Exploring TapTo on the MiSTer

It's time for another MiSTer video... this time, I'm taking a look at the TapTo project. After spending a few weeks with it, I can see why everyone is excited!
In this video, I'm going to take you through how TapTo works and show you some of the cool things you can do with it.
Links Referenced in this Video:
- TapTo GitHub Page: github.com/wizzomafizzo/tapto
- Wizzo's Etsy Shop: www.etsy.com/shop/wizzodev/?e...
- Commodore 1541 NFC Enclosure: www.printables.com/model/7915...
- Famicom Disk System NFC Enclosure: www.printables.com/model/9382...
- PC Engine NFC Enclosure: www.printables.com/model/7375...
- ACR122U NFC Reader (Amazon): www.amazon.com/ACR122U-Reader...
- PN532 NFC Reader (AliExpress): www.aliexpress.us/item/325680...
- TapTo Label Generator: tapto-designer.netlify.app

[@TheMasterSpecter]

I wasnt terribly interested in this project beforehand, but now it seems really cool! Dont know if Ill actually get one, but it is certainly an interesting tool. Gives back some of the physicality of putting in a cartridge or disc, and being limited to only a few instead of a never-ending scroll through a menu. Speaking of that floppy disc drive case, it would be awesome to see one with the big switches like on the 5 1/4 drives; you could slide in the card, then flip the switch with a satisfying "clonk". Maybe the switch could move the NFC reader onto the card, so it has more of a practical purpose (or it could just be for fun)

[@shpongled]

Absolutely fantastic summary of the project and possibilities .... I wasn't really all that interested before but now I can see how this could really enhance the MiSTer experience.. Great video!

[@Fezzler61]

Very cool. Interesting how gaming drives so many vintage computing innovations.

[@TomBortels]

I thought this was a very silly idea at first... but when you got to the paradox of choice, it clicked. Insightful - and now I need one!

[@whatskenmaking]

It’s been interesting - ever since I started using TapTo, I’ve only been playing games that I have on card. The barrier to putting in a card is so low

[@Ustaleone]

This was a very nice video and overview of the TapTo project. I'm currently making my own TapTo reader by putting it inside a cartridge :D. Very fun stuff!

[@whatskenmaking]

Nice! I'd love to see some more innovative reader designs out there

[@DrLilo]

Every time I look into TapTo I'm super tempted until I start running the numbers and become aware of just how quickly making cards for every game would balloon in price and become a storage/accessibility issue.

[@Ustaleone]

Well, the way you can do it is just by putting your favorite games on them. Those NFC cards, especially the tags or stickers literally costs only cents from AliExpress. Yes if you're going to put entire libraries on them, you will be bankrupt in no time. But I would say just do it for your top 50 games or something. I personally made a list of my top 120 games and ordered some tags. The tags were like $13 for 150 of them. You could of course do less, use cheap/expensive paper. Your call, have fun!

[@whatskenmaking]

I think the key is to narrow it down and make cards for the games that you play often. If you have 1,000 cards, it's going to take you longer to find the game you want to play, than if you just launched it through the menu. But if you just have a couple dozen, grabbing a card from the stack and tapping it fast and easy. Although, I'll admit that creating cards is addictive, and I'm now at the point of having a card storage problem 😆

[@DrLilo]

@@alexvolney i dont have much of a physical game cart collection, I use flash carts.

[@RetroRockGamer]

I know, everyone sold their collections and bought a MiSTer, now we're building ohysical media collections again. :)

[@DrLilo]

@@RetroRockGamer it's not that, it's just I live in Europe. All my childhood carts and all he carts that can be found in the wild around me are 50hz. Not worth owning...

[@gluttonousmaximus9048]

I'm actually curious if the TapTo can be repurposed into other appliances and gadgets, not just the MiSTer things. What if it can be used as an easily accessible physical token on home media boxes to play movies, or as a car infotainment add-on to automatically play music albums denoted by the token? If configured right this kinda eliminates having to go through a bunch of menus to play whatever you want.

[@gluttonousmaximus9048]

Inspired by Cathode Ray Dude's mentions of his struggle with Spotify

[@user-hw2vu4fu5p]

That’s the plan! I am porting TapTo to other platforms as we speak. Windows will be up next, then looking at the various Pi distros like Batocera and Recalbox. Music and video playback will definitely be supported soon, including services like Spotify

[@whatskenmaking]

I just saw that wizzo released a windows demo on the discord and twitter. I don’t think we’re too far away from seeing broader integration

[@ChristianWS.]

I've thought about how this can be used in Linux to basically send whatever script you want. Could potentially make a card that entirely deletes your home heh

[@user-hw2vu4fu5p]

@@ChristianWS. not by default! I do try to be cautious about arbitrary code execution. But you can enable manually if you want and go nuts making drive wipe cards

[@geofreypejsa54]

Another great video Ken. Thanks for the excellent content

[@PixelCherryNinja]

Great video, great project 👏

[@steambub]

I wasn't much interested in the TapTo, but your idea of putting tags in cartridges is something I must do for myself.

[@BedroomNinja]

Great video as always Ken and thank you for featuring my cases :)

[@valentine_puppy]

I’m a Sega fan and a Sega styled case would be awesome. Master System preferably.

[@whatskenmaking]

Thanks - your cases are awesome!

[@whatskenmaking]

I was thinking about that, too - but I would want to do it as an entire SMS MiSTer case with the NFC slot in place of the sega card slot.

[@valentine_puppy]

@@whatskenmaking I’d love to see it. With the slot loading option to load the games from Sega Mycard style nfc cards. I just mean a sticker that looks like the Mycard cover front and back. Thank you for the content and keep up the great work. Peace and love brother.

[@bryantaylor2523]

VERY cool idea putting the NFC stickers inside the physical cartridges! It might also be cool to combine that idea with the insert function to have actual cartridge slots without the need for different physical connectors and/or custom electronics for each type. They'd all just be the same nfc reader with different enclosures.

[@whatskenmaking]

I saw on the discord that someone put an NFC reader into a Super Gameboy enclosure. I thought that was a pretty cool idea!

[@exodous02]

Ah man, this is awesome. I'd get card holders and print up my entire library. I used to hang card holder pages from a binder on my wall to display cards I owned. It would be nostalgic to do this with games I print up! Ohh, or just pint statues and put one of those stickers on it.

[@whatskenmaking]

That’s a great idea - display the cards on the wall. If you’re going to make a lot of them, I’d suggest using a cutter like a cricut. After cutting out the first few sheets of labels, you start feeling it!

[@exodous02]

@@whatskenmaking As kids we made business cards for my Dad and had to cut them out with a paper cutter so I'm going to give it a try. I checked Etsy just to see if anyone was making them but nope.

[@phillai]

Great video as always Ken! Been on the fence a while with this and your video might have just persuaded me to go and get one! 👍

[@whatskenmaking]

Thanks! The cost is so inexpensive (compared to the many other ways you can spend money on the MiSTer) that it’s worth playing with. I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did. It’s at the point now where I use TapTo almost exclusively

[@KonaKonaKaabisteru]

Would be cool if we get an NFC reader capable of letting you put in cards down in it like a game cartridge and then launch them via a power switch with a satisfying click. The Disk Drive System is cool admittedly but I can't help feeling this'd let me come even closer to the homely feeling associated with our physical cartridges~

[@NicolasPerrier]

You can totally do that already

[@KonaKonaKaabisteru]

​@@NicolasPerrier Huh, I'd like to hear how~

[@seethruhead7119]

since it has an api you could configure EmulationStation running on a rapsberry pi to launch games on the mister (instead of launching an emulator) all you would need is an ip controllable hdmi switch to switch from the rpi to the mister when launching a game, and back to the rpi when you exit one. then you'll have a world class ui with box art on an fpga system

[@ThePiones]

At last my idea on which I've never worked on materialized on the real world.

[@rustkitty]

Now we just need a variant port cover lid that integrates the NFC module, so the whole thing can look even more like an oversized PC engine.

[@TheMikeyb86]

Ah yeah. I was wondering when you were going to do a video on MiSTer NFC.

[@whatskenmaking]

It was on the list - just took a while to get around to it!

[@mwk1]

Fajny patent 😎

[@GconduitYTubeAccount]

With NFC tags going up to 4k that's perfect to store whole 2600 ROMs. Is there any way to present the NFC reader as a USB storage device?

[@ScottWinterringer]

This might be neat to revive the mariokart gxp or the horse racing one where you could up stats over multiple play sessions. megaman? pokemon?

[@thatssomegoodpie]

So are the roms stored on the actual cards or is it just another way to tell the system which game to load from internal memory?

[@730indoorsman]

I'd love to do something like this for my digital film library on pc. is this possible?

[@user-hw2vu4fu5p]

Please keep an eye on the project, this will be possible soon with TapTo!

[@whatskenmaking]

Yeah, I saw in the discord that wizzo has it launching steam games on windows now.

[@80skidsgaming]

Will this work with raspberry pi running retropie or is it just for the mister?

[@thepenultimateninja5797]

Couldn't you also do this with regular RFID tags? You would just need to associate each game with the serial number of a tag.

[@zetathix]

Why just don't make the coin card a circular card so you won't grab the wrong card while also improving the immersion?

[@shawnwheatley2957]

14:27 is that a custom MiSTer or kit?

[@whatskenmaking]

That’s Todd’s keyboard case - you download it from Printables here! www.printables.com/model/777370-mister-fpga-keyboard-computer-case

[@jackipiegg]

17:53 Has anyone "evolved" it to use a raspberry pi as a dumb frontend for boxart/video previews and launch mister using a hdmi switch/kvm?

[@whatskenmaking]

I don’t think I’ve seen that specific scenario, but wizzo is working on a serial interface, so that’s possible even without making API calls. I think we’ll see some interesting front end devices that people build as a result

[@jackipiegg]

@@whatskenmaking Wow really? That's excellent news, for us using tapto is no problem since we are familiar with the gameplay but for kids video previews is a MUST! Actually for us too since we like to discover new games!