PLAYING WITH POWER: MATT MECHTLEY MODERNIZES THE NES POWER GLOVE

Nintendo and Mattel’s 1989 experiment to bring wearable VR control to the masses may have ended with a whimper, but Flashbang programmer Matt Mechtley is celebrating the NES Power Glove’s 20th anniversary by trying to do it right:

I loved the Power Glove for what it represented — a precursor to virtual reality, a way for humans to directly manipulate computers, like an artifact from some sort of alternate future Earth.

I realized one day that we’re actually living in that future. It doesn’t look the same as we imagined it, but the necessary elements are all there. It’s been 20 years now since Mattel released the Power Glove, in 1989. Especially in the last few years, the availability of sophisticated sensing equipment to hardware hackers has grown by leaps and bounds. Technology like programmable microcontrollers, accelerometers, and Bluetooth are readily available — and cheap. In short, the time is ripe to re-make the Power Glove — and make it right.

Mechtley has “replaced the ultrasonic sensors with an accelerometer, the proprietary microcontroller with an open-source Arduino, and the wired connection with Bluetooth,” but to what end? Currently he’s feeding the device into Unity, or, more specifically, Flashbang’s recently blogged iPhone boxing game Touch KO, which you can see in motion via the video above.

Make the Future You Imagined: The Power Glove — 20th Anniversary Edition [Biphenyl, full Instructables write-up, via twitter]

Previously:
Touch-KO: An early look at Adam Mechtley's iPhone boxer – Offworld