I've always wanted something like this board, buttons which can light up (preferably a few colours), to use to make games. Anyone ever found such a board which is hackable / programmable?
Aliexpress has a lot of cheap "smart gomoku board" now, they are cheap rgb-lighted membrane button grids O(13x13) with firmware playing games like Go, Reversi etc. (https://he.aliexpress.com/item/1005010089221164.html, https://he.aliexpress.com/item/1005011840606955.html ...). These proved to be surprisingly fun with children, the tactile interface is neat, and they're a good middle ground that helps learn the rules of games (has 1-on-1 modes + solo against several levels of "AI") but not as brain-rot distracting like a tablet.
I haven't tried reverse-engineering one yet, I hope at least some of these are hackable? Conway's life would certainly be one fun use, but custom games are totally something I'd want to make too!
Are these actually membrane or are there some switches there? I assume membrane, if only based on the dirt-cheap price. Anyway in combination with lighting up + sound the feedback feels immersive enough, it's definitely more fun than poking a tablet.
I did something like this: a 64x64 (4K) display of GoL (among other things) using addressable pixels. Alas, I only took one video when the display was working and it wasn't fully cleaned up: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WUmVgBVVi6rXDqSB7
A grid of capacitive touch sensors could be printed directly on the pcb, bringing down costs by a degree of magnitude. Real switches are much more satisfying though.
I saw one in a computer museum in Switzerland. It was a much larger field, it was just large orange LEDs (or were they tubes?), but it also cycled between a dozen of different cell automata games. Something about being able to see individual "pixels" made it really mesmerizing.
When I was a teenager, I read a book about assembly language for the commodore and implemented the game of life in a really simple way. I just used the text screen. To switch on a cell, I would put an asterisk ('*') in it. Then I could run my machine code program and it would evolve according to the rules of the game of life.
I love this and would love to see it on a wall at our office or something like that. Maybe there's smaller/cheaper led/switches that would work in a handheld version.
Totally off-topic, and I may be wrong, but I immediately loved the non-LLM writing-style and felt glued to the content just through the writing alone. It's getting rare.
Nicely done! Scale matters. If you make something big enough relative to its expected size, it will impress and captivate, even if it's simple. General observation, not that the construction here was by any means simple.
I wonder if going for keyboard switches with RGB could bring the price down, if you then either print the keycaps yourself, our use a 3d printing service. 23 Cherry MX switches cost 20€, that‘s roughly 260€ for a 17x17 matrix.
A much cheaper way might have been to buy a couple of Novation Launchpads. 8x8 full RGB tactile buttons for 90€, MIDI-controllable. Four of those next to another for 16x16 at 360€ plus a little bit for cables and controller comes out at 1/3 the price
Something like those switches might be made very cheaply with a 3D printer, possibly a laser cutter, some transparent or semitransparent acrylic sheet, tactile switches and some LEDs. I designed a cheapo replacement for $50 tellite switches and got the price down to about $0.60 Not quite the same, as these are a lot bigger, and getting things down to the desired size might be troublesome. Anyway, here's a little video of my fake cheapo tellite switches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaenrgPVCjc
48 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 70.1 ms ] threadhttps://www.rogerlinndesign.com/linnstrument
I haven't tried reverse-engineering one yet, I hope at least some of these are hackable? Conway's life would certainly be one fun use, but custom games are totally something I'd want to make too!
Are these actually membrane or are there some switches there? I assume membrane, if only based on the dirt-cheap price. Anyway in combination with lighting up + sound the feedback feels immersive enough, it's definitely more fun than poking a tablet.
A grid of capacitive touch sensors could be printed directly on the pcb, bringing down costs by a degree of magnitude. Real switches are much more satisfying though.
I like the way you think.
Now that would be simulating life witg life.