If you own a Dingoo A320, you’ll know that the reset button is a critical feature (especially if you install Dingux). Sadly it’s hidden inside the case, accessible only via a toothpick or something else you’re not carrying. The solution is simple; a tiny screw inserted through the hole from the inside. I had to widen the hole a little to accommodate my screw of choice, and the screw head needed to be flattened down too. For the latter task, I put a Dremel grinder bit into a battery drill (the Dremel itself is a little bit hardcore for such a fiddly job), and slowly ground the head down until it was almost paper thin. The end result works like a bought one.

Spirits are high at camp Gruso, following the arrival of a legendary piece of gaming and synthesizer history: a Roland MT-32. If you’re familiar with the MT-32, then you’re already nodding knowingly. If not, I’ll bring you up to speed with some edited excerpts from Wikipedia.

The Roland MT-32 Multi-Timbre Sound Module is a MIDI synthesizer module first released in 1987 by Roland Corporation. Along with its compatible modules, it established an early de-facto standard in computer music.

Despite its original purpose as a companion to other professional MIDI equipment, the MT-32 became a de-facto standard for PC computer game publishers. Sierra On-Line, a leading PC game publisher of the time, took an interest in the sound-design of its PC games. Sierra secured a distribution deal to sell the MT-32 in the US, and invested heavily in giving its game titles (at the time) state-of-the-art sound by hiring professional composers to write in-game music. King’s Quest IV, released in 1988, was the first Sierra title with a complete musical soundtrack scored on the MT-32.

Although the MT-32′s high price prevented it from dominating the end-user market of gamers, other PC publishers quickly followed Sierra’s lead, expanding the role of music in their own game titles. The MT-32 remained the gold-standard for musical composition well into the early 1990s, when the game-industry began to shift toward the General MIDI label.

See also: List of MT-32-compatible computer games

Back in the day, when I was playing Sierra adventure games like Space Quest, Police Quest and Kings Quest on an old IBM XT clone, I had no idea this thing existed. Sure, it was listed in the sound options during setup, but along with the Sound Blaster and Ad Lib selections it was just some mystery thing that had nothing to do with me. All I had was the internal speaker. That horrendous single channel squawker was my aural gateway to gaming immersion, and I knew no better.

Here’s what Space Quest 3 sounded like when I played it: http://www.defacto2….SQ3-Speaker.mp3

And here’s what it sounds like through an MT-32: http://www.yvan256.n…le_-_LAPC-1.mp3

Ignorance truly was bliss. Still, I wouldn’t swap those old days of bleepy soundtracks for anything. One game that managed to make something out of nothing was Xenon 2. Through some very clever trickery they made a single channel bleep sound like multi-channel audio, and to this day the PC speaker version of that theme remains my favourite one.

Back to the present day, and I was very happy to discover that DOSBox has full support for the Roland MT-32 – even via a USB MIDI adapter, in Windows 7. I’m a sucker for the painful ways of old though, and am currently building an actual DOS box from an old PIII. It’s a toss up between Win95 and FreeDOS for the OS… I think Grim Fandango will probably make that decision for me.

Just a final note, if you own a GP2X you must check out Hooka’s port of FreeSCI for your Sierra fix. It’s superb. You can also play Sierra classics in your browser at sarien.net.

(Originally posted here July 2009)

This minor annoyance got the better of me recently, when I bought CellFactor:PW from XBLA. It’s a first person arena shooter in which you’re armed with one weapon and three psychic powers. These functions are mapped to the triggers and shoulder buttons (aka bumpers), and if you don’t have a finger on each of these four buttons at all times, you don’t really have a chance. My options were to change my grip to suit the controls, or change the controls to suit my grip.

I’m stubborn, I have a Dremel, decision made.

First I needed some buttons. A bit of digging around Benheck and the like told me that tact switches were the way to go. They’re basically microswitches, so they’re clicky, not the soft membrane type. I found this 10 pack of 12mm switches with button caps on eBay.

After extensive 3D modelling and wind tunnel testing, I decided where I wanted my new “shoulder buttons” to live (note pen marks). This is where the tips of my middle fingers sit during play. Somehow though, I knew something would thwart me in the first steps. And oh did it… notice the rumble motor sitting exactly where I don’t want it to? Great.

Then a light came on. Fixing these buttons inside so that they hold up to hours of gaming abuse is going to be a fiddly task. But in this position, I can just jam them under the motors where they’ll never move. I marked out the internals, and got busy with drill & Dremel. Rather than locating the holes on my original pen marks, I had to center them between the rails. And there happens to be a handy moulding mark on each side (see the faint circle in between the rails?) so I know the button positions will be symmetrical. Thanks Microsoft, very sporting of you.

That sorted, it was time to prep the electrical side of things. My idea was to find connection points at the existing bumpers, so that I could parallel the new buttons and leave the original ones functioning too. Sometimes things just go right. Note the black microswitches mounted vertically on the PCB – these are the bumpers. And the pair of silver contacts on top of each one are spares! How good.

You don’t need to see my soldering skills in close-up, so let’s skip that part and show everything connected. The buttons are currently held in place by some Loctite 406. It runs like water, and bonds instantly. It runs and bonds so well in fact, that I completely glued up the mechanisms in the first pair of buttons I installed. Criminy! This is take two, with less glue.

The button caps themselves had to be hacked brutally as well, so they could reach the mechanism through the controller shell and still have room to move. I’m not an artist, ok?

With everything connected and jimmied back into place, it was reassembly time. But it didn’t quite fit together. Didn’t see that coming, no sir.

This is where it starts to get ugly. The upper half of the controller shell had to be Dremel’d out to allow the rumble motors to sit higher. There are two things to be thankful for here. One, there is plenty of plastic to work with, so it’s just a matter of grinding it down. Two, the horrendous aftermath will forever be out of sight.

It all went back together nicely without too much pain. It’s shown here complete, but without screws.

The verdict? A huge success. They’re in just the right position, they’re fixed in place solidly to say the least, and they have a very satisfying click. It does take some minor brain re-training to use the right fingers at the right time, but that takes all of a few minutes to nail. Now I’ve got instant-twitch access to game functions that I barely used before.

What about the game that inspired it all then, CellFactor:PW? Has this mod really helped? I don’t know. I’ve been too busy playing BF:1943.

(Originally posted here July 2009.)

If you want to breathe new life into an old C64, there’s no better toy than a MSSIAH. In a nutshell, the MSSIAH is a naughty cartridge loaded with a bunch of synth and sequencing apps that tap into the 64′s legendary audio chip, the SID. And it’s got a MIDI in port too, giving you full control of the SID via your sequencer/VST of choice (more on MSSIAH VSTs in a future post).

MSSIAH is a fantastic piece of kit, but there are a few catches. If you want to tweak all those on screen knobs, you have to peck your way around the keyboard to highlight a control, then operate it with the joystick. Doable, but… nah. There are mouse options, but they’re expensive. Lastly and bestly, you can connect up to four potentiometers direct to the joystick ports. Many MSSIAH disciples go out and buy all the components, surface mount the pots on their C64, and wire them internally (find some of these projects here). I thought a bunch of old Pong paddles would be more fun.

Be warned, this project involved dismantling several innocent pieces of classic hardware. Their families have been notified. Here are the bits I started with.

- Commodore C64-C with 8580 SID (rev unknown) and missing “4″ key
- MSSIAH synth/MIDI cart, just out of sight (back right)
- uIEC/SD interface, hanging naked on the right
- 7″ LCD TV, picked up for a steal on the ‘bay
- On the left, an empty box. It used to be a Scitec Asynchronous Line Driver. Fascinating!

The aforementioned empty box will be the center of the action. It’s probably not the perfect box for the job, but who could turn down consistent styling like that? The things you find in the shed!

First stage complete; the world’s hugest SD card reader. The uIEC is incidental to the actual pot installation, but it’s a start. And it couldn’t have happened without the brave C64 cassette player that gave up its own worthless existence to provide me with a power cable, and a dashing gold panel label. Thanks, Serial No.870147.

Enter the paddles.

The polarity of the paddles first needs to be reversed so the on-screen controls rotate the right way. This just involves swapping around the two wires on each pot. I also picked up some little red buttons, to replace the original side triggers.

uIEC in the bottom half, pots in the top half.

Fin! Presenting the KnobJockey64:

(Originally posted here.)

The GP2X F200 d-pad, pictured above in its original form. What a bunch of bastards. Here’s how I (and a few plastic hacking proteges) solved the problem and made the device much more enjoyable. This is a minimal skill level mod that can be done with a pair of sidecutters / snips and some superglue. A soldering iron and a Dremel will make the job easier if you have access to them.

The first step is to snip out the center crosspiece, being careful to keep it intact. Then the tabs are snipped 2/3 of the way up from the bottom so they splay upwards. This will allow them to follow the angle of the button surface:

Using a soldering iron (I keep a spare tip handy for plastic work), the center piece is “tacked” into place:

Once it’s tacked around the sides, it’s flipped over and tacked around the bottom. Now it’s solid:

At this point some glue should de dripped into the seams to bond it all together more solidly. Try not to get any on the top surface of the d-pad! Here’s the first reassembly:

At this point the opening was not really wide enough, because the pad now needs extra lateral room to pivot. Disassembled, hit the opening with a Dremel, reassembled, all good. The total size of the opening is only about 1mm bigger (all around) than you see in the above pic. I was worried that I’d have to add a pivot point in the center of the pad too, but it’s not needed.

So how does it feel? Well it’s no Nintendo pad, but it’s still 100% better than before. There’s a bit of travel there and your thumb really “rolls” around when you’re playing, but hitting all the right spots in those unforgiving fighters and platformers is no trouble at all. It also works beautifully in games like Descent and Payback (GTA clone).

Here’s a quick demo vid, don’t judge my gaming skills yo. I was busy filming.

The original version of this post along with a heap of Q&A can be found here.