Hi there! I'm the original author of the chatpad reverse eng/firmware, and I just discovered it was been featured on the Ben Heck show because a student contacted me with questions about it. This stuff happens often with many of the project I used to release back in the days, and I just wanted to take a minute to tell you how awesome it is to me. Keep sharing!
@@jean80it I was wondering how you managed to convert it to output ASCII, I'm assuming it's a UART signal and I have no idea of how to go about it. I was looking to see if it was possible to hook it up as a USB HID device for one of my pi projects. Any chance you could help with that?
Fugitive's Broadcast the pic should be 16f883 and does not offer usb abilities out of the box (if memory serves me right) so you would have an hard time with that even if you wanted to mod the firmware. Serial is one of the easiest protocols out there, and most “pc-on-a-single-board” (*coff*raspberry*coff*coff*) offer dedicated pins for hardware UARTS. Otherwise, you could buy a serial to USB converter - but you still would have to convince the host machine to treat a serial stream as a keyboard.
SNIPINGEARS (sub to new channel) Thank you"""""" my one friend is saying this is not a computer it's just a phone I keep telling him this is a hand computer a smartphone just like a laptop is a computer meant to be on his lap.
Ben, this is a really impressive project! It is hardware modding, some code writing, and some design for the case. I'm amazed. If I tried to do this I'm sure I'd plug in the wrong voltage somewhere. I enjoy all these videos. Thanks!
***** ok but all of this diy solutions needs to be cheap to be actually archieved at home, neither a 3d printer or other tools are cheap, so...and you'll need a large electronic and programming knowledge, not simple at all to learn all this by yourself...it will take a lifetime to master this stuff, not few weeks...
sometimes I miss television and vhs tapes, but I don't even own a tv. I can get anything I need from the cloud. . Back when I was growing up they had stores where you could rent movies. You would check out little boxy things, and sometimes the specific boxy thing(s) you wanted would be checked out. It was similar to red box only a whole store filled with videos and snacks and stuff. Aw, the good-ole days. But if I could go back, I'd only visit. I enjoy the capabilities of modern times too much.
You want have a comment about your show. Here is it , YOUR SHOW IS ONE OF THE BEST RU-vid SHOWS EVER AND YOU A AWESOME GUY !!!!!! Please build Stuff for the rest of your life and put it on youtube !!!
"Woz-Ni-Hacker" ...LOL... I love it....just discovered your channel on RU-vid. Redoing a Dell i got at local thrift store for $14.95. (P4 - 256MB of RAM 20GB HD, Floppy, DVD-ROM) Using Puppy Linux. Wiped XP...not so bad for $14.95!
I love this episode. I noticed Ben is using Notepad++ , I have always used Crimson for PHP coding and what not. I really never heard of Notepad++, but I think I'm going to try that instead. I like the idea that it does code and text folding. Also I like about this episode is the In Circuit Serial Programming on that chat pad. I gotta try that with my TL866a :-)
Such an odd coincidence. I just had the thought to do something VERY similar about a week ago, and started researching parts and such, even going so far as to figure out about 10 different video output systems, including TVOut, LCD, etc... so i decided to search and of course, you already worked on this project. I also realized that I was not subscribed to you here. What's wrong with me?! Anyway, thanks for being awesome and inspirational, Ben.
I hate to say it, but this is probably the most useful tool Ben has ever made. Not that the other tools are not useful, but this small computer is indeed insanely useful! Basically, Ben has built the world's first digital multitool if you wish to call it that! This can be used for debugging computers, electronic components, pinball machines, arcade machines, ATM's, and it could even assist in debugging Java programs and such! Ben, this portable MS-DOS computer is the most useful electronic tool I have seen you build, and while some may think that it is cheating, an Arduino is still powerful enough to run Basic really well.
Well, it does not really run dos. Actually it runs a basic interpreter written in C, so its more like an own operating system (which can only run one program at a time). There's bitlash out there which can run multiple programs asyncronous and has a c-style syntax. But yes I agree to you that this is the best thing he ever made! It woke my interest in electronics and I bought alot of tools and parts since that. I can build a few of them, if i want to.
I'd like to see the entire build up. You didn't exactly put a "complete" tutorial. All you really showed was how to hook up the screen to the keyboard.
Gotta build me , one of these! Just found a chatpad for 8 bucks on Ebay, I think I have the rest of the stuff on hand. Might have to change screen though, I just built a TV-OUT board for a small 7 inch monitor I have, perhaps i will output to that, but it's just black and white,so maybe not Have to dig around and see what other type of monitor I can come up with, but then black and white would be about the same as the one you built. Could go bigger and perhaps use an USB mini keyboard that I have, or maybe a wireless one, think I have a couple of those laying around as well. Ah for the joy of the old Basic machines, cut my teeth on a C=64 and I had a couple of those old Tandy 100's as well as a few other basic laptops and portables. Man what I wouldn't give to have my tandy 100 back again.
I don't have a PIC chip from what it looks like on the chatpad, it is some type of Microsoft chip. It is the same size, and the layout on the pcb appears to be the same. Will it still work?
i want to do this with with the xbox chatpad to for making it Bluetooth capable with a bluefruit....only thing is im a complete noob and the chip on my chatpad is labeled microsoft X814364-001.....does this mean i can not re-program this chatpad/chip?
I was wondering if I could probably make something like this using a Casio digital diary. Or if you could use the digital diary with its keyboard and LCD for something cool
Can this be used to interfase with a serial bus (rs232) id like to build a handheld terminal for interfacing with the plc's (programable logic controllers) i use here.
@4:48, no need to remove the chip, instead just hold it in reset by grounding RST :-) Works for SMT unos too, in fact a Nano with a grounded RST is a home-made FTDI ! Remember tx & rx are reversed in this application.
I took a look at the code for arduino's tinybasicplus it comes with support for sd storage. I would love to see a revision with a custom made keyboard, an sd slot and an smaller arduino compatible board, not the whole thing, this looks like a cool device for schools to have
Does anyone have a link to his code? I'd actually be interested in trying to make this work. Got an Arduino for christmas, and I've been itching to do something other than dicking around with the tutorial kit.
Alright I know this is a now ancient video, but where do I get a microchip fabricated? I've designed a quite complex TTL computer and I need the 2 foot tall tower of electronics compressed into a single board preferably.
Hmm, too bad I missed this when it came out! Seems the test program at the end had the new arm attempting to go beyond where it was stopping resulting in a clicking sound. That was likely the sound of the gears slipping past which would result in stripped gearing over time. It may have been nothing, but could have been something also. Fun looking device none the less!
+thebenheckshow How did you get that display? When I looked on element14 that display came in a minimum order of 120. (I assume you did not order 119 extra displays). I would be grateful if you could point me to where I might purchase that particular display without having to buy 120 of them.
