Gaming on a treadmill

[chadtower]

Anyone have any ideas or know of any oddball third party controllers that make it reasonable to play games from a treadmill? I'm talking while walking, obviously not while running, but it would make being on that thing for hours much easier...

[Neil Koch]

Maybe you could try bolting on some kind of joystick or a stand that you could rest a stick on.

[chadtower]

Yeah, that's the sort of thing I'm thinking of. Maybe taking an old third party Genesis controller and bolting it to a small board, and bolting that to the treadmill somehow... or perhaps an nes joystick.

If anyone has a suggestion, this is the treadmill:

http://img.epinions.com/images/opti/19/57/sprtCardioPrecor_M917_917si.jpg

I'm thinking perhaps bolting a small board around the handle grips at the front that I can attach a controller to...

[Darth Sensei]

How about a power glove?

Hey, maybe one of those X-arcade things put across the bars would work?

[chadtower]

The xarcade... probably too risky, to be honest, with such an expensive controller.

[fcw3]

I have a controller that hooks to a certain type of Nordic Trak Treadmill. It can be set one of 2 ways. The faster yog go, the faster on of the buttons is considered pressed. So, in essence, the faster you go, the faster you on screen persona would go. The other setting places the button being pressed at a threshold. If you are above it, the button is pressed. Below, and it stops being pressed. I think (I haven't looked at it for a while) that there were clip on buttons for the handles for the A and C buttons and control pad. I think this was only for the Genesis. Anyhow, it was more oriented towards racing games.

Also, there is a Life Cycle out there that interfaces with the SNES. You could use an exercise program like the standard Life Cycle units at the gym, or use a mountain biking game or a Speed Racer game. The cool thing about it is as the game character goes up a hill, the bike gets harder to pedal. A split SNES controller clips onto the handlebars for controlling the racers.

I don't know of any that work with a treadmill, but the could be out there.

FRED

[chadtower]

Yeah, seen those that you mentioned... I think I'm going to have to come up with a custom solution here... probably starting out with a Genesis arcade stick somehow secured to the treadmill.

[xertcev]

I would go custom on that. Build a control panel to fit perfectly
in front of the treadmill control panel. Make it look like it's supposed to be there, that would be cool and actually fun...maybe. :)

You could do a controller hack, with an arcade stick and buttons for about 25-30 bucks I bet.

www.arcadecontrols.com
www.therealbobroberts.com

[chadtower]

I'm not sure I have the skills or the time to build something that elaborate... but I may give it somewhat of a shot later. Hell, maybe I should just use a wireless controller to see if I don't kill myself.