For some reason yesterday, I pulled out my Nintendo DS, and remembered a few things about it. First up, it was the hackers platform of choice back in the day, before Arduinos and BeagleBoards took over the open source scene. And the second thing is, I wanted to make my own mobile phone using it.
Unfortunately, real life intervened, and the project got shelved. Eventually, I gave away most of the components, but getting that DS out lit the fire inside again – but this time, as a connected PDA.
I’m planning on getting some modules, specifically GSM, iDEN and Iridium SBD, as well as some other odds and sods. I might even hook up Zigbee, or a panStamp…! But how do I connect these things to the DS? Read on.
Its called an XPort. No, not the LAN adapter, this is a different one. And its available at www.charmedlabs.com. Its an FPGA the interfaces with Slot2 on the DS on one side, and digital I/Os on the other. It should be possible to make some serial ports and connect the modules to those serial ports.
Next up, we need a cheat cartridge. This’ll allow us to run unsigned code. There are alot of home brew applications out there for DS, including the operating system Inferno, and a SIP VoIP app.
The original design called for Inferno as the OS, and a connected palmtop computer to be made. This design I’m planning will have connectivity all over the world, be it be GSM, iDEN or satellite.
Now all I got to do is order all the parts…!
Woes - in a rack... 