Tim 🎮

Top tip: if you own an #Anbernic or similar handheld gaming console, and find you get awful lag when outputting to a TV but it's fine on its internal screen, you probably need to enable "Game Mode" in the TV - I think modern TVs automatically detect Xboxes and PlayStations and do this automatically, but I think my Anbernic ARC's bog standard HDMI smarts looks no different from a DVD player to a TV, so I was getting half a second or so of lag trying to game on a big OLED.

#Mozilla say they used AI to find 22 vulnerabilities in #Firefox v148, and *271* in v150: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai-security-zero-day-vulnerabilities/

Stepping away from the usual discourse around AI in software development for a moment - is that realistic? Literal hundreds of unpatched, unknown flaws in software used by millions every day, just waiting to be found and cracked?

Like, is it just changing variable types and claiming it's fixed a buffer overflow 200 times, or *is all modern software* actually that fragile and risky?

#Electronics fedi, what make and model are these tactile switches? They don't match anything I'm seeing when searching for "slim round smd tactile" and the like - everything has too big a base and often the wrong colour. Is it possible they've just rolled their own mechanism to make it super tiny? They snap satisfyingly in and out but take a surprising amount of force.

These are in a weirdo gamepad I want to write about this week.

EDIT: solved, they're not off-the-shelf tactiles at all! Read ⬇️

Today's a good day to point out the link in my profile to things I've preserved at the #InternetArchive: https://archive.org/details/@timixretroplays_gmail_com

In 2022 and 2023 I collected several vintage programmable game controllers and their user manuals for SEGA, SNES and the PC. Most of these were hard to find, physically or virtually, and took some hunting, but thanks to the @internetarchive these controllers can live again, to their full function, in your home. Most of those manuals now have hundreds of views.

Another "no longer fit for purpose" for me is #LastPass, which has begun enthusiastically filling my username for websites into search boxes, which is an unbelievable time waster.

LastPass's official solution to this - provided 17 months after someone asked for help with it - is to add a "never URL" which prevents LP from autofilling on individual pages: https://community.lastpass.com/discussion/2554/how-to-stop-lastpass-from-automatically-filling-in-a-search-bar-on-a-site-where-i-am-already-logged-in?tab=all

My subscription to LastPass is due in July, so I've got til then to find time to migrate to a different thingy.

Do you use a USB switch (to use a keyboard/mouse/whatever on multiple PCs)? Do you find your devices stop working on one #Windows10 PC after switching away and back to it?

Your PC is probably turning off that USB port for nonsense power-saving reasons. You'll want to dig deep into your power settings and disable "USB selective suspend setting".

Tonight's plans to entirely re-cable my workspace have hit a snag. A very sassy, floofy snag. #Cats #SiameseCat #CatsOfMastodon

If you're floofy and you know it, show your beans 🐾🐾

#Cat #Cats #SiameseCat #CatsOfMastodon

Uh, I was expecting to spend all night writing a thread about the trials and tribulations of getting my #Surface Pro 6's touchscreen working under #Linux, but the steps I took can be summarised as 1. Install #LinuxMint, 2. Copy and paste a few lines from here into the terminal: https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Installation-and-Setup 3. Reboot, type "surface" to enroll the touch-enabled kernel in secure boot (or something), and it just magically works. Less than 30 minutes from Windows 11 to touchy-feely Linux.

Starting to properly look into an alternative to #Dropbox or #OneDrive. I'm currently paying AU$109/year ($9/month) for my home Office subscription which includes a terabyte of OD space. Dropbox is $184/year ($15/mo) for 2TB of space. I currently have about 100GB of data to house.

Looks like it costs about AU$80/month to put 100GB of data on a webhost in Australia.

Can anyone suggest somewhere priced in between that'd let me use NextCloud or similar? Boosts and suggestions welcome. #AskFedi

So here's where the project sits at the end of day 1 - It's a #Blackberry Q10 keyboard working through a #PiPico #RP2350 controller. I'm making a physical keyboard case for my phone because I'm outrageously tired of virtual keyboards.

That's a PMOD implementation of the Q10 keyboard by Solder Party (shout-out to @arturo182) - I don't think you can buy these anymore but I bought two of them years ago and squirreled them away for the day I'd have a suitable microcontroller for the project.

If you start reading enough about #AQI, you will start to see some rigorously scientificised recipes - this article, for example, suggests ensuring your steak (230g) and asparagus (217g) ingredients are within one standard deviation of their specified weights. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8224830/

It's #Caturday somewhere in the world. #Cats #SiameseCat #CatsOfMastodon

I wish #Ploopy had a bit more technical information available - stuff like "Ordering the components is left as an exercise for the reader" comes across as a bit snide, bordering on hostile, and it looks like I'd have to be able to read Altium files to even find out what sensor IC this thing uses. But I don't think I can fault them for making a high-precision scrolling / volume / whatever reprogrammable dial available off-the-shelf for CAD/AUD$50.

I was all set up to do a mini project today, then accidentally found an open source project that has already achieved exactly what I wanted to do AND still has complete units in stock ready to purchase so you don't have to order PCBs and do some dodgy surface-mount soldering and program the controller and tweak the 3D prints to fit.

That project is the #Ploopy Knob, a USB-connected high-precision scrolling dial: https://ploopy.co/knob/

(Ploopy also make cool trackballs and a trackpad)

Yup, I still got it ✊ #sega #retrograming

For the ~3 other #Arduino folks on the planet trying to solve the same problem I am: if you're desperately trying to find a 3.3V version of a #ProMicro with USB type C, Sparkfun make one with a Raspberry #PiPico RP2350 on board - much faster chip than an Atmel 32U4, runs at 3.3 volts, and no more expensive, plus there's the usual exciting range of faithful and creative clones on AliExpress.

The RP2040 also runs at 3V3 but is tolerant of 5V, for those weird in-between projects. #electronics

Lol I managed to softlock Sonic 3. Turns out if you fly into the first Marble Garden boss battle as Super Sonic on one of those spinning tops, you just fly off the screen and disappear. #retrogaming #Sonic3 #SEGA

Today was going too smoothly, so I managed to *burn glass* in a microwave.

The handle of this pyrex jug (almost certainly not "real" pyrex) touched the... grille? emitter? of the magnetron and stopped turning, and there was a loud buzzing sound and bright sparks for a couple of seconds before I flew across the kitchen and hit the open button.

WTF just happened? Why did glass do this? My first thought was "oh fuck did I leave metal in there" but I absolutely didn't.

#AskFedi #Microwave

I'm not familiar with Huntarr (looks like something to do with Plex), but it looks like it was a vibe-coded (gen AI) system with huge security flaws and when these were raised with its author he simply blocked everyone and deleted everything and went into hiding: https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1rckopd/huntarr_your_passwords_and_your_entire_arr_stacks/

If you or someone you know have used #Huntarr, it's time to nuke it from orbit and do some personal security auditing.

Competitive #TrackMania is more exciting than Formula 1 IMHO and doesn't come with a rusted-on fanbase that'll bite your head off for having an opinion. If you need an hour of background noise (or foreground entertainment) tonight, you could do worse than Norwegian caster and pro player Wirtual talking you through the first Elite Cup - you don't have to know anything at all about the game to get into it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IIDbmVKow4

Are you in the UK or the US? Do you prefer Playstation controllers over Xbox, but wish the D-pad didn't have that gap in the middle?

Get yourself a Google #Stadia controller. The platform itself is long gone now, so there's millions of very lightly-used pads (and plenty new-in-box) on eBay and likely other places for not a ton of cash.

They're re-flashable to be plain Bluetooth gamepads using this tool, runnable on the web and locally: https://github.com/luigimannoni/stadia-controller-flasher

Estimated time to delivery: 15-20 minutes.

*clicks the order button*

Your food will arrive in 49 minutes.

I wonder why #Menulog might be shutting up shop?

PSA - not only are #Crumpler (bag company based in Melbourne, #Australia) back under original ownership, they've discovered and reacquired 15k 2005-era items from a former distributor in Seoul: https://www.broadsheet.com.au/national/fashion/article/crumpler-y2k-archive-collection

I think I just bought the last new-old-stock large Karachi Outpost in existence and the mediums have disappeared too, but the King Single II looks like a competent backpack and there's myriad other laptop and camera bags and small satchels: https://www.crumpler.com/collections/archive-collection

Hey, #Inkscape and/or #Fritzing gurus. A documented use of Inkscape is to create a custom outline for a printed circuit board that can then be imported into Fritzing: https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-Custom-PCB-Shapes-with-Inkscape-and-Fr/

This requires manually creating a file with two sublayers with specific settings, which is tedious and error-prone if you aren't a frequent flyer with Inkscape. How hard would it be to script something to do this automatically - take one SVG with the outline, and output one with the right layers?

And when I say "not impossible", I mean "I've made them before". If you happen to own a #SoundBlaster card with the 15-pin gameport joystick header but nothing to plug into it, reach out!

Edit: Note that not all cards came with the headers physically installed, so if you've just read this and are about to go browse eBay for SoundBlasters, pay close attention to the photos to see if the pins are even there - I don't know if soldering pins in makes the gameport work or not.

For anyone who buys a #Pinecil and thinks, you know what, for a few extra bucks a clear case for this thing will look cool - you'll want this teardown from #iFixit: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Pinecil+V2+Teardown/170774

The official instructions (https://wiki.pine64.org/images/0/01/Pinecil_Shell_Replacement_Guide.pdf) do not actually explain how to snap the case apart, but the iFixit guide suggests levering the halves apart by sticking a small screwdriver into the soldering tip hole.

Practice snapping the new shell open first, to get an idea for how it should feel.

So, this is a #Pinecil. I bought one a couple of months ago along with some tips specifically for installing heat-set inserts, and immediately ordered another to dedicate to hand-soldering. It's a very lightweight soldering iron that can be powered over USB type C from a pocketable USB power bank.

A Pinecil with multiple accessories purchased directly will cost way less than buying one already in Australia, although you will wait weeks and weeks for it to ship and arrive.

And the giant #GravisGamePad, my scaled-up, fully functional, 3D printed and Arduino-powered controller. It might finally be time to tell this thing's story. #retrogaming #pcgaming

The #GravisGamePad, the first gamepad for PC and quietly one of the most influential game controllers ever made. #retrogaming #pcgaming

Presenting: the double-double and the long-double, two small PCBs intended to break out a two-by-something row of pins to either side of a breadboard. (They are also great for precise soldering practice - just ignore the fact I did one of them upside down.)

There's probably better ways to solve this, but this is mine.

I'm getting close to publishing my portfolio site and these will be on there as files you can download and send off to be made.

#PCB #PCBDesign #Fritzing #electronics

Quick note on how I design these #NES controller breakout PCBs. I've not made a "footprint" that is natively understood by #Fritzing or other software as a part, what I'm doing is exporting the vector drawings from my 3D model to SVG (for other users of old versions of #Rhino3D, you will want to install SaveAsSVG: https://www.food4rhino.com/en/app/save-scalable-vector-graphics), adding that as an image within Fritzing, and carefully aligning headers and other holes to that image.

Not a lot of free project time the last week or so, but the simple-as-anything breakout I made for my nanoDLA logic analysers arrived. It's just a board that lets you plug a nanoDLA directly into a standard breadboard and access all ten of its channels at once, without having jumper wires untidily trailing to it off the board.

Oh, and that 3D printed NES socket works flawlessly. Next week I'll make a dual socket version to talk to the Four Score properly.

#Arduino #Fritzing #Electronics

I have been fortunate enough to collect two amazing bits of rare, unusual and near-mint #Sega #MegaDrive / #MegaCD hardware this week. The first is the "Team Player", which let you use up to four controllers on a single system.

Of the six positions on that slide switch, A B C and D picked which of the four controllers would be passed through to the console, so you could flip seamlessly between a 3- or 6-button controller, or a mouse.

Mouse? Yeah, hang on - I'll get to that. 🧵

#retrogaming

Pausing the project here for a bit. With seven pins dedicated to reading a #SEGA controller, I can use the 8th pin as a signal from the #Arduino not just to indicate when a certain thing is happening, but also as a trigger in #PulseView to start capturing data.

Are you an Arduino/generally a microcontroller or electronics hobbyist? You should go buy a #nanoDLA logic analyser - for a few bucks you can easily visualise exactly what's going on with your I/O signals. Solid recommendation from me.

Six days later, a #nanoDLA 1.3 has arrived. It cost me AU$10.54 including postage. It's an open source logic analyser, documentation in English here: https://github.com/wuxx/nanoDLA/blob/master/README_en.md

This thread will document my first explorative experiences with it and sigrok's #PulseView, an open source logic analyser software package and the recommended counterpart to the nanoDLA: https://sigrok.org/wiki/PulseView

#Fritzing has never felt *completely* comfortable to me - it somehow feels both overcomplicated and underpowered for making simple boards like this - but it remains the only PCB design tool I've ever been able to open and just make a thing in without poring over documentation about vias and footprints. You drag and drop stuff, you fettle with the exact positions of things by slightly changing numbers, and you can export everything to a file PCB makers understand - and that works for me.

I see #Fritzing still runs slow as a wet week once you get a few components in PCB view - it goes from being super snappy to only highlighting what part is under your cursor a few times a second, making it feel super laggy when adding wires or new bits and bobs. These aren't four-layer motherboards or anything that complex either - just breakout boards and little adapter's for stuff.

Lowering the grid resolution and turning the visual grid off helps, but CPU still shoots up just mousing around.

Here's a thread on how the Gravis GamePad Pro - a game controller with ten digital buttons - was made to work on the PC gameport interface, which actually only supports a total of four buttons. You've probably never actually wondered about that, but you very probably *have* wondered about where all those zeroes and ones they talk about in computing come into things, and this thread has that, too! 🧵

#retrogaming #retrocomputing #GravisGrIP #GravisGamePad

Added a 9-pin header right across the middle with pin labels. The socket mount points in these default DB-9 #Fritzing footprints aren't normally points I can attach wires to, but plonking a via in the middle of each and running a wire between those seems to produce the desired result (top right) - both in OSHPark's and JLCPCB's previews.

I know there's folks looking at this and cringing hard, but I'm not aiming for best practices here, just something that works okay for my purposes.

Right, that's done enough for now. The #FractalDesign Ridge is a phenomenal #ITX case with almost as much configurability as the Core V1 I just pulled this machine from, but with some major issues. My NH-L12S is on the CPU cooler compatibility list, but my motherboard puts it higher than expected, so it fouls the internal power cord; that's okay though because my PSU's socket is placed so it can't work with it either. My PC thus sits open upside down until I find a right-angled cable that fits.

I'm not sure what's sadder about this symptom of the rampant speculative nonsense that's infected the #retrogaming scene in the last couple of years - that someone bothered to get this last-gasp, "we might still sell this old stock to someone!", Walmart-exclusive, CD-only bundle of #UltimaUnderworld 1 and 2 professionally graded, or that they've only listed it for US$110. That's like whacking a strength testing machine with all you've got and having it just make a sad trombone noise in return.

Ask your doctor today if Bowl O' Plastic is right for you! The next step in my #Thrixels madness is seamlessly joining multiple panels together to support larger mosaics. Here's a test with no extra clearance - not only is there a gap, it's exacerbated by the tiles pushing the thin substrate walls outwards, so those will have to be cut away in the next attempt.

That metal pin is from the #GravisGamePad project - I will need to find a different "dowel" material.

#3DPrinting @3dprinting

@jake4480 I mostly use a Contour #Unimouse I was lucky to pick up unused and super cheap on eBay. Ten seconds into touching it for the first time my right hand said "yes, this is the one, I've never been so comfortable in my life". It's a bit heavy but the angle is adjustable all the way up to nearly vertical and the thumbrest is on a ball joint. I also have a #3DConnexion #CADMouse in the office, it has a less dramatic tilt but is much lighter in weight.

I just wanted a nice place to safely store the Giant #GravisGamePad, but I guess a travel case implies the existence of... travel? Are there any upcoming #retrocomputing gatherings in Sydney, Canberra or maybe Melbourne that might like to see this thing make an appearance in the flesh?

Got an old #ProPad or #ProgramPad sitting around collecting dust because you don't have the manual anymore? Surprise - you *do* have the manual! Over the last couple of years, at some expense, I've been collecting the manuals for these things to scan and share them online. Recently I scored a mint condition PC ProgramPad, and now its manual joins the others, free to download, thanks to the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/@timixretroplays_gmail_com
#retrogaming #dosgaming

While I'm tidying up some #3dprinting stuff, here's the first proper thing I made and printed that was worth sharing anywhere: a reproduction of El Castillo, the Temple of #Kukulcan at #ChichenItza. It's from early 2015, and was made using images from Google Maps as a reference.

https://www.printables.com/model/598229-el-castillo-at-chichen-itza

My #Necroware prototype has passed its first test! My old #GravisGamePad works perfectly on it. (The DIP switches aren't set correctly, I'm bypassing them manually in software for the moment.)

Now that I have a solid testbed that isn't a rat's nest of jumper wires, I can start implementing PS/2 keyboard support on top.

The time I spent designing and #3dprinting my own soldering station was well worth it - that's the quickest I've ever been able to throw a working thing together.