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Zip Drive Reverse Engineering May 17, 2018

Show notes

Tragedy has befallen Ben Heck, once upon a time he created some awesome levels for Doom and now he wants to revisit them, but he cannot! They reside on an ancient and old media type called 'zip disks', zip drives were made by iomega and came in various sizes from 100mByte up to 1gByte. So to reverse engineer it Ben and Felix are going to find an old computer, an oscilloscope and a parallel port connected zip drive to find out how it talks to one another and make it do their bidding! What old hardware have you tried to make work? Or reverse engineered? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

Atari 5200: Making a Better Controller Apr 26, 2018

Show notes

Felix is revisiting his retro gaming console, the Atari 5200, unfortunately after being sat in a barn for years it's lost its controllers and gained a lot of rust! Cue Ben giving the console a teardown to see what state the hardware is in, and rebuilding new game controllers from scratch with the help of Autodesk Fusion 360 and Arduino! Would you design it differently? What retro consoles do you have lying around? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

Oregon Trail Pocket Portable Apr 12, 2018

Show notes

It's not a Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft console for a change, it's a dedicated portable game console: Oregon Trail. Ben takes apart a shop-bought game to find out how it runs. Felix the sudo Sergeant steps in with his Linux knowledge to communicate with the hardware using the i2c protocol so they can hack away at the eeprom. What hardware do you want to see the team teardown? Have you modified hardware yourself? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

Game Cartridge-Sized Nintendo Portable Apr 05, 2018

Show notes

Everything should be portable, every console, ever, even the replicated ones. This is why Ben is taking apart a 'Yobo NES' and designing an enclosure to see how small he can make it and still be able to play Nintendo Entertainment System games! Using Autodesk's Fusion 360, a laser cutter and a bit of 3D modelling design, watch now to find out just how small Ben has managed to get it. What other hardware would you make portable? How's your computer aided design? Let us know on the element14 Community!

3D Printer Beaglescope Mar 29, 2018

Show notes

What do you do, when you have a broken 3D printer? Throw it away? Take it down for parts? Felix has a better idea, repurpose the old Makerbot Replicator with a microscope to make a controlled, precision microscope machine! Using the Beaglebone Black and Replicape as the basis for the control circuitry, Ben Heck and Jason Kridner from Beagleboard.org lend their assistance to get Felix up and running! Have you used a Beaglebone Black? Or repurposed a 3D printer? What would you do differently? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

MIni Pinball 12: The End is Nigh Mar 22, 2018

Show notes

Super Glue Gun & Mini Pinball: Which One Gets the Axe? Mar 15, 2018

Show notes

As the team come to the end of the long-term builds it's time that the team take a deeper look with some advice, what do they axe? What can be taken into production? And what was the most fun? Join Ben, Felix and James Ray from AVID as the team discuss the viability of the Mini Pinball, Super Glue Gun and Portable Raspberry Pi projects! The team learn some very important things, including the ability to customise a Raspberry Pi, what up-front costs to expect and what considerations have to be made. Have you brought a project into production? Which build would you like to see made fully? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

Mini Pinball 11: Final Analysis and Programming Mar 08, 2018

Show notes

Ben's moving walls around, he hasn't taken up a job as an architect though! After a few tests of the pieces for the modular miniature pinball kit it has been decided that the angles need to change for the pinball run and that requires a redesign. Also Felix has received the final design of the printed circuit board from OSHPark, and from some initial tests it appears to be a-okay! What do you think of the build so far? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

Sega Saturn Teardown Mar 02, 2018

Show notes

By popular request Ben is tearing down the retro games console: the Sega Saturn! Back in the day, Sega attempted to compete against Sony's Playstation by releasing the Sega Saturn, even though it already had a CD based console add-on for the Genesis / Mega Drive in the form of the Sega CD they really had to step up their game. In this episode we check out the internals of the Sega Saturn and what chips and processors were used onboard, including the overly popular Motorola 68000! What hardware have you tore down or made portable? Do you design your own retro computers? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

Mini Pinball 05: Pop Bumpers, Targets, and More! Aug 31, 2017

Show notes

The team are making flipping progress with the miniature pinball machine, Felix is designing the printed circuit board for the electronics control of the game using a Teensy and an Arduino. The layout of the board will be mounted towards the back of the board and will handle the light and switch drivers. These microcontrollers won't do a great deal without some code! Ben works on the SPI communications to the targets, LCD screen, pop bumpers and uses Autodesk Fusion 360 for the pinball launcher mechanisms, so that we have more of an active and working game! Though it'll work once Ben fully reads the SPI manual! Are you building your own pinball machine? Or do you have suggestions for the build? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

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