As much attention as ‘hacking’ and ‘making’ get, sometimes it seems that it’s still a fairly tight community of people that make really awesome stuff. This was reinforced when I saw the “Keychainino,” an old-school gaming device meant to be put on a keychain, for sale on Tindie, a version of which I’ve gotten to try out.
Although I don’t usually get to use the products I talk about here, I can definitively say, it’s a pretty neat little device. As shipped it plays a very simple Arkanoid-like game (see the video below) where you try to keep the ball in play for as long as you can. The version on Tindie is significantly larger that what is seen in the video and comes as a through-hole solder kit, rather than an assembled unit.
The device is powered via the ubiquitous CR2032 battery. I received mine several months ago, and through that non-use it seems to still have a good charge. Although you can just play pong on it, the device runs on an ATtiny84 microcontroller, meaning it can also be reprogrammed to do whatever you like. Personally, I’d love to see someone modify one with an accelerometer, microphone, or other sensor in order to make it react to movement or other stimulus. Perhaps you could even control the Arkanoid paddle, AKA ‘Vaus,’ this way.
Shown below is the surface-mount version, however the functionality of the larger model should be the same.
My original review of this device can be found here on my personal blog.
