self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

Lookie here:

http://cre.ations.net/creation/vinyl...e-nes-emulator

Could this thing be useful for one of the myriads of emulators on the N800? It seems like such a shame to be wasted on the iPhone (<spit!>) abomination.

I know, our beloved N800 already has hardware buttons, but I keep hearing how the D-pad really sucks for gaming, so maybe this could work.

One caveat though: In the instructable it says to go ahead and cut it out directly on the screen of the iPhone (<spit!>). Don't do that on a N800! It has a much more sophisticated screen than that Apple gadget and will therefore not withstand a knife. :rolleyes:

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

No multitouch = :(

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

So? The vinyl overlay is just to provide tactile feedback for virtual buttons. There is no multitouch to be seen anywhere...

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

I'd rather use the d-pad and volume buttons for movement and start/select respectively and have two big red buttons on the right side of the screen for the A/B buttons.
That way there's more screen real estate to be had and we have our right-side buttons.

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

No multitouch means you can't push a dpad direction at the same time as you push a button, which basically defeats the purpose of playing.

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

I'd say the N800 has plenty screen real estate to spare for buttons for console emulators. :D

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

It may sometimes feel like multitouch, but I'm quite certain those old consoles only processed one keypress at a time.

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

I know for a fact you can press the dpad and a button at the same time on the NES.

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

Exactly. That's why my vote goes for using the d-pad and slapping two big red buttons vertically on the far right of the screen.

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

I know you can do that, but what does the processor do?

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

All I'm saying is we won't be able to use the d-pad and buttons on the screen at the same time. It'll probably work with using the hardware dpad and putting buttons on the screen as an above poster said.

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

There are bluetooth keyboards/controllers available out there! Take for instance - the Wiimote which can be connected and queried by the N800 very easily! It's also available for a pretty cheap price if you know where to look and has a standard NES layout.

See: http://www.wiili.org/index.php/Wiimote_driver


To see something working on the N800:
1. Download bluez-hcidump (enable red-pill mode.)
2. Put the Wiimote in discovery mode by pressing 1 & 2 (or the scan button on the back.)

In xterm: hidd --search to connect to the Wiimote.
Then: hcidump -X to dump the results from the Wiimote (or hcidump -R for the raw deal.)


It's just a case of using the Filter API to parsing the data values returned; or just parse values from HCIdump through a pipe.


Even without anything configured, I've found that pressing buttons on the Wiimote will take the N800 out of screen dimming mode. Only issue is that because it's a HCI device it seems the N800 stops its own internal software keyboard from coming up if you need it. Is there a setting out there to make both work at the same time?




With some more work you may be able to read the accelerometer values, play sound through the speaker, blink the LEDs, and store information on the internal Wiimote flash memory. :)



Silly me, there's already a lib available: http://libwiimote.sourceforge.net/
Could use udev to provide a persistant naming scheme for multiple devices:
udevinfo -a -p `udevinfo -q path -n /dev/input/event4`
more /proc/bus/input/devices

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

Processor does nothing - it's just a bitmask.

Imagine 2 bits representing keys A & B, when both are depressed you get:
00 = 0
when A is pressed:
10 = 2
when B is pressed:
01 = 1
and when both are pressed:
11 = 3

CPU just reads the values off, there's no 'scanning' buttons or 'multitouch' as you're thinking of it.

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

Wow, can't believe I didn't think of this! Awesome idea!!

Re: self-made NES-controller for iPhone (<spit!>) adaptable for N800?
 

I just found out something interesting from another forum, if you hit two places at the same time on single touch screen, it will register the press halfway in between the two. Which means that you could register a button and a direction pressed on screen at the same time by having an invisible touch point in the screen area in the correct spot(if the controls are on either side, like the iPhone NES emulator) to register both.

The effect isn't 100% prefect, but works most of the time, and you can shift from a single point press to dual. Problems include; only registering one press about 10% of the time, sometimes you have to lift up completely for it register both,and on a rare occasion it thinks you dragged the pen to one point to the other.

If you want to play with effect, open up Sketch and draw a gamepad, and try pressing a direction and a button at the same time, you'll usually get a dot in halfway between the two places you pressed.