JDM Pic Programmer
PIC devices are cool little beasts. Call 'em Peripheral Interface Controllers, Programmable Interface Controllers or Programmable Intelligent Computer; they're simple chip based computers. However, they're not computers in the conventional sense; they won't play Quake or run Excel. They can drive an LCD, make an LED array strobe like a Cylon or, in my case, help you cheat at Track and Field.
Some background is in order. My dad is really good at Pac-Man. Back in the mid 80s, we would go to a local ice cream shop (the Milk House, Chatham NY) where he would rock a single quarter for what seemed like hours. While he was chasing dots, I'd hit up the other machine. It tended to change fairly often, but I ended up playing a lot of Track and Field by Konami. Something about mashing buttons like a hyperactive squirrel monkey appealed to me at 10 years old.
Fast forward to 2008. Track and Field is out on XBox live and I've built a stick out of arcade parts. The problem is, my fast-twitch button mashing is waaaaay past it's prime. Add in sore shoulders from Thai boxing and my mustachioed olympian is looking pretty rough.
Science. It works ...
Problem: need to generate alternating button clicks on the B and X buttons on the Xbox 360 controller.
Depending on the version of the controller, a click can be active high or active low.
Solution: build a circuit that generates alternating pulses to these lines.
Hmmm... sounds a lot like something for our good buddy Mr. 555.
But having built nearly a hundred circuits with a timer, I wanted to play with something else.
Enter the PIC.
With a PIC I could have buttons tied to an input that would start my program.
The program would simply send alternate high/low signals to the outputs.
I could even add a potentiometer to control the speed.
The only significant hurdle was the need for a programmer. The PIC code gets written and compiled on the PC. It then needs to be copied to the chip. Hitting up google, I found a ton of options...