I plan to dedicate one of my Model 100s to use as a controller for my
80s robots.
These are my planned mods to implement this:
1. Internal retro wifi modem (oldnet.com)
I plan to make hack onto the MC14412 chip. I have no plan to
retain the original modem functionality, but if I did, I am thinking I
could implement this via the modem enable signal. That would also allow
me to control power to the ESP8266 so that it did not drain the battery
when not in use. I could bring the enable line out to a switch to
reconnect the enable line to the MC14412. At the moment, I can't really
think of why I might ever want the original modem.
I will use a Wemos D1 mini with an external antenna that I will attach
to the M100 body.
2. Complete my originally idea to port the TPDDuino project to the
sparkfun openlog hardware and make this internal
Here, I am thinking the BCR TTL serial mod would be appropriate.
This frees up the serial port which I will need for the robot control.
Not sure if TSDOS already supports this, however. There could could be
some benefits to the faster speed possible with the BCR hack.
3. Wireless serial
For this, I have not decided whether to use bluetooth or an HC-12
module. This will be in an external modules so that I can use the serial
port for other purposes. I do plan to add a fused 5V output to pin 25 of
the serial port. This was a common pin to use back in the day for adding
a power output. It doesn't appear to be connected to ground in the M100
per the schematics, but I will need to double-check.
4. Joystick mod mentioned previously
If I will be using the BCR port for the TPPDuino, then I will end
up implementing the ideas discussed in that thread for using the
parallel port. But I also might just hack into the keyboard matrix
arrows since this will be dedicated for this purpose. Still weighing
this while I work on the other mods.
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Interested in internal battery hacks. I have been thinking of installing
a 7.2V nimh pack. I am not really sure it could fit anywhere inside, though.
While looking through old magazines, I had seen products that were
available at the time which were battery packs that also doubled as tilt
stands. I liked the look of those and might end up 3-D printing
something like that. There was a simpler project to use a PVC pipe with
D cell batteries and the author fashioned that to also act as a tilt stand.
For my first M100, I had modified a book light to attach to the BCR port
to provide light for the LCD. I wasn't especially happy with it as the
clear plastic bezel is too glossy and reflected too much of the light. I
feel like if there were any possible enhancement here, it would need to
be some sort of front light mounted internally. This is probably outside
of how much effort I want to put into this.
Interested in hearing about any experience and efforts into trying to
improve the readability of the LCD.
