Make a custom USB game pad with an accelerometer for endless fun.
The concept for this USB tutorial is taking a game pad and adding some USB. Then putting in a small PCBA to enable keyboard shortcut programming so the device looks like a keyboard to your computer, but with specific buttons for game play.
The USB game pad can be used with nearly any software, such as a MAME emulator, game, simulation software, or for custom user interfaces.
We’ll start by turning the buttons of the game pad into keyboard buttons, so that pressing ‘up’ is converted into the ‘U’ key, for example. The firmware is easily adaptable, so you can adjust it for whatever software it will be used with.
Then we’ll beef things up by adding an interesting twist…an accelerometer. This will allow the game pad to be used as a mouse by tilting it!
Read the full tutorial here.
Kicking around in technology since 2002. I like to write about technology products and ideas, but at the consumer level understanding. Some tech, but not too techie.
