If you have a bit of a soft spot for the Game Boy Camera or, dare I say it, the built-in camera of that PS Vita stuck in your drawer, you can create a similar effect with an old mouse, some custom parts, and a “quick Python script”.
One techie recently took to Reddit to share that they had turned the guts of an old optical mouse into a tiny little camera that can fit into a palm. It reportedly took 65 hours to create, but actually, that project was in the works for much longer.
Dycus, the creator behind the project, told me the idea originally came from this SpritesMods post detailing the ways you can use the optical mouse sensor like a very small camera. They spotted this report “many, many years ago”, but it stayed in the back of their mind for some time. They kept the PCB and sensor from an old, broken Logitech G400 mouse, should such a day arrive where they can put what they’ve learned into practice.
“Many years after that… I was digging through a box looking for something, when I found this board, and the “new project itch” struck.” Dycus told me that, earlier this year, they became “interested in my old Game Boy Camera Again”, and the project took shape.
First, they had to find the data sheet for their specific chip (ADNS-3090) and wire that chip up to a microcontroller in order to “talk to it.” They could read the chip, and the optical sensor was sending information to their PC, but they had to write a Python script in order to properly display the pixels. You can see below the first selfie they ever took, after they got this idea working.
From here, “it was basically a matter of figuring out exactly what parts I needed to complete the camera (user interface buttons, some memory to store photos, a battery, battery charger, etc), and ordering them.” Dycus then modelled a case to fit everything in, and the guts of the camera are “completely packed”.
Interestingly, the camera comes with a few settings buttons, and you can swap shooting modes between a single shot, double shot, quad shot, smear shot, and cowboy. It comes with a “few hours of battery life” and can store up to 48 pictures.
Dycus’ favourite photo is that of their dog. This was taken with the smear shot (or panorama mode), where the column is scaled 2x vertically but only 1x horizontally, which means you can sweep the camera to get a longer shot. The picture is then taken sideways and rotated. I’ve been told the image of their dog is “about as good as photos from this camera gets”, as the smear mode makes for a better resolution.
Maybe it’s good I have a drawer full of old tech. I’ll never know when creativity might strike.
