Hackaday Links: June 4, 2017

Quick question: what was the first personal computer? We love pointless arguments over technological history, so let’s just go down the list. It wasn’t an IBM, and the guy who invented the personal computer said he didn’t invent the personal computer. The Apple I is right out, and there were some weird Italian things that don’t quite count. Here’s an auction for, “The first personal computer”, a MICRAL N, released in 1974. There’s an 8080 running at 500kHz with 16kB of RAM and ‘mixed memory’. This is an important bit of history that belongs in a museum, and the auction …read more

Continue reading Hackaday Links: June 4, 2017

Mission Control for Kerbal

[Niko1499] had a plan. He’d built a cool hardware controller for the game Kerbal Space Program (KSP). He got a lot of positive reaction to it and decided to form a company to produce them. As many people have found out, though, that’s easier said than done, and the planned company fell short of its goals. However, [Niko1499] has taken his controller and documented a lot about its construction, including some of the process he used to get there.

If you haven’t run into it before, KSP is sort of half simulator, half game. You take command of an alien …read more

Continue reading Mission Control for Kerbal

DIY Command Station for Kerbal Space Program is Overkill

We’ve seen custom controller mods for Kerbal Space Program before, but a group calling themselves the Makerforce went a step further with their design and build of the KSP “Overkill” Command Station, which has much more in common with a fancy standup arcade unit than a custom controller. Kerbal Space Program is a hit indie game that, among other things, simulates the challenges of spaceflight. Like most games, you use the mouse and keyboard for control but many fans find this too limiting. With the help of a software mod that exposes control and status information over hardware serial communications, …read more

Continue reading DIY Command Station for Kerbal Space Program is Overkill