So I was wandering about a pound shop the other day, and spotted this.. A common or garden boyfriend remote, as sold in all the best junk shops around the globe. However, after standing and prodding it awhile, listening to the unintelligable junk noises it made, I let out a small shirk of glee, for at that moment, I was holding the most amazing thing in the world. probably. So I composed myself as best I could, avoided the funny looks I recieved and purchased one boyfriend remote. I could hardly contain myself until I got home. (literally, I live quite a dull life) Why was i so excited? I asked myself that too. But here's my situation: I have most of my music collection on the pc, and wherever I am, the computer is generally making noise. However, i'm sure it's happened to all of us, you're rockin' along to some super heavy metal, then along comes "the little mermaid" theme someone sent you as a hilarious joke. So what do you do? You skip the track ofcourse, but what does that involve? wandering to the puter, unlocking the screen..blah blah.. Anyway, here's where the super boyfriend remote control comes in! Yes it even sports a handy user manual! I'm sure a few people out there will know of a program called "com-port winamp control" (or something like it) it basically lets you control winamp, from the com-port. You can have up to 15 buttons and have them do anything u like to winamp (even start other random programs if you want) So I set about this box, and popped the lid off, and was greeted by a lovely, bog standard cheapo PCB, and whatnots.. I found a serial extension cable I had aquired for a previous winamp remote control I had planned to do, and stripped off the wires I needed to solder onto the board. (all info on wiring diagrams on the com-control website) I simply scraped off some of the green stuff off the PCB, and soldered on my wires, so that the switches would short the correct wires. Super. However, once I connected that to the computer, whenever I pressed one button, it would think all four buttons were being pressed. Some witchcraft was going on inside the onboard IC. Sooo, I got me scalpel n scraped at the tracks till they were cut at the appropriate points, sure, it looked crappy, but it worked (The solder work is quite terrible, I know, but thankfully it's a blurry pic ) I cut me a notch for the cable.. and bonanza, a quality little remote control for winamp, all for around £2.50, which I currently think is the best thing, ever, since sliced bread I've not covered any of the wiring needed for this, generally cos it's pretty straightforward. There's lotsa guides on how to create your own com-port controller for winamp out there, (which would be much better than my explanations). Check out here for more ideas if you want to make your own remote. Com-port winamp available from here: http://diba.hotbox.ru/comctrl/index.html Also, could someone let me know if the images are the right (small) size? I've managed to get the large versions of the images in my cache, so that's all it's showing..
its unfortunate thats: 1- my soldering iron has dissapeared. 2- i have 0 elctronics knowlege. 3- im so lazy with stuff like this Else i'd make a winamp remote. But me being me i puchased a wireless keyboard and hey presto, a really big remote. some one make me one :'(
