Modd3d

Why So Silent?

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:53:18 -0700

Hey. I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still around. I've had some hardware failures recently that are making doing anything on a computer extremely difficult. I should be back to regular posting soon.

In the mean time, go see Batman - The Dark Knight. It is the bees knees. It's too bad Heath Ledger had to pass, but he did an incredible job of being creepy and this wasn't a bad movie to go out on.

Midify Installation Tutorial: Game Boy Advance SP

Mon, 7 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

I've been hearing from a lot of people that want to install a Midify board but were looking for more detailed instructions before they started tearing apart their game system. Now there's a tutorial on the Division 6 site that walks you through, step-by-step, how to install a Midify board into a Game Boy Advance SP. The tutorial is very straight-forward, has lots of pictures, and even has a template you can download so you know exactly where to drill holes in your SP.

Build a USB Bit Whacker

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Bafoontecha has a post telling you how to build a USB Bit Whacker. While at first glance it may look like a USB to parallel port converter, it actually gives you pretty much full control of the PIC18F2550 it is based on. You communicate with it via a virtual COM port so you can either control it with terminal software or via scripts. Check it out; it's easy to build and opens up all kinds of possibilities for using it for ~~evil~~ science.

How to make stackable Gobos

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Jim Robert made a nice Instructable on how to build some stackable gobos. No, not the patterns that go in lighting instruments, but cube-shaped sound-absorbing or reflecting baffles. They look like they'd be pretty easy to build, and who hasn't been recording somewhere and wishing that the acoustics were different?

Turn Your Xbox 360 into a Streaming Netflix Player

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:30:38 -0700

Lifehacker says you can stream Netflix movies to your XBox 360 instead of shelling out $99 for a Netflix player box. The site tells you what all you need and has instructions for setting everything up.

PS2 Controller Codes Analyzed

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:07:43 -0700

The folks over at Near Future Laboratory used their trusty logic analyzer to figure out the codes sent out by the Sony PS2 controller. They walk you through all the steps of how they did it plus give you all the results so you should be building your own Dual-Shock controlled devices in no time!

Cooking with MIDI

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:55:39 -0700

Yesterday was Midify launch day, and to celebrate I made a new demo video:

It's true. I installed a MIDI port in my microwave. "Why a microwave" you ask?
I wanted to show how versatile Midify was and how much fun you could have controlling everything in sight, even if those things aren't musical instruments, so I tried to think of something really random and delicious. Then I saw the microwave sitting there on the shelf.

So the best part about YouTube is that no matter what you upload there is always some guy who thinks that it's fake. Or girl. Usually it's a guy though. If you are that guy or girl, I assure you my microwave really does have a MIDI port on it. Here are a couple pictures of the midification process (it was a quick and dirty job so no comments about the craftsmanship please):

This is the circuit board out of the microwave. That blue connector hooks to the keypad so that was where I needed to tie into.

This is the other side of the circuit board. Everything is really well labeled on it which made this mod much easier.

This is the ribbon cable that goes to the membrane keypad on the front of the microwave. There are way fewer conductors in the cable than there are buttons, and there's more than 2 or 3, so that told me that the keys are wired up in a matrix configuration and that I would need to use some transistors in conjunction with the Midify board.

I used some clip leads and my trusty meter to test continuity between every pair of conductors and figure out what combinations corresponded to which button on the keypad.

Here is the Midify / transistor board after it was wired up to some of the pins on the keypad connector. The idea is that each Midify output turns on a transistor which bridges two pins on the connector, making the microwave think that someone just pushed a button.

All done. The only thing left do do was to mount the 2.5mm phone jack on the top cover of the microwave, put it back together, and the world's first MIDI-controlled microwave was mine!

Midify Feature Demo

Mon, 9 Jun 2008 02:28:06 -0700

Midify launches tomorrow. I've got lots to do to get everything ready, but I threw together a video that gives a first glimpse of the actual board and shows off some of the features it has to offer.

Each Midify output is connected to an LED so it's a little easier to see what is happening. The outputs are also connected to a Game Boy SP running PixelH8's Music Tech synth cartridge for some audio.

Here are some of the features demoed:
-Easy to configure right from your keyboard or sequencer
-Poly Mode (play lots of notes at once)
-Mono Mode (play only one note at a time)
-High Note Priority Mode (the highest key you play wins in mono mode)
-Low Note Priority Mode (the lowest key you play wins in mono mode)
-Pause Mode (inserts a pause between each note you play so some devices that don't react quickly don't get confused)

You can also pick any MIDI channel you want, assign any key to any output and make the outputs be either active-high or active-low.

Remember, you can start Midifying your world at noon PST on Tuesday (6/10/08). Head over to the Division 6 site for more info.

Syntar Jam

Fri, 6 Jun 2008 00:33:00 -0700

I wish I could play my Syntar but I'm just not very good at it.

Here's a video by a guy who can:

Eagle Version 5 Out

Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Version 5 of Eagle, the popular (and free!) PCB design and layout software has been released. I've always found it a little bit weird to use, but it looks like the latest version has some new features that will make it more usable. Here are my votes for best new features:

Context-sensitive menus on right-click
Current zoom is now saved when switching between sheets of a schematic
Devices in a library can now have user-definable attributes
You can lock the position of a part
Active-low signals can now have a bar over their names