Pimp my Pong

Monday, March 9th:

I get wind of this Think Geek hacks contest, a week late, franticly, I hit thinkgeek.com looking for a easy kill, budget and ideas both turn up empty.

What about that pong kit I bought from them ~2 years ago? ... hm when i first got it, I wanted it to be more game console like ... what would be killer tho, I mean like super sweet ... paddles!

Welcome to Pimp my Pong

Step 1 Start

Tuesday, March 10th:

The pong kit contains a write once pic microcontroller, its software and hard ware is set up to only accept digital input, that is to say it has a up and a down button for each player, along with a reset button ... each button is either on or off depening if you want the paddle to go up or down.

After considering some "classic" based (potentiometer) controls, it soon proved to be a massive rats nest, and alot of resistors for only 8 notches between "full up" , and "full down" . What about a rotary encoder?

What is a rotary encoder?, your most familiar with it in your computer mouse, but those are optical, meaning they shine a lite past a shutter wheel to a "magic eye", the one I will be using is of the magnetic type, which is most common on stereo equipment (ie a volume control in a car)

This type lets you have a compact knob, that can spin any either direction forever, and somehow knows which way its going

Comments

[crazyg]

im trying to overclock my tennis(checking for shorts at moment), did think about attaching pots as controller but youve discoverd the rats nest for me ,

[crazyg]

i thought that pic looked familar, oh wait

[crazyg]

got glue gun handy for avoiding wires lifting tracks

[Stephen D. Alverez]

 it's cool, but what does it do? It seems like all you did was take it apart and put it back together!

[osgeld]

I added paddles to a pong game that was not made for paddles

[osgeld]

+ all the casing, the original was nothing more than a board

[Brunomaster]

Hello dude !!, do you buy it or made it the main console of pong? do you know were can I download the source code for the pic and the schematic of the circuit?

[osgeld]

i bought the original kit from think geek for ~20 bucks (altho many other places have it) its made by velleman The kit comes in PAL and NSTC, and includes schematics, but no source code (which is really doing everything) The pic that it is on is a write once device, and i dont know if you could dump its hex or not (i dont have a compatible pic programer) it would have been much easier to just simply mod the code to deal with analog pot's

[N1CK4ND0]

Winner fo' sho'.

[sam]

Nicely done!

[ste5442]

Nicely documented, Osgeld!
Good luck with the Think Geek contest and congrats on being 'featured' :-)

PCBPolice

[angus0000]

Great instructable, thanks!

[osgeld]

thanks

[lemonie]

My eyes are a bit tired, but if you've completed this you should replace the first image with a picture of the finished Pong. It looks like a job half-done at the moment.

L

[osgeld]

there is a picture of the finished product, its done, just not the instructable, my eyes gave out about 1 am last night

[lemonie]

Yes I know the feeling. L

[osgeld]

and ill be writing like mad when i get home, theres sooooooo much

[AndyGadget]

When 'Pong' came to the U.K. it appeared in the arcades as 'Telly Tennis'. Over here a 'pong' is an unpleasant smell . . . as in "Blimey guv, them trainers don't 'arf pong!"