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The Versa-Tile

B
ehold, the Versa-Tile:

It's not just a solder-it-yourself Simon.  

It could be:

 - a self-contained electronic game

 - an electronic game driven by a computer

 - a versatile and interesting controller for your game

 

Technically, it’s an Interface between your computer / microcontroller and a set of buttons and coloured lights. ie a ‘driver’ and multiplexer for a set of lights and buttons, with all necessary buffering and protection.

Drive up to 7 LEDs / speaker / buzzer and/or listen to up to 5 buttons using just 3 input and 3 output lines, 5v or 3.3v

The reason for this multiplexing is that I wanted to create electronic games, driven by a Commodore, which has a user port containing 8 lines, (can be set individually to input or output). That's not quite enough for the five buttons, five lights and vibrator that you can see in the video. It's also useful if your  project is already using connections for other things and GPIO lines are limited. Or if you just want to keep the wiring to a minimum.

You can see me using it with an RC2014. I've written the game in Forth, and I'm using the i/o provided by the AY sound module. 

But it's desiged to connect to any retro computer, computer or microcontroller with at least 6 GPIO lines free, 5v or 3.3v.  So create your own games on the platform you like and in the language you choose.

I've also been experimenting with other computers and microcontrollers; the Vic20 / C64, a Mac via a USB->GPIO device and a Pi Pico:



My initial pcb order consisted of two versions; a larger self-contained version with five buttons, five LEDs and a vibrator on board, and a smaller version, designed to go into the box of a hardware project to drive, for example, five illuminated arcade buttons.

Both use through-hole components for a fun and educational soldering project 

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