Super Mario Bros… on an Oscilloscope!

Oscilloscopes are useful for diagnosing various electronics issues, and they can even be used to display audio waveforms or other interesting patterns. As seen here, Pedro H. Kopper decided to take things to the next level, and programmed a ‘scope to play a version of Super Mario Bros.

This was done using an STM32 board, along with a PS2 controller connected to a PC. Graphics are sent as waves to the oscilloscope as X/Y saw waves, and in order to create discreet dots, an available Z axis is used to control the wave’s brightness. The resulting display outputs as a 400x400 resolution at 32 FPS. In theory, since the Z axis controls brightness and not just whether a pixel is on or off, this scanning technique could even be used to create graysale (greenscale?) tones.

Making this hack even more impressive is the fact that it was done for a microcontrollers course when Kopper was 16. Naturally, when you loose, his teacher’s face is shown along with the “game over” message! Gameplay is seen in the video below, though there is a noticeable gap that cycles through intermittently. This isn’t a problem in real life, it’s instead due to the video camera and the game’s display not being in sync.