Ben Heck uses the Propeller!!!

SciNemo

I saw this video on Engadget today:
www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/the-engadget-show-inside-ben-hecks-magic-kingdom/

..Of the renowned hacker extraordinaire Ben Heck, and I noticed something quite interesting. At 1:29 in the vid you can clearly see that he is using the propeller tool [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Even if the propeller reference isn't cool, the rest of the video is very good and worth seeing.

It's nice to know that some of the best (or at least most famous) hackers in the world use the propeller tool.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Not the fish.
sites.google.com/site/bitwinproject/

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

Hes probably lurking the forums and getting a chuckle from this thread.. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

OBC

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
New to the Propeller?

Visit the: The Propeller Pages @ Warranty Void.

ericball

He's using it to control his custom Bill Pullman themed pinball machine. benheck.com/10-09-2009/hold-flipper-for-status-update-2

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Composite NTSC sprite driver: Forum
NTSC & PAL driver templates: ObEx Forum
OnePinTVText driver: ObEx Forum

CounterRotatingProps

""" The I/O board is pretty useful, in the SPIN code (that runs the Propeller microprocessor) I have a method called “PollIO” that is your basic “run this all the time” routine to sense buttons and light up lights. There are (2) 32-bit output banks and (1) 32-bit input bank that are polled simultaneously to save time. The solenoid control will likely be added to this.

PollIO returns a 32-bit value called “Sense” which I then check bitwise to see the switches, such as ball drain, ball shot and targets hit.

Ironically, even with 4 gigs of SD storage space for music and sound, the operating program itself must fit within the 32k of EEPROM on the Propeller board. With all I/O functionality loaded as seen in the demo above I’m currently using about 50% of this. It may not sound like a lot, but it should be sufficient. All the “chunky” parts are already in there, the rest is “IF THENS”. """

Looks like the "ball drain" function is whats on the video [noparse]:)[/noparse])

This polling method is the way all the pin ball games used to work - and the outputs usually ran through a matrix with a gob of SCR's for all the solenoids and lights. (Brings back fond memories of repairing these games ... especially of picking smashed glass shards out of the rubber bumpers ... after a drunk irritated game-looser decided to experiment with his beer bottle on the glass plate.)

Actually, wouldn't a real pin ball machine be one of the ideal things for a Prop!?

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

Bob Lawrence (VE1RLL)

Who the heck is Ben anyway?


Could you imagine what he could do if he had a garage to work in instead of a spare bedroom

Adam Wiesler

Darn, I was about to post the same thing, then found this. Pretty neat

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
My website www.quigleyelectronics.com/

OakGraphics

I would imagine he lurks at least the OBEX.
Looking at his cool project - I see he is using the propeller for the entire pinball game really. On his youtube channel you can see he really talks about the propeller and how he is using it a lot. www.youtube.com/user/benheckdotcom
In some of his postings and youtube - you can see he left more 'hints' to how he does things:

PollIO: 2x 32bit output and 1x 32bit input via shift registers:
"Bill, the 74HC595 is exactly the shift register I’ve been using on this pinball. I have 3 banks of 32 bit inputs (4 registers each) and 2 banks of serial inputs 32 bits each. (using 4021BE’s for that, NES style!) Each has its own data I/O line, but the clocks and latches are tied together.
Thus you can get/fill (5) 32-bit values at the same time. This keeps within the variable size limit of the Propeller (32 bits) and only takes up 7 pins (with an 8th as reserve)
I still have several pins left over even with that, the display and the sound I/O.
32k hasn’t been a problem yet, the kernel takes up about 15k leaving the rest for the game itself. I think I’ll be fine."
benheck.com/10-09-2009/hold-flipper-for-status-update-2


Shift register 512 LED matrix:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOBeSnjYdWk&feature=related

SD card based LED Matrix animations:
www.youtube.com/user/benheckdotcom#p/u/29/z9SOa1OBu5I


Multi Ball Loader Test:
www.youtube.com/user/benheckdotcom#p/u/1/zWWfT673nYI

Mosfet solenoid control for Bill Paxton Pinball
www.youtube.com/user/benheckdotcom#p/u/3/oeJz7SSJ0Os

SD Card based Effects and Quotes:
www.youtube.com/user/benheckdotcom#p/u/8/Vf7FqW1Mslc

led matrix bitmap display driver
www.youtube.com/user/benheckdotcom#p/u/31/jBwTQWOv0e0
This one is cool. He edits a bitmap on the pc, saves as a 1-bit color bmp (I supose) to an sd -and then can read the sd for the bmp and display it on the custom 512 led matrix via the propeller. Would love to see the source for that!

THere are lots more videos there to peel through is progress.

Baggers

Well spotted, lol, he's done some fantastic projects over the years [noparse];)[/noparse]

If he is lurking over the forums I hope he says hi on this thread at least!!

Oakgraphics, if you want a bmp to 1bit raw file, my bmp8tolite ( in the hydra forum in the thread about 2600 display ) can convert an 8bit bmp into a 1bit array
just be doing

bmp8tolite sourcefilename -bitmap2

sourcefilename is the name of the 8bit bmp you want to convert, without the .bmp extension.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
http://www.propgfx.co.uk/forum/·home of the PropGFX Lite

·