anyone own a commodore 64 ??

Hi All,
I just thought I'd share a nifty modification I made to my scope here at home.
I was going through some old boxes last week when I came across my old Commodore 64 "computer" , if you want to call it that.
Good old Commodore, those were the days when writing a game was an artform, since you had to pack the entire program into less then 50KB of memory.!!

I was looking at the joystick and was thinking wouldn't be cool if I could control the scope (12" LX200 classic GOTO scope) with it, so I took apart the handcontroller and found the solder points where the bottons are attached to the main board of the handcontroller, and re-wired the joystick and hey presto, I can now control the telescope in the 8 cardinal directions and select 2 speeds from the joystick, the handcontroller is still alive so you can use it simultaneously.
The joystick is a simple 6 microswitch arrangement, 4 for direction and 2 for buttons, so pushing the joystick is equivilant to pressing a button on the hand controller, but it is way easier.

Looking at the autostar, such an arrangement would also be possible.
I bought a second handcontroller from astromart as the joystick is permanently attached the the orig handcontroller, and incase I blew the hell out of the orig handcontroller, its good to have a backup

If you want to do this, your joystick cannot be of the variety where the further you push in a direction, the faster you go (e.g a variable speed character in a game), it must a simple on/off joystick (uses microswitches).

Its a mod I'd highly recommend, you need a small bit of electrical knowledge, but is well worth it.
I can give a more detailed explaination, if anyone wants it.

Nice one Dave. I suppose the next thing is to integrate the C64's CPU into the LX200 so when its cloudy you can play Dig-Dug or maybe even Bomb Jack

Really interesting mod WTG:)

Dave.

Yea I want more details...

I didnt think you could just send voltage signals down to the autostar and have it respond, I thought you would need to implement the instruction set for this. Then again I dont own an LX200!

Dave,

Obviously these cloudy nights are getting to you!! :lol:

Michael Scully

That is such a cool idea!

..... and I thought I was a nerd ........

That is such a cool idea!

..... and I thought I was a nerd ........

What would be cool would be to build a voice activation box to accept the commands!

"left" "left" "up" "left" "follow that star!"

clouded over, no more geminids for me