Since I’ve not seen this solution anywhere else (maybe because it’s crazy), I ought to put it out there.

The background of this workaround is that in my apartment, I am granted free internet usage by the University of Denver. This comes with the condition that I have to use Cisco’s lovely VPN client at all times to get a connection. This is on my Macs and PC’s, even those with built-in VPN capability. Since the VPN client must be running to get any internet connection at all, devices like the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Playstation Portable, and what have you, cannot get online on the University wireless.

At least, not without a little help.

My first thought was just to use Nintendo’s WFC dongle, essentially a Nintendo-only USB device that creates a local wireless network to connect to Nintendo’s servers. That was no good. Both the Nintendo WFC Connector and the Cisco VPN client require the sharing of a network connection on your machine. I’m not sure about Macs (WFC Connector is PC only), but on Windows you can only have one shared connection at a time. I had a crazy idea, though. And it worked.

My setup to get my Wii online now works as follows: On my PowerMac G5, I run Windows XP at absolute minimal settings in a Virtual PC. The Virtual PC leeches internet connectivity from the Mac, but the connection is NAT’d and the VPC believes it’s coming in on an ethernet card. The VPC is more than happy to share this connection with the Nintendo WFC Connector, which is plugged into a hub on top of the G5. This virtualized machine keeps my Nintendo equipment connected for a sliver of the G5′s 2 GB of RAM. It’s not great, but it works, and that’s good enough for me for the time being.

EDIT: After further testing, I’ve determined that this also works with WinXP running a second WinXP install under VMWare Workstation (with WFC software version 1.04 and VMWare Tools installed). I don’t see any reason why Linux couldn’t do the same with its version of VMWare. VirtualPC 2007 on Windows, however, can’t use this trick because it doesn’t support USB.

I was granted an old, software-less, questionably-functional Apple III by a roommate during my third year at Ohio State. Over the next two years I gutted it and built a PC with a Mini-ITX motherboard (VIA) inside it. Features include:

• Internal power supply using original power switch
• RCA output to original green & black monitor (or a TV)
• iMac USB keyboard integrated in place of original KB
• DVD-ROM drive in place of internal floppy drive
• 3D Graphics card in PCI slot
• Additional Hard Disk in old Floppy housing
• Runs Windows XP Pro

For information on the matching mouse, check out this post.

If an NES game wasn’t working, you pulled it out, blew on it, and stuck it back in, right? Right.

Today I believed the wireless card in my trusty G5 Tower had gone out. Every other computer in my apartment connected beautifully to the network, even my laptop when I sat it on top of the G5. Full bars all around. My old co-worker who is now a Mac Genius™ was online at the time, and he ran me through a few troubleshooting steps. When it was coming down to making an appointment at the Genius Bar, we had the idea to re-seat the chip. He told me where it was and I opened up the box, pulled out the chip, blew on it as NES users learned to do, and put it back in. Closed up the box, booted, full bars ever since. I know the NES blowing technique is largely superstition, but sometimes it really does work. Makes you wonder where else it might work, eh?

For my second time around in OSU Art & Technology’s Robotics class, we went for a bit more of a challenge, using loose PIC chips instead of the Basic Stamp. We built our own circuits with sockets in them, then socketed microprocessors we programmed and “burned”.

The concept I was working with here is that due to fairly typical insecurities about my art, I get uncomfortable when people look at it, even in a gallery setting. The piece consists of a small box, painted the white of the gallery space. On this box is a title card with “Title Card” and my name on it. A few feet to either side of this box, mounted on the wall, are two small white objects about the size of matchbooks. Emerging from their tops are bright red puffballs on springs. If you approach the central box to examine the title card, the red puffballs on springs spin to get your attention. If you approach from the right, the left puffball (the one in your field of vision) spins and vice versa. The closer you get to the title card, the more quickly the balls spin, desperate for your attention.

The spinning balls were powered by tiny remote control car motors. Their controllers were wired directly to the PIC in the central box. When the ultrasonic sensors on the front sides of the box detected something in front of them, they signaled the appropriate remote unit over radio waves, triggering the spinning response. It was almost too easy to hack into the remote control mechanism. It felt like it shouldn’t have worked so nicely, but it did. Perhaps that’s because the tiny RC cars were just a few dollars a piece at Big Lots?

These videos were taken in-situ at the quarterly Art & Technology exhibition:

The Robotics class at The Ohio State University begins with a crash course in electrical engineering and culminates with a single large, complicated, usually expensive project. My project was a plastic hand, the likes of which you find at toy stores, connected to a steel framework with a hand pad in the center. Pressing your fingers into the springy fabric of the hand pad would cause the hand to react.

The hand pad concealed five flex sensors harvested from an old, rotten Power Glove. I got the glove for $15 on eBay. Buying the sensors new would have cost about $10 a piece. The sensors were sandwiched between two layers of extremely elastic fabric. When active, these sensors would collect data on how many fingers were being pressed into them. The pseudo-robotic hand would then express the same number using a binary method of finger counting I learned from some KGB (Keeping Geeks Busy) members at Carnegie Melon University. My goal was to depict how even simple concepts like one-digit numbers are understood differently by a machine.

Initially the Art faculty at OSU wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about the project. After visiting artist Stellarc expressed interest in my project, however, there was a sudden spike in my esteem within the Art & Technology program.