Lets Talk Usb Accessories!

[danielliu88888]

I will probaly stick to downloading roms cause the first console I ever had was N64 but this looks really cool anyway.

i wouldn't recommend announcing you're a pirate (or that you have pirated many times before). i think this falls right on the border of what's allowed and what's not.

 

[jlepley]

Indeed...

 

[VRAndy]

Hey, At least they gave him a good magazine to read before they hanged him.

 

[michaeljustman]

Wow, really cool Matthias. You should do a write up on how it's done and post it on something like Hackaday.

 

[Matthias_H]

Wow, really cool Matthias. You should do a write up on how it's done and post it on something like Hackaday.

"How it's done" - actually, on the hardware side this is really just the development kit plus a huge bunch of cables. Unfortunately, I built the firmware upon a sample application from Atmel, and their license forbids the distribution of the source. (I can still explain what I did, and even spread the binaries, though )
To make the whole thing a bit more beautiful (and perhaps put it in a little plastic case), I designed a circuit yesterday that just contains all the essentials on one board. I will do some testing, add more game systems, etc. and once the whole project reaches a state where it can go public, we can think about group-ordering a batch of professional PCBs and parts (almost everything gets a lot cheaper at as few as 25 pieces)

M

 

[pelrun]

You could try using LUFA instead of the atmel code - from what I hear it's a lot better, and it's MIT licensed so you could readily release the source if you wanted.

 

[DigitalWings]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/keyboards-mice/5a7f/

Posted this in another topic seemed like it also belonged here

 

[danielliu88888]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/keyboards-mice/5a7f/

Posted this in another topic seemed like it also belonged here

and in yet another topic, mweston mentions that a usb keyboard and mouse could considerably affect battery life.

 

[Axaj]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/keyboards-mice/5a7f/

Posted this in another topic seemed like it also belonged here :"]

and in yet another topic, mweston mentions that a usb keyboard and mouse could considerably affect battery life.[/quote]This would be way better.

 

[jlepley]

There are only two situations I know of when downloading a ROM off of the internet could be acceptable.

1. You own a physical copy of the game, but the anti-piracy protection prevents you from copying it yourself.

2. The game has neither been released in your country nor in a language you know, so a ROM with a translation patch is the only way you could play it. (i.e. Earthbound Zero)

 

[lulzfish]

3. The games are in your attic somewhere, and it is much easier to copy it from a pirate than to fetch it, copy it, and put it back.

 

[DigitalWings]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/keyboards-mice/5a7f/

Posted this in another topic seemed like it also belonged here :"]

and in yet another topic, mweston mentions that a usb keyboard and mouse could considerably affect battery life.

This would be way better.[/quote]You would think that, but I have heard many mediocre reviews about them that they are not that good for long periods of typing both due to the surface you put it on and the lack of tactile feed back. Also on that think about how much energy you use typing on a normal keyboard and how much is absorbed by the key moving and think about how much it could hurt to type for long periods. If you don't plan on typing for long periods then there is nothing wrong with the thumbkeyboard built in.

 

[danielliu88888]

There are only two situations I know of when downloading a ROM off of the internet could be acceptable.

1. You own a physical copy of the game, but the anti-piracy protection prevents you from copying it yourself.

2. The game has neither been released in your country nor in a language you know, so a ROM with a translation patch is the only way you could play it. (i.e. Earthbound Zero)

1. it's not legal. even if you have the game, unless you backed it up yourself, it's still illegal. if you bought a copy of pokemon and decided to pirate a bunch more, nintendo wouldn't lose any money, but it's still stealing games. (even if you wouldn't have bought those extra copies).

2. not true. the only way this would be legal is, again, if you backed up your own copy and applied a translation patch to it. for your information, earthbound zero is not a translation, it is a real game that was just never released. somehow it was leaked, so it's not an official game, nintendo cannot make any money from it, it is perfectly legal to "pirate" this game.

i believe that if the game is no longer available or the company that released it can no longer make any money from the game itself, it is not illegal to "pirate" the game. such companies are trying to prevent piracy this way by re-releasing old games through things like xbox live arcade and virtual console. however, nintendo still refuses to release earthbound on virtual console, so i "pirated" it to spite them, since it's not "illegal".

 

[DigitalWings]

There are only two situations I know of when downloading a ROM off of the internet could be acceptable.

1. You own a physical copy of the game, but the anti-piracy protection prevents you from copying it yourself.

2. The game has neither been released in your country nor in a language you know, so a ROM with a translation patch is the only way you could play it. (i.e. Earthbound Zero)

1. it's not legal. even if you have the game, unless you backed it up yourself, it's still illegal. if you bought a copy of pokemon and decided to pirate a bunch more, nintendo wouldn't lose any money, but it's still stealing games. (even if you wouldn't have bought those extra copies"].

2. not true. the only way this would be legal is, again, if you backed up your own copy and applied a translation patch to it. for your information, earthbound zero is not a translation, it is a real game that was just never released. somehow it was leaked, so it's not an official game, nintendo cannot make any money from it, it is perfectly legal to "pirate" this game.

i believe that if the game is no longer available or the company that released it can no longer make any money from the game itself, it is not illegal to "pirate" the game. such companies are trying to prevent piracy this way by re-releasing old games through things like xbox live arcade and virtual console. however, nintendo still refuses to release earthbound on virtual console, so i "pirated" it to spite them, since it's not "illegal".[/quote]I believe if you read his post carefuly he said something along the lines of "when I see it's acceptable" not "when it is legal".

 

[valhalla]

There are only two situations I know of when downloading a ROM off of the internet could be acceptable.

1. You own a physical copy of the game, but the anti-piracy protection prevents you from copying it yourself.

1. it's not legal. even if you have the game, unless you backed it up yourself, it's still illegal. if you bought a copy of pokemon and decided to pirate a bunch more, nintendo wouldn't lose any money, but it's still stealing games. (even if you wouldn't have bought those extra copies).

it's not legal, but it's not stealing either: it's going against one law to be able to enjoy the rights you have from another law (a personal backup copy).

2. The game has neither been released in your country nor in a language you know, so a ROM with a translation patch is the only way you could play it. (i.e. Earthbound Zero"]

2. not true. the only way this would be legal is, again, if you backed up your own copy and applied a translation patch to it. for your information, earthbound zero is not a translation, it is a real game that was just never released. somehow it was leaked, so it's not an official game, nintendo cannot make any money from it, it is perfectly legal to "pirate" this game.

i believe that if the game is no longer available or the company that released it can no longer make any money from the game itself, it is not illegal to "pirate" the game. such companies are trying to prevent piracy this way by re-releasing old games through things like xbox live arcade and virtual console. however, nintendo still refuses to release earthbound on virtual console, so i "pirated" it to spite them, since it's not "illegal".[/quote]No, it's never legal do download a game, even if it is no longer sold anywhere; the terms for public domain depend only on time passed from an event (publication or death of the author), and they are so long that no computer game, not even tennis for 2, is even close to reaching it.

Even if the game was never published, copyright applies at creation, so you wouldn't be allowed to legally download / share it either; additionally, you may be violating some other law on industry secrets.

While being illegal, however, "abandonware" (as opposed to unreleased leaks) does no damage to anybody, and thus there are little moral grounds to keep it illegal.

 

[Pleng]

QUOTE (last few posts)
blah blah blah legal illigal blah blah yadda yadda acceptable yibbadi yibbadie


Please don't let this turn into another thread about the legality or acceptability of downloading ROMS.

 

[danielliu88888]

blah blah blah legal illigal blah blah yadda yadda acceptable yibbadi yibbadie

Please don't let this turn into another thread about the legality or acceptability of downloading ROMS.

aethix started it

 

[jlepley]

QUOTE (last few posts"]
blah blah blah legal illigal blah blah yadda yadda acceptable yibbadi yibbadie

Please don't let this turn into another thread about the legality or acceptability of downloading ROMS.[/quote]aethix started it

I was only replying to you and Shaun. B)

 

[Matthias_H]

.

 

[Matthias_H]

Well now, I made a pretty lousy video and within 48 hours the whole thing exploded into a veritable WWW hype (the project was featured on Hackaday, Engadget, and Gizmodo. Over 13,000 views on YouTube).

For anyone who is interested, I made a project website:

http://www.snega2usb.com

Enjoy!
Matthias