my geek membership card now
I'll put this back on-topic: my former machine learning prof (I hate the term AI) is heavily involved in humanoid robotics. It's a very, very immature field, but the last couple of years have seen some amazing advances. For those that haven't seen the videos, watch them. Some of what these little guys (they're about 18-30" tall roughly) can do is simply amazing, if you know anything about the state of the art. They're not quite Azimo yet, but all of "his" moves are 100% pre-programmed - these use dynamic walks, etc. The human operators (for those that want to bemoan the lack of AI) only control the gross movements. It is a very hard problem space, making a humanoid simply walk, let alone what these do.
Honestly, adding the autonomous behaviours to them afterwards is the easy part. A group of 4 of us programmed a team of wheeled Mindstorms robots to play fully autonomous soccer in a couple of months (our team won the tournament, yay!), with no previous experience. A similar sized group has spent 2 years trying to make a humanoid walk as good as these things, and they're not even close. A lot of it is having very sensitive servos, and being able to do quick adjustments to movement in realtime. Remember, human walking is basically a continual fall.
Put an old red-hat system up and see how long it takes before you're r00t3d!
Ok, let me just toss this RH 8 CD in, it's a coupla years old so we can call it a contemporary to XP.
Ok, it's installed. Let the "r00t1ng" begin!
Waiting, waiting.. still waiting..
Oh yeah. You can't very easily "r00t" a box that OFFERS NO NETWORK SERVICES BY DEFAULT.
Do you people even USE these operating systems before trying to make a point?
That only works temporarily, it seems. I had it set to 0 for months on my laptop without problems. One day, I started getting the annoying balloon tips again. All the time (semi-flaky router disconnects at least once a day). Checked the registry, it's still set to 0. Reboots, config changes, nothing seems to work. It's at 0, I get balloon tips.
Somewhere, buried, is another setting for this that overrides the one most people know about.
Gotta love user friendly software! Oh well, at least my wireless card works (grumble grumble TI grumble grumble).
Where exactly does your right to beathe air come from? I tried to look up the 29th amendment, but couldn't find it.
Yeesh, I'm Canadian, and I think I know more about how the US legal system works than a lot of Americans. Constitutional amendments aren't a shopping list of "rights" that you have, merely modifictions to the original document to expand and clarify. Hell, I believe they even added one to EXPLICITLY state this.
Heh. And Bush talks of adding an amendment to ban gay marriage. So some amendments can even be used to remove (or prevent the obtaining of, depending on which side of the fence you sit) rights.
The pigeonhole principle says that if you shoot N pigeons with N+1 bullets, and don't miss, one pigeon has two holes... or something like that.
:)
Hahahaha!
It's rare to see a correct, informative post with a really clever joke in it. My hat's off to you, sir/madam
(For those not getting it, the pigeonhole principle refers to having N+1 pigeons and putting them in N holes, which guarantees you will have at least one hole with 2 pigeons in it. I think I'll use this explanation in the future though, it's much more fun!)