If I read another article saying that the “ecosystem” for Windows 8 does not have to apps or games you need I am just going to link to this list. It’s going to be a long post so get ready for Appageddon!

All the app I am going to list are on my Surface RT now.

Lets start with Games! so many good games.
iLomilo+

A platform puzzle game where you solve puzzles to lead 2 little guys through a series of mazes many hours of fun and it has XBOX achievements and multiplayer so you an play with friends online.

A World of Keflings

Play as your Xbox LIVE Avatar and help the friendly, little Keflings harvest resources, assemble buildings and create thriving cities in desert, forest and ice kingdoms.

Ultraviolet Dawn

I love space shooters and this on had me fully engaged for hours of fun!

Doom and Destiny

I can not do this description better so I will leave it to the game developers.
“After the incredible success on Windows Phone, XBOX and Windows 7 D&D arrives on a great new Windows Store edition.You can now control the game with your touchscreen, with an XBOX gamepad or a keyboard! Strange events bring four nerdy friends in a fantasy world made of cliche, strange people and a lot of humor. Featuring more than 25 hours of fun, 200+ skills to defeat the 300+ enemies and over 500 between items and equipment D&D is a must have in your collection. Explore a gigantic world with more than 700 locations and unleash the power of the Spaghetti Monster!

Bejeweled LIVE

It’s Bejeweled on Windows 8 need I say more

Wordament

My whole family has been playing this game because its on the iPhone,Windows phone and Windows 8. With a leader-board you an play against the English speaking world.

When I was a kid I would take things apart just to see what was inside and to maybe understand how it worked, the main problem with this was I could not get them back together, but somehow that did not stop me and as I got older I was able to put things back together. I also found I sometimes could fix things. Well I found a broken CD/LP/Tape/Radio combo in the trash this morning and while I knew I did not want to fix it I knew that there would be lots of fun parts inside that could be used for projects.

This is the bottom

Well I knew there would be several motors one from the LP turn table a bunch in the CD drive and some in the tape deck.

There is also an FM tuner and audio amplifier on this board

I thought I would start with the CD drive. One thing to keep in mind when taking stuff apart is to take notes on where things are connected, wire colors and if the connection is labeled in any way. This is the CD drive.

In this photo you can see 2 plugs I wrote down the wire color and what was noted on the board about them.

This one controls the motor that spins the CD and the motor the moves the laser assembly to read the disk.

Now I need to think of something to make with this.

The .NET Gadgeteer starter kit comes with a touch screen and 2 RGB LEDs I thought it would be neat to control the color of the LED from the touch screen by entering text RGB values of 0 to 255. First I needed to make the touch screen interface to do this I went to the GHI GLIDE designer site  this is a simple drag and drop tool for creating the XML needed for placing the buttons or other things on the screen.

This is what I had

After you are done click the Window button and chose Show XML
And this is the XML that was generated.

<Glide Version=”1.0.4″>
<Window Name=”window” Width=”320″ Height=”240″ BackColor=”FFFFFF”>
<TextBox Name=”redNum” X=”39″ Y=”180″ Width=”80″ Height=”32″ Alpha=”255″ Text=”" TextAlign=”Left” Font=”4″ FontColor=”000000″/>
<TextBox Name=”greenNum” X=”39″ Y=”109″ Width=”80″ Height=”32″ Alpha=”255″ Text=”" TextAlign=”Left” Font=”4″ FontColor=”000000″/>
<TextBox Name=”blueNum” X=”38″ Y=”38″ Width=”80″ Height=”32″ Alpha=”255″ Text=”" TextAlign=”Left” Font=”4″ FontColor=”000000″/>
<Button Name=”LoadColor” X=”178″ Y=”109″ Width=”80″ Height=”32″ Alpha=”255″ Text=”Set” Font=”4″ FontColor=”000000″ DisabledFontColor=”808080″ TintColor=”000000″ TintAmount=”0″/>
<TextBlock Name=”RedV” X=”38″ Y=”4″ Width=”100″ Height=”32″ Alpha=”255″ Text=”Green” TextAlign=”Left” TextVerticalAlign=”Top” Font=”4″ FontColor=”0″ BackColor=”000000″ ShowBackColor=”False”/>
<TextBlock Name=”GreenV” X=”39″ Y=”74″ Width=”100″ Height=”32″ Alpha=”255″ Text=”Blue” TextAlign=”Left” TextVerticalAlign=”Top” Font=”4″ FontColor=”0″ BackColor=”000000″ ShowBackColor=”False”/>
<TextBlock Name=”BlueV” X=”39″ Y=”144″ Width=”100″ Height=”32″ Alpha=”255″ Text=”Red” TextAlign=”Left” TextVerticalAlign=”Top” Font=”4″ FontColor=”0″ BackColor=”000000″ ShowBackColor=”False”/>
</Window>
</Glide>

Now we can start Visual C# 2010 Express chose new

.NET Gadgeteer Application(NETMF4.2)project
Add the modules

Now from the Solutions Explorer right click Resources.resx and chose View Designer

Chose Add Resources and chose Add new Text file name it Window and paste in the XML code from above.
Now you will need this file as well  GlideDLL download it and extract it.To add it to your project go to  the Solutions Explorer right click References chose Add Reference chose the brows tab and go to where you extracted the Glide dll and add it.

Here is the code for Program.cs

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Threading;
using Microsoft.SPOT;
using Microsoft.SPOT.Presentation;
using Microsoft.SPOT.Presentation.Controls;
using Microsoft.SPOT.Presentation.Media;
using Microsoft.SPOT.Touch;

using Gadgeteer.Networking;
using GT = Gadgeteer;
using GTM = Gadgeteer.Modules;
using Gadgeteer.Modules.GHIElectronics;
using GHIElectronics.NETMF.Glide;

namespace GadgeteerApp1
{

public partial class Program
{
static GHIElectronics.NETMF.Glide.Display.Window window;
private GHIElectronics.NETMF.Glide.UI.TextBox _redNum;
private GHIElectronics.NETMF.Glide.UI.TextBox _greenNum;
private GHIElectronics.NETMF.Glide.UI.TextBox _blueNum;
void ProgramStarted()
{
// Do one-time tasks here
Debug.Print(“Program Started”);
GlideTouch.Initialize();
// Load the Window XML string.
window = GlideLoader.LoadWindow(Resources.GetString(Resources.StringResources.window));
// Resize any loaded Window to the LCD’s size.
Glide.FitToScreen = true;
// Assign the Window to MainWindow; rendering it to the LCD.
Glide.MainWindow = window;
// Get the Buttons
GHIElectronics.NETMF.Glide.UI.Button LoadColor = (GHIElectronics.NETMF.Glide.UI.Button)window.GetChildByName(“LoadColor”);
// Get the TextBox
_redNum = (GHIElectronics.NETMF.Glide.UI.TextBox)window.GetChildByName(“redNum”);
_greenNum = (GHIElectronics.NETMF.Glide.UI.TextBox)window.GetChildByName(“greenNum”);
_blueNum = (GHIElectronics.NETMF.Glide.UI.TextBox)window.GetChildByName(“blueNum”);

// Add a tap event handler to open the keyboard.
_redNum.TapEvent += new OnTap(Glide.OpenKeyboard);
_greenNum.TapEvent += new OnTap(Glide.OpenKeyboard);
_blueNum.TapEvent += new OnTap(Glide.OpenKeyboard);

// Add a value changed handler.
_redNum.ValueChangedEvent += new OnValueChanged(redNum_ValueChangedEvent);
_greenNum.ValueChangedEvent += new OnValueChanged(greenNum_ValueChangedEvent);
_blueNum.ValueChangedEvent += new OnValueChanged(blueNum_ValueChangedEvent);

// Set up event handlers
LoadColor.TapEvent += new OnTap(LoadColor_TapEvent);

}

void blueNum_ValueChangedEvent(object sender)
{
Debug.Print(_blueNum.Text);
}
void greenNum_ValueChangedEvent(object sender)
{
Debug.Print(_greenNum.Text);
}

void redNum_ValueChangedEvent(object sender)
{
Debug.Print(_redNum.Text);
}

void LoadColor_TapEvent(object sender)
{
byte b = Convert.ToByte(_blueNum.Text);
byte g = Convert.ToByte(_greenNum.Text);
byte r = Convert.ToByte(_redNum.Text);
multicolorLed.SetRedIntensity(r);
multicolorLed.SetGreenIntensity(g);
multicolorLed.SetBlueIntensity(b);
}
}
}

Now you can start the debugger and load it up

Here is a video of it running.