Mar 18

Friday Post: Cool Stuff

Hey All,

Got some cool stuff to post!

First off, got my Pi3 and have pics to show.

IMG_20160305_123135035_HDR IMG_20160305_123142557_HDR IMG_20160305_123151811_HDR IMG_20160305_123201893 IMG_20160305_123221663 IMG_20160305_123230360 IMG_20160305_123255506 IMG_20160305_123303098 IMG_20160305_123338411Love this device so much!

BUT, what I’m more excited to show off is a very early prototype of a project a coworker and I are working on!

12722257_10104959026967052_78897063_oIt’s a Raspberry Pi Zero powered portable gaming system styled after the Nintendo GameBoy Advance using an SPI TFT and some other little cool things.

This is the first PCB I’ve ever helped design, and I placed the order for it this week.  Boards shipped today, which means they will get here between 8 and 40 days.  Argh, the waiting sucks!

On another note, Pokken Tournament came out today for the Wii U.  It’s a really cool Tekken inspired Pokemon fighting game and so far I am loving it!  My Nintendo Network ID is SSilver2k2 so if you want to fight, add me 😀

I also picked up some really cool Nintendo retro consoles this week.

IMG_20160318_212020422 IMG_20160318_212026477 IMG_20160318_212054261 IMG_20160318_212134085

This is the Sharp Famicom Twin.  It is the Japanese version of the NES (Famicom) and the Famicom Disk System combined into one unit.  I also picked up the Family BASIC addon which allows you to do rudimentary programs in BASIC (HuBASIC) for the NES.  BASIC programs can be saved and loaded off of a cassette tape player, or loaded from any audio player.

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

 

 

 

Mar 04

Friday Post: The Flu Sucks

Hey All,

Sorry for the lack of updates, I got the flu and it kicked my ass!  I’ve also been dealing with school, my grandma being sick, work, and just so much stuff on my plate.  But yay It’s spring break right now, so I’m back for a bit.

While I was gone the Raspberry Pi 3 was released!  How awesome is that!  A 64bit Quad Core ARM core running at 1.2ghz with 1GB of RAM AND built in WiFi and Bluetooth.  And it’s still only $35!

IMG_4090

I’ve also almost finished the Storm Trooper Helmet

12508738_10104843734668742_463041508399623894_n 12650865_10104843766814322_7455261063869867793_n (1)

2016-03-02

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

Feb 12

Friday Post: StepMania on Raspberry Pi2

Hey All!

So this week the Raspberry Pi Foundation released a new version of Raspbian that includes experimental support for OpenGL.  This is a big leap from OpenGL ES.  This is real OpenGL that tons of games and software use.  No mobile versions required anymore.  That being said, its super experimental.  It basically breaks the official screen and the camera doesn’t work.  It also only works in xwindows and not on the command line.

BUT! One of my favorite games (and the way I lost 50lbs) is now available on the Pi!  StepMania!  The Dance Dance Revolution simulation game!

Here’s how to compile it:

First clone the StepMania repo:

git clone https://github.com/stepmania/stepmania stepmania
cd stepmania

Install the dependancies:

sudo apt-get install cmake gcc g++ libmad0-dev libgtk2.0-dev binutils-dev git-core make libasound2-dev yasm libc6-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libbz2-dev zlib1g-dev libjpeg8-dev libpng12-dev libxtst-dev libxrandr-dev libglew-dev libglu1-mesa-dev mesa-common-dev automake autoconf libva-dev

A lot of these you will probably already have installed.

Now cd into the Build directory and start the configuration process (and run it one more time afterwards)

cd Build
cmake ..
cmake ..

Now you will want to edit the CMakeCache.txt which has some of the configuration options.

nano CMakeCache.txt
Look for CRASH_HANDLER and set it to OFF, SSE2 should be set to OFF, and Full Release should be set to ON.
press ctrl-x then y to save.

Now lets compile StepMania!

make

Let that run until it is done, should take about 3 or 4 hours.  When it’s complete run

cd .. 
./stepmania

and you should now be playing StepMania!

All of your configurations  will be under ~/.stepmania, and your songs and stages go under ~/stepmania

Have Fun!

Also, GO SEE DEADPOOL (if you are 18 and older!!)

-Shea

Jan 22

Friday Post: AdvanceMAME 1.4 debs

Hey All,

Updates maybe sporadic for the next few weeks.

AdvanceMAME updated to 1.4 so I have recompiled the source and made .debs out of it.  This will work on the Pi and Pi2.

AdvanceMAME 1.4 Deb Download

To install goto a terminal and type:

sudo dpkg --force-install -i advancemame_1.4-1_armhf.db
advmame

You will now have a directory in ~/.advance and will need to edit your advmame.rc file.

nano ~/.advance/advmame.rc

Add to the first line:

device_video_clock 5 - 50 / 15.62 / 50 ; 5 - 50 / 15.73 / 60

Then press ctrl-x then y and hit enter to save.

You can now place your game files into the ~/.advance/roms directory and launch a game with the command:

advmame gamename
advmame sf2

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

Jan 09

(Late) Friday Post: and the winner is! Also Monoprice Maker Architect 3D Printer

Hey All!

The winner of the Raspberry Pi Zero giveaway is Aaron!  Congratulations!  I will be emailing you later tonight!

Onto other news.  This has been a hell of a week.  Had a small health scare with my grandmother, so we drove 200 miles yesterday to visit her.  We spent the night and drove back home today.  Hence the late post.  Shes doing better, so phew! 😀

This week I implemented a cool video encoding queuing system using Redis and Django.  The module I used is called Django-RQ, and it makes it super simple to convert your functions into queue-able objects using the @Job decorator.

This Tuesday is my birthday! Woo!  I turn 32.  I’m content.  I also start classes that night.  Yay lol.  I bought this as a gift for myself:

138611

 

It’s a Monoprice Maker Architect 3D Printer for $300.  It’s a major upgrade compared to my Micro, but it takes a lot more to get it going.  I’ve had it for two days and I’ve finally got most of the settings dialed in.

When I went to visit my Grandma I took along my Kinect sensor and used Skanect to scan her, so I was able to quickly print out a very low poly version of her as a bust.

12506821_10104783547948412_992828713_n

The Skanect free version limits exports to only 5000 polygons.  Once I upgrade I can export at full resolution.

Have a good week / weekend all.

Thanks for reading.  I really appreciate it.

-Shea

Jan 01

Friday Post: …and a happy new year! 2016!

Hey All,

Happy New Year!  2015 was an amazing year.  I learned a lot this year.  Had some ups, some downs, some all arounds, but mostly, this was a great year.  I’m pleased to have shared it with all of you.

To start off 2016 right, I’m giving away a Raspberry Pi Zero. Just fill out the form and in a week I will select a winner and send it out.

Have a wonderful 2016 everyone and thanks for reading.

-Shea

Dec 05

Friday Post: TGIF

Hey All,

TGIF!  Thank goodness it’s Friday.  This has been a trying week.

For the bad: I had a little food poisoning, had a small car issue, and dealt with an anxiety attack of epic proportions (hooray for an understanding doctor’s office / doctor.)

For the good: Got most of the kickstarter parts in.  Found a really cool edge case in a program we developed at work, and was able to fix it!  Also pushed a large project out to AWS for work and it worked.  The more I use AWS for large scale applications the more I love it.  Still afraid of vendor lock in for my personal projects though.

AND I got my Raspberry Pi Zero in!

This little guy is cool!

IMG_20151203_205459840 IMG_20151203_205532614 IMG_20151205_245916656 IMG_20151205_245926609 IMG_20151205_245937360 IMG_20151205_245957094

 

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

Nov 27

Friday Post: Raspberry Pi Zero

Hey All!

Happy Friday, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Black Friday, Happy Raspberry Pi Zero Day!

So yesterday the Raspberry Pi Foundation launched a new Raspberry Pi board, the Zero.

rsz_img_4054It’s TINY!  And only $5 dollars.  So far it’s a Pi 1 clocked at 1ghz, 512MB of RAM, Micro USB for power, Micro USB for peripherals, GPIO pins but without headers, and a mini HDMI port.  The latest edition of the MagPi is going to include one in every issue.

They already seem to be sold out online, but I was able to get the starter pack on Adafruit for 29.99.  It was worth it since I don’t have a mini HDMI or micro USB to full USB adapter.

Adafruit $5 Raspberry Pi Zero

Adafruit $29.99 Raspberry Pi Basic Pack

Right now I’m full of Turkey, and spending time with family.  I hope you all get to enjoy this time as well.

Have a great weekend!

-Shea

 

Nov 20

Friday Post: IAAPA 2015

Hey All,

Happy Friday!

I was lucky enough to be able to attend a day of IAAPA again this year.  IAAPA is THE worldwide Arcade and Amusement expo.  I’m fortunate that it takes place in Orlando, FL, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get this opportunity.

One of the highlights of the trade show was that Sega was there showing off the new to North America “Luigi’s Mansion Arcade”.  This has been in Japan for two years now, but this is the first time (other than one location test) that a Luigi’s Mansion Arcade unit has been in the States.  It’s a very neat game.  It’s an on rails shooter game, where your gun is an all in one flashlight and vacuum cleaner.  You stun the ghosts with the flashlight, then suck them into your vacuum.  It’s a lot of fun, and I hope it gets translated and a few places pick them up.

In Raspberry Pi related news, the Mag Pi has just released their Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book!

Pi-Projects_Cover-495x700

 https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/official-raspberry-pi-projects-book/

200 pages of things to do with your Raspberry Pi!

Enjoy all!  Have a great weekend!

-Shea

 

Nov 14

Friday Post: Less than 24 hours left on the Deskcade Kickstarter!

Hey All!

Less than 24 hours left on the Deskcade Kickstarter!  So excited!!!

On  a related note, I picked up a Steam Controller to see what the hype was about.  It’s cool, but what’s really neat is that it can be a keyboard, mouse, or gamepad at the same time, depending on the game.  Whats not cool is it requires steam to be running to set that.

ss_d2f5e7325666df6119ff1d42be73bac9594c5b1e.600x338

ynsta (Staney Marcel) is writing some code to make it run locally under Linux without the steam driver.  The github repo is here: https://github.com/ynsta/steamcontroller

I’ve forked it (https://github.com/ssilverm/steamcontroller) and I’m going to see if I can get it running as just a joypad for now.  It can currently run on the Raspberry Pi, and I can see the buttons being detected and get the feedback.  It’s just not being passed into a uinput item yet.  Soon 😀

Also, I’m trying to get the bootsplash to work again in Raspbian Jessie.  Jessie introduces Systemd, which takes over for init.d.  Currently the bootsplash runs later in the startup, so by the time omxplayer starts, the login screen is about a second away from showing up.  I’m working on that too.

Here’s my current steps:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/bootsplash.service

Insert this:

[Unit]
Description=BootSplash
DefaultDependencies=no
After=sysinit.target local-fs.target
Before=base.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/omxplayer /home/pi/PiPLAY.mov

[Install]
WantedBy=base.target

Then run:

sudo systemctl enable bootsplash.service

and reboot.

You should now get a bootsplash on startup, but it may be running to late.  I’m going to try and fix that.

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea