What could be more interesting than playing video games? Of course, design your own video game hardware! If you follow these pages long enough, you will see dozens of excellent examples of homemade hardware, and you may be inspired to try such a project yourself. This usually starts from assembling the basic bit to the test board without welding, which is very good for programming, but not very good for testing: pressing the button into the test board can carry out basic debugging, but the user friendliness and reliability are not high. A better solution can be found in the gamebug of [dimitar]: a set of console like controllers compatible with the test board.
The design of the gamebug is very simple: a micro analog joystick, four buttons arranged in a diamond, a shoulder button and two sliding switches are located on a neat purple PCB. There are two rows of pin heads at the bottom to ensure a close fit with the solderless test plate. There is even a vibrating motor for tactile feedback.
Integrated readout electronics simplify the interface with gamebug. The de dithering circuit based on Schmidt trigger ensures clear signals from all buttons, and the motor driver chip provides a stable current for the tactile feedback system. RGB LEDs can be used as another user feedback device or only for decorative lighting.
All design files can be found on the GitHub page of [dimitar], and there is an Arduino sketch that can help you try the function of gamebug. There is a suitable game board that may be useful in a testboard based game system, such as duck hunting or this impressive mess of wires that make up a colecovision.