ColecoMe - A first try to personalisation.

[newcoleco]

WHAT IS COLECOME

 

ColecoMe is a secret project that I kinda started to code these days, a project I was thinking to do long time ago (before year 2000 in fact). The idea is simply to add into a pre-made project some data from the user in order to make it personal, like a gift for a birthday or Valentine's day, in a form of a playable ColecoVision rom or cartridge. Even if the idea is simple, making this project real is still a challenge because of all the the hard work to code the application and the pre-made projects in order to do something easy and fun to use. So, before putting my efforts into to this big project, I've done something related to it that you might want to try and say "GOOD JOB!".

 

 

WHAT IS COLECOCAM

 

ColecoCam, no GUI (yet) - 1 picture taken per 10 seconds and rendered as a valid tms9928 bitmap screen, you click on the generated picture to download it as a valid ColecoVision rom file.

 

It's an online Flash application that runs (of course) in an Internet browser, using a Flash player plugin (version 10). It uses the webcam so the Flash player shows a popup "allow or deny". With the webcam input, the program will take a picture and render it based on TMS9928 technical data for a graphic mode 2 bitmap (which is the same as TI99/4a, MSX-1, Memotech 512, etc.) When you get a picture you like, you can click on it to download (if it works for you) a generated rom file (after a second or more) that you can use with a ColecoVision emulator or a ColecoVision test cartridge.

 

The actual Flash code pass the data (generated rom) base64 encoded to a PHP page that converts it back into a binary file to be able to (force) download it. It's a tricky manipulation because it's a virtual file, no actual rom file is generated on the server, it's created on the fly as a file just for you. This tricky manipulation is limited by the length a link string, so I'm not sure I can pass a 16KB rom size, I'm even surprised that it can actually generated 12KB roms for this application.

 

I've created a (official) link if you want to give it a try. If you do so, please tell me if it works for you... and don't flood the Internet with there 1 picture rom files, even if it's very funny or sexy.

 

URL : http://colecome.x10.mx/

 

Note: If you like this topic, let me know by a reply or vote for it.

[Yurkie]

Sounds cool Daniel, however all I get when I click on your URL is a blank white page. I am using mozilla firefox.

[newcoleco]

Sounds cool Daniel, however all I get when I click on your URL is a blank white page. I am using mozilla firefox.

Answer #1 : No (valid) camera selected for Flash. If so, try to right-click a Flash application to show the "security settings" popup and access the "camera panel (tab)" to configure (select) your webcam for Flash.

 

Answer #2 : Your webcam is already in use.

 

Answer #3 : I don't know what is the problem.

Edited January 10, 2011 by newcoleco

[Yurkie]

Sounds cool Daniel, however all I get when I click on your URL is a blank white page. I am using mozilla firefox.

Answer #1 : No (valid) camera selected for Flash. If so, try to right-click a Flash application to show the "security settings" popup and access the "camera panel (tab)" to configure (select) your webcam for Flash.

 

Answer #2 : Your webcam is already in use.

 

Answer #3 : I don't know what is the problem.

 

I didn't have a cam plugged in, I thought it was a more details link. Sorry I didn't fully understand your post. Could you shoot a self-portrait and post the rom as a sample?

[Yurkie]

Anyway a .jpg file could be converted instead of having to use a webcam?

[newcoleco]

Anyway a .jpg file could be converted instead of having to use a webcam?

In theory it's possible to open a file browser with a flash application.

 

Example : http://www.permadi.com/blog/2010/06/flash-as3-using-filereference-to-load-files-example-for-flash-cs4-and-above/

 

It may even be possible to use the clipboard functionalities (copy and paste).

 

But for the moment, it's webcam only.

[dooglehead]

It works for me. I like it!

[retroillucid]

ColecoCam works for me, pretty cool

 

Thanks Daniel!

 

+1

[Yurkie]

I got it to work also Daniel. Nice job.

[+retroclouds]

The actual Flash code pass the data (generated rom) base64 encoded to a PHP page that converts it back into a binary file to be able to (force) download it. It's a tricky manipulation because it's a virtual file, no actual rom file is generated on the server, it's created on the fly as a file just for you. This tricky manipulation is limited by the length a link string, so I'm not sure I can pass a 16KB rom size, I'm even surprised that it can actually generated 12KB roms for this application.

 

I suppose you are referring to the GET request maximum length. This maximum length varies depending on the browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox) and the webserver you use (Apache, ...). You don't have this limit if you send the data to the webserver using a POST request.

An easy way to do a POST request, is to submit the data as form data. POST is better suited for handling large sets of data.

 

I remember I had a problem with long URL's back at work (had to deal with Internet Explorer 6), sending the data using post resolved that issue.

[newcoleco]

... I remember I had a problem with long URL's back at work (had to deal with Internet Explorer 6), sending the data using post resolved that issue.

I remember too. so, I'm using POST and that's probably why I'm surprised.

 

* UPDATE *

 

A more user friendly version is uploaded.

 

If it works well you should see a monitor beside a ghostblaster cartridge with icons below them. Simply click on the down arrow icon to take a picture right away. Click on the clock-like icon to take a picture after a 3 seconds delay. Click on the up arrow to convert into a rom file. Considering that the down arrow and clock icons are below the monitor showing the video from the webcam, and the up arrow icon is below the cartridge, this very simple graphic interface should be easy to understand and to use.

 

LINK : http://colecome.x10.mx/