How To Build Your Own PS360 Controller

Yes that’s right – no longer will a person need to send me an email asking for this mod, only to have it unanswered! For I have now written a How-To on the process:

Click here for the Engadget How-To Article

I documented the process while I was building the second one of these and now the juicy info can be yours! (Includes copious amounts of photographs and arrows pointing at things.) Again I would like to be able to build these for any and everyone who asks, but time will not allow.

“What the Heck?” contest – guess my retail product!

As many of you don’t know I have been working with eDimensional, Inc. on a new gaming accessory. I’m pretty excited as this will be my first retail boxed product – yes I know my book was retail but it didn’t have a box now did it? They gave me a wide latitude on the design and the final product is very benheck – beyond the item itself I ended up doing all the box artwork and advertising items too. Everything is in line with my design aesthetic.


Never do a contest photo without your dial caliper.

Anyway there’s currently a contest running in which you can guess what we’ve cooked up and have a chance to win one, whatever it is. Go ahead and check it out! The tips I will give out is that it’s a gaming accessory (as mentioned) and the cost is under $100.

DISCLAIMER: Any real-life friends of Benjamin J Heckendorn, AKA “benheck”, who have possibly seen what the item is already should not enter because that would be pretty weak.

Movie review – “Grindhouse” (and why it bombed)

Every so often a movie comes along that’s right up my alley (or at least seems so based on the previews) – Grindhouse was one such film. I really enjoy bad movies, and also the double feature atmosphere of the drive in is fun as well. (Not sure if a Grindhouse is exactly like a drive-in, but I found the presentation to be very drive-in like, personally.)

So what follows is my review of both the movies found in Grindhouse – Planet Terror and Death Proof – and also my speculation as to why it bombed.

Continue reading Movie review – “Grindhouse” (and why it bombed)

Ancient cave artifact found!

I was going through some files on the computer when I came across an old crappy scan of a photo. I then realized I probably still had the original Polaroid, dug through the filing cabinet, sure enough found it and rescanned using my ultra modern 2001 model Scanjet so it’d look slightly less crappy.

The original prototype VCSp

This is the original prototype Atari VCSp Revision 1, dating from March of 2000. As you can sort of see it was routed from clear acrylic, I painted it black later. The deal was the rear half was correct but the front was not quite right. Still I slapped it together just to see what it would be like, and this is the result. Note the very professional electric tape holding it together – my hot glue gun musta been in the shop that day.

At the time I was writing the script for “The Lizard of Death” so it wasn’t until a month later that I rerouted the front piece and finished the unit as we all know it today. Still, ah… those were good times! You can check out the story of the original portable project I ever did by clicking here.

Update on Site Update

Well we’re on the new server now and after erasing and reuploading WordPress it seems to be working again with the original database. I’m sure you wanted that much detail. Anyway, we’ll continue to make sure everything is up and running smoothly, but for now it seems OK.