Blog Posts

The number of gamers who recall vector-based games like Tempest (not to mention entire vector-based consoles like the Vectrex) is perhaps dwindling in a pixel-based world, but Robin Champion remembers.

Building on Trammell Hudson’s Teensy 3.2-based v.st vector board, the 4.1-based VSTCM (v.st Colour Mod) allows use of an RGB monitor to bring color vector-based games like Star Wars to life, thanks in part to a custom interface to AdvanceMAME.

 

A built-in 6502 emulator also allows games like Battlezone and Asteroids to be played completely within the system.

The schematic, Gerbers, BOM, firmware, and even instructions for a bonus IR remote can all be found on the project’s GitHub repo.

We’ve all been there: you pick some random anachronistic object up from the thrift store, with vague intentions of sticking a microcontroller in it and giving it a new life, but usually its an old telephone or phonograph; not an entire church organ!?

That is, unless you’re Sam Battle, better known as Look Mum No Computer, who drove halfway across the UK to extract an organ he bought on eBay that had been fairly comprehensively plumbed into a small house.

Sam then designed a custom organ/MIDI interface board, based around the Teensy 2.0 ++ plus a handful of ULN2803A Darlington transistor arrays to control the many, many, many solenoids used by the organ. See it in action in the video below, or grab the Gerbers and source code from the LMNC site, should you find yourself in a similarly absurd situation!

 

What do you get when you cross 12,000 LEDs with a pile of Teensy 4.1s and ESP32s, then toss in  Schrödinger’s Equation for good measure?

If you guessed something along the lines of “Robin Baumgarten’s latest project” then we will gladly award you full credit, plus bonus points if your guess was based on having read about his Teensy 3.2-powered Quantum Garden project on our blog back in 2018. Robin’s latest project is overgrown with even more LEDs, even more spring door stopper things, and even more all-around awesomeness in the form of a Quantum Jungle!

Like the Garden, the Quantum Jungle uses the three Teensy boards to render LED data. Using the TriantaduoWS2811 library, they are able to realize 1.065 million LED updates per second while using zero CPU cycles. A PC running a custom C# application sends the LED data over the Teensy’s 100Mbit Ethernet, as well as handling all the fancy quantum stuff in Python. The springs are connected to NXP MPR121 capacitive touch sensor controllers, which are in turn connected to ESP8266s in order to overcome I2C address limitations involved in connecting the controllers directly to the three Teensy boards. An additional ESP8266 reads their data over Wi-Fi frequencies using ESP-NOW, without the need for a router. This in turn is connected to one of the Teensy 4.1s, which sends the touch data back to the PC over Ethernet for processing.

More information about the project can be found on Robin’s web site, as well as in the video below.

As things finally start to warm up slightly in the northern hemisphere, it feels like only a matter of time until spring celebrations are in full swing.

But how does one stand out among all the “DIY wedding hacks”? One idea that stood out to us is Playful Technology’s Audio Guestbook — an upcycled handset that allows guests to record fun, personal messages.

Hardware-wise, it’s a relatively simple affair: in addition to the Teensy Audio Board and Teensy 4.0, just a few connectors are required to interface with the old copper-network dog-and-bone. Software and detailed instructions are available on GitHub, including numerous community-contributed enhancements to the original project.

The accompanying how-to video’s comments are littered with folks who successfully recreated the project for their weddings — let us know if you’ve made something similar with a Teensy for your upcoming special event … and don’t forget our invite! <3

The thirst is real, but the question is: how real is it? Are you experiencing a particularly thirsty Thursday, or an unusually dry Sunday? Unless you have the metrics, it can be hard to say for sure.

Pepijn de Vos set out to answer questions like these with the advent of his Teensy 3.1-based Smart Cup Holder.

The device consists of a LEGO chassis, plus a straight bar load cell and HX711 amplifier. Each time the cup is placed on the holder, it is measured, with a negative differential implying hydration, and an increase in weight implying replenishment, with a new threshold to measure against.

Hydration monitoring is accomplished via a GNOME Shell Extension that reads from TTY, or InfluxDB using Telegraf/tail. A write-up about the project can be found on Pepijn’s blog, with source code for the Teensy and Gnome portions, plus building instructions, found on the GitHub repo.

While QWERTY dominates the world of computer keyboards, there exist many less-common layouts such as DVORAK and various chorded offerings that tout numerous advantages over the dominant format.

Similarly, in the world of musical keyboards, the traditional piano layout dominates, but sundry alternative input layouts offer potential advantages to their users. The Wicki-Hayden layout groups notes in a more logical fashion, and it was this unique arrangement that KOOP Instruments look to explore with their Teensy 4.1-based Melodicade MX.

Building on the arcade-button-based Melodicade, the MX uses Cherry MX-compatible mechanical key switches, which are both smaller and less expensive than arcade buttons, allowing 6+ octaves to fit in the space of 4.5 octaves’ worth of 24mm arcade buttons (while saving about $100!).

A complete build guide, including code, CAD Files, and BOM can be found on the KOOP Instruments web site, and a detailed demonstration of the instrument’s capabilities, as well as a delightful rendition of the Pokke Village theme from Monster Hunter Freedom Unite can be found in the video below.

The main antagonist in Netflix’s 2018 series Maniac, the GRTA mainframe computer, is described as the most advanced artificial intelligence ever created.

It seems fitting then, that when forum user waltsatan aka Alan Watts received the call to bring production designer Alex DiGerlando’s vision to life, he selected a Teensy 3.1 to power it.

Gertie, as she is more affectionately known, consists of 1,476 addressable RGB LEDs, along with 7-segment numerical displays, analog meters, and “hard drive” activity lights. The resultant visual output matches the camera’s frame rate in order to allow the computer’s “actual” animations to be used directly, rather than simulated in post. Time-based animations are generated via a custom GUI and PHP script, and run autonomously or in a user-controlled “puppet” mode.

Much like the show’s Dr. James Mantleray, we fell hopelessly in love with this more modern and empathetic version of HAL 9000, and were blown away to learn that Alan created her in under 5 weeks!

We’re big fans of Ken Shirriff, as evidenced elsewhere on our blog, and we like to think he’s maybe a fan of us too, as evidenced by another Teensy-based project in the form of his IBM System/360 Model 50 mainframe marginal check console.

This tactile panel reads knobs and drives a meter over I2C, which in turn connect to Ken’s IBM 360/50 Simulator via the host Teensy 4.1.

As Ken reminds us, The IBM System/360 Model 50 was a powerful mainframe computer in 1964 that could be rented at a modern-day equivalent cost of $150,000 a month, weighed 3 tons, and used 7600 watts, yet has less than a millionth of the processing power of a modern smartphone.

The heyday of the Hi-Fi is lamentably behind us, with elaborate consoles that once took pride of place in the living room replaced by slim soundbars under TVs, or often obviated completely as tinny handheld devices become peoples’ only multimedia interface.

But if you want to add a VU meter or spectrum analyser (or both!) to your system, Mark “The Electronic Engineer” Donners has just the (Teensy-based, of course!) thing!

Mark’s solution consists of a custom PCB that houses a Teensy 4.1 (with PSRAM), our Audio Adaptor board, and dual ILI9341 displays.

Source audio can be via stereo line in, or an optional mono electret microphone. Gerbers and firmware are available on GitHub, with complete instructions on Instructables.

Ted Fried aka MicroCore Labs is back with another Teensy-powered retro rocket! In January we featured the “world’s fastest” Commodore 64, which used Ted’s drop-in 6510 CPU replacement, the MCL64.

With the C64 already off and breaking records, it was time to turn his tuning skills on the TRS-80 Model III.

Like the MCL64, the MCLZ8 is a drop-in replacement for the machine’s original CPU, in this case the 8-bit Zilog Z80. With cycle-accurate emulation already in place, Ted is of course already scheming ways to improve performance, like moving the Model III’s RAM/ROM inside the Teensy 4.1 as well.

Be sure to check the MicroCore Labs blog for updates, and as always, the Projects GitHub repo for schematics and firmware.