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https://hackaday.com/2023/11/03/big-red-button-puts-toddler-in-command-of-chromecast/ | Big Red Button Puts Toddler In Command Of Chromecast | Dan Maloney | [
"home entertainment hacks",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"chromecast",
"pyChromecast",
"raspberry pi",
"reverse engineering",
"Wemos"
] | Controversial position: the world needs more buttons. We’ve gotten so far away from physical interfaces like buttons, knobs, and switches in favor of sleek but sterile touch-screen “controls” that when we see something like
this big red button so toddlers can start a TV show
, we just have to latch onto the story and see what it’s all about.
As it turns out, the big red button itself is probably the least interesting part of [Mads Chr. Olesen] build. The real meat of the project is the reverse engineering effort needed to get Chromecast to start the show. As [Mads] explains, once upon a time a simple
GET
request to a URL was all it took to do so, but no more; Google has repeatedly nerfed the Chromecast API over the years, enough that [Mads] had some digging to do.
Luckily,
pyChromecast
is a thing, but using it for DRTV, a streaming service of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, required figuring out the AppID of the DRTV app. It looks like [Mads] used Wireshark to sniff traffic to and from the Chromecast, and
netlog-viewer
to analyze the capture. That and a little Developer Tools action in Chrome led to all the information needed to modify pyChromecast to support DRTV.
The rest of the project
consisted of building a box for the huge red arcade button and wiring it up to a Wemos D1. A Raspberry Pi actually talks to the Chromecast, and now the toddler is able to call up his favorite show and pause and restart it at will, no parent required.
We appreciate the reverse engineering heroics [Mads] displays here, which provide good general lessons for other purposes. It’s been a while since we’ve seen
a Chromecast physical interface build
, too, so we appreciate the refresher. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6695938",
"author": "mental405",
"timestamp": "2023-11-03T18:51:51",
"content": "When my kid was a toddler I lacked sufficient know-how to pull this off. I did manage to train google assistant to recognize his cries for Chuggington. So whenever it heard “TUN ON” the routine would s... | 1,760,372,121.436826 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/31/supercon-2022-carrie-sundra-discusses-manufacturing-on-a-shoestring-budget/ | Supercon 2022: Carrie Sundra Discusses Manufacturing On A Shoestring Budget | Navarre Bartz | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"hardware"
] | [
"2022 Superconference",
"budget",
"business",
"crowdfunding",
"manufacturing",
"prototyping"
] | Making hardware is hard. This is doubly true when you’re developing a niche hardware device that might have a total production run in the hundreds of units instead of something mass market. [Carrie Sundra] has been through the process several times, and has bestowed her wisdom on
how not to screw it up
.
The internet is strewn with the remains of unfulfilled crowdfunding campaigns for tantalizing devices that seemed so simple when they showed of the prototype. How does one get something from the workbench into the world without losing their life savings and reputation?
[Sundra] walks us through her process for product development that has seen several products successfully launch without an army of pitchfork-wielding fiber crafters line up at her door. One of the first concepts she stresses is that you should design your products around the mantra, “Once it leaves your shop IT SHOULD NEVER COME BACK.” If you design for user-serviceability from the beginning, you can eliminate most warranty returns and probably make it easier to manufacture your widget to boot.
She wireframes the manufacturing process as a four step process including a proof of concept, prototype, preproduction/beta units, and finally the actual production units. Most makers will be familiar with the proof of concept you build to solve your problem and the slightly more presentable prototype you bring to show off at the local hackerspace or Maker Faire. What trips up many would-be entrepreneurs is thinking that once you’ve gone through a few iterations of the prototype, you’re ready to launch.
[Sundra] says that while it might seem attractive to skip the beta stage, what happens is that your first production run becomes your beta and you end up with a lot of unhappy people with partially-functional devices. Customers “come up with all sorts of other cool ways to break your stuff,” she says. Instead, you should build a pre-production device with all the components that you plan to use in the final prototype, but only sell it to 12 hand-picked customers. Charge them wholesale prices so they are getting a discount, but with the stipulation that they give you feedback, testimonials, and help marketing the device to the community once all the bugs shake out.
Be sure to listen to the beta group’s feedback and fix any actual issues with the device. Don’t ask them ahead of time if they want a particular feature since that way lies scope creep. If there’s something glaring that you missed they will let you know during the testing phase. While it may seem weird to require someone to pay to be your guinea pig, feedback on a free device would be very different than something they had to purchase.
[Sundra] stresses you should think hard before trying to use 3D printers and other prototyping tools for even small batch production since consistency can vary so much between runs. It’s often better to get someone else to build your parts since their job is to make sure you have a consistent run instead of spending all your own time troubleshooting machines.
To reduce costs, make sure you get quotes from multiple vendors and don’t be afraid to employ “sneaky and ruthless simplification.” [Sundra] said she avoids power buttons when possible, since they introduce another point of failure and cost money and time to implement. One of her devices uses a long press on a function button for power after users didn’t like not having one, while another just gets plugged or unplugged from the wall.
Scaling up is “mostly a game of being organized and writing stuff down.” If you run a test, make sure you write down the results because you never know when you might have to go back and remember why you picked part 74 over 76. (Hello, chip shortage!) When it comes time for crowdfunding, keep it simple so you don’t overpromise and underdeliver. If you think you can do something better, pleasantly surprise your customers so they’ll rave about you instead of the reverse.
If you want to see more awesome talks like this, unfortunately,
tickets for this year’s Supercon
are already sold out, but they’ll all be livestreamed for everyone, including the
keynote by Cory Doctorow
. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6695331",
"author": "Meek The Geek",
"timestamp": "2023-11-01T11:38:58",
"content": "I like her beta testing advice.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6695367",
"author": "Maave",
"timestamp": "2023-11-01T14:31:3... | 1,760,372,121.558555 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/31/building-pennys-computer-watch-from-inspector-gadget/ | Building Penny’s Computer Watch FromInspector Gadget | Kristina Panos | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"cosplay",
"halloween",
"Inspector Gadget",
"machine learning"
] | When you help your bumbling Uncle Gadget with all kinds of missions, you definitely need a watch that can do it all. Penny’s video watch from
Inspector Gadget
has a ton of features including video communication with Brain and Chief Quimby, a laser, a magnet, a flashlight, a sonar signal, and much more.
To round out her Penny costume, [Becky Stern] has created
a 3D printed version of Penny’s incredibly smart watch
. It listens for Penny’s iconic phrase — come in, Brain! — and then loads a new picture of Brain on the rounded rectangle TFT display. Inside the watch is an Arduino Nicla Voice, which has to be one of the tinier machine learning-capable boards out there.
[Becky] created the watch case in Tinkercad and modified a watch band from Printables to fit her wrist. With such a small enclosure to work with, [Becky] ended up using that really flexible 30 AWG silicone-jacketed wire for all the fiddly connections between the Arduino and the screen.
After getting it all wired up to test, she found that the screen was broken, either from pressing it into the enclosure, or having a too-close encounter with a helping hands. Let that be a lesson to you, and check out the build video after the break.
More interested in Uncle Gadget’s goodies? Check out
these go-go-Gadget shoes
and
this propeller backpack for skiers
. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6695133",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2023-10-31T15:39:57",
"content": "When you think about it, her book is now incredibly common and smaller…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6695146",
"author": "RunnerPack",
... | 1,760,372,121.673259 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/31/black-4-0-is-the-new-ultrablack/ | Black 4.0 Is The New Ultrablack | Lewin Day | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"invisibility",
"paint",
"Vantablack"
] | Vantablack is a special coating material, moreso than a paint. It’s well-known as one of the blackest possible coatings around, capable of absorbing almost all visible light in its nanotube complex structure. However, it’s complicated to apply, delicate, and not readily available, especially to those in the art world.
It was these drawbacks that led Stuart Semple to create his own incredibly black paint. Over the years, he’s refined the formula and improved its performance, steadily building a greater product available to all. His latest effort is
Black 4.0
, and it’s promising to be the black paint to dominate all others.
Back in Black
This journey began in a wonderfully spiteful fashion. Upon hearing that one Anish Kapoor had secured exclusive rights to be the sole artistic user of Vantablack, he determined that something had to be done. Seven years ago, he set out to create his own ultra black paint that would far outperform conventional black paints on the market. Since his first release, he’s been delivering black paints that suck in more light and just simply look
blacker
than anything else out there.
Black 4.0 has upped the ante to a new level. Speaking to Hackaday, Semple explained the performance of the new paint, being sold through his Culture Hustle website. “Black 4.0 absorbs an astonishing 99.95% of visible light which is about as close to full light absorption as you’ll ever get in a paint,” said Semple. He notes this outperforms Vantablack’s S-Vis spray on product which only achieves 99.8%, as did his previous Black 3.0 paint. Those numbers are impressive, and we’d dearly love to see the new paint put to the test against other options in
the ultra black market.
It might sound like mere fractional percentages, but it makes a difference. In sample tests, the new paint is more capable of fun visual effects since it absorbs yet more light. Under indoor lighting conditions, an item coated in Black 4.0 can appear to have no surface texture at all, looking to be a near-featureless black hole. Place an object covered in Black 4.0 on a surface coated in the same, and it virtually disappears. All the usual reflections and shadows that help us understand 3D geometry simply get sucked into the overwhelming blackness.
Black 4.0 compared to a typical black acrylic art paint. Credit: Stuart Semple
Beyond its greater light absorption, the paint has also seen a usability upgrade over Semple’s past releases. For many use cases, a single coat is all that’s needed. “It feels much nicer to use, it’s much more stable, more durable, and obviously much blacker,” he says, adding “The 3.0 would occasionally separate and on rare occasions collect little salt crystals at the surface, that’s all gone now.”
The added performance comes down to a new formulation of the paint’s “super-base” resin, which carries the pigment and mattifying compounds that give the paint its rich, dreamy darkness. It’s seen a few ingredient substitutions compared to previous versions, but a process change also went a long way to creating an improved product. “The interesting thing is that although all that helped, it was the process we used to make the paint that gave us the breakthrough, the order we add things, the way we mix them, and the temperature,” Semple told Hackaday.
The ultra black paint has a way of making geometry disappear. Credit: Stuart Semple
Black 4.0 is more robust than previous iterations, but it’s still probably not up to a full-time life out in the elements, says Semple. You could certainly coat a car in it, for example, but it probably wouldn’t hold up in the long term. He’s particularly excited for applications in astronomy and photography, where the extremely black paint can help catch light leaks and improve the performance of telescopes and cameras. It’s also perfect for creating an ultra black photographic backdrop, too.
No special application methods are required; Black 4.0 can be brush painted just like its predecessors. Indeed, it absorbs so much light that you probably don’t need to worry as much about brush marks as you usually would. Other methods, like using rollers or airbrushes, are perfectly fine, too.
Creating such a high-performance black paint didn’t come without challenges, either. Along the way, Semple contended with canisters of paint exploding, legal threats from others in the market, and one of the main scientists leaving the project. Wrangling supplies of weird and wonderful ingredients was understandably difficult, too. Nonetheless, he persevered, and has now managed to bring the first batches to market.
The first batches ship in November, so if you’re eager to get some of the dark stuff, you’d better move quick. It doesn’t come cheap, but you’re always going to pay more for something claiming to be the world’s best. If you’ve got big plans, fear not—this time out, Semple will sell the paint in huge bulk 1 liter and 6 liter containers if you really need a job lot. Have fun out there, and if you do something radical,
you know who to tell about it
. | 104 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "6695112",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-10-31T14:24:38",
"content": "What happened to Black 3.11?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6695123",
"author": "Steve Spivey",
"timestamp": "2023-10-31T15:03:07",... | 1,760,372,122.033104 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/31/ham-radio-operators-ionospheric-science-during-the-solar-eclipse/ | Ham Radio Operators’ Ionospheric Science During The Solar Eclipse | Maya Posch | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"ham radio",
"ionosphere"
] | The Earth’s ionosphere is the ionized upper part of the atmosphere, and it’s also the most dynamic as it swells and ebbs depending on whether it’s exposed to the Sun or not. It’s the ionosphere that enables radio frequency communications to reach beyond the horizon, its thickness and composition also affects the range and quality of these transmissions. Using this knowledge, a group of ham radio operators used the October 14 solar eclipse to
crowdsource an experiment
, as part of the Ham Science Citizen Investigation (
HamSCI
) community.
A solar eclipse is an interesting consideration with
ionospheric
RF transmissions, as it essentially creates a temporary period of night time, which is when the ionosphere is the least dense, and thus weakening these transmissions and their total range. As with previous solar eclipses, they turned it into a kind of game, where each ham operator attempts to contact as many others as possible within the least amount of time. Using the collected data points on who was able to talk to whom on the globe, the event’s effect on RF transmissions could be plotted over time. For the August 21, 2017 solar eclipse, the results were
published in a 2018 paper by N. A. Frissell et al.
in
Geophysical Research Letters
.
One point which they wished to examine during the 2023 solar eclipse were the plasma bubbles that form near the Earth’s magnetic equator, in regions like Brazil. These plasma bubbles cause a lot of interference, which in the preliminary data can be seen as a clear Doppler shift of the signal due to the diffusion of the ionosphere as the eclipse’s effect took hold. For the next solar eclipse in April 2024 another experiment is scheduled, which will give even more ham radio operators the chance to sign up and contribute to ionospheric science.
Top image: A schematic representation of the different ionospheric sub-layers and how they evolve daily from day to night periods. (Credit:
Carlos Molina
) | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6695139",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2023-10-31T16:51:36",
"content": "“For the next lunar eclipse in April 2024…”.I believe your are referring to the *Solar* eclipse in 2024. Lunar eclipse is when the shadow of the earth goes across the moon and while rad, probably has little... | 1,760,372,121.474931 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/31/teensy-stands-in-for-the-motorola-68k/ | Teensy Stands In For The Motorola 68k | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Mac Hacks",
"Microcontrollers",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"68000",
"68k",
"arm cortext m7",
"bus",
"cycle accurate",
"emulator",
"Mac 512K",
"microcontroller",
"motorola",
"Teensy 4.1"
] | While it might not seem like it today, there was a time in the not-too-distant past where Motorola was
the
processor manufacturer. They made chips for everything, but the most popular was arguably the 68000 or 68k. It’s still has a considerable following today, largely among retrocomputing enthusiasts or those maintaining legacy hardware. For those wanting to dip their toes into this world,
this Motorola 68000 emulator created by [Ted Fried]
may be the thing needed to discover the magic of these once-ubiquitous chips.
The emulator itself runs on a Teensy 4.1, a 32-bit ARM microcontroller running at 600 MHz — giving it enough computing power to act as a cycle-accurate emulator not only for the 68000 CPU but also the local bus interface, in this case for a Mac 512K. This capability also makes it a drop-in replacement for the 68000 in these older Macs and the original hardware in these computers won’t notice much of a difference. A few tricks are needed to get it fully operational though, notably using a set of latches to make up for the fact that the Teensy doesn’t have the required number of output pins to interface one-to-one with the original hardware.
While the emulator may currently be able to replace the hardware and boot the computer, there is still ongoing development to get every part of the operating system up and working. The source code is available on the
project’s GitHub page
though so any updates made in the future can be found there. And if you have a Mac 128k and still haven’t upgraded to the 512k yet,
grab one of these memory switching modules for the upgrade
too. | 24 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6695050",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2023-10-31T08:11:56",
"content": "Normally, I don’t like such things, because it makes things ad absurdum. Either full, sophisticated emulation or the real thing (including clones) with the hardware being “alive”. However, I’ll make an exc... | 1,760,372,121.626774 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/30/2023-halloween-hackfest-organ-playing-skeleton-livens-up-halloween/ | 2023 Halloween Hackfest: Organ-playing Skeleton Livens Up Halloween | Donald Papp | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"2023 Halloween Hack Fest",
"animatronic",
"halloween",
"organ",
"skeleton"
] | Every hacker appreciates how off-the-shelf parts can be combined into something greater, and [bryan.lowder] demonstrates this beautifully with his
organ-playing skeleton
, a wonderful entry to our
2023 Halloween Contest
!
Skelly the 3-foot-tall novelty skeleton animatedly plays Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor while perched at an old (and non-functional) Hammond organ. The small animatronic skeleton has canned motions that work very well for mock organ playing while an embedded MP3 player takes care of playing the music.
That’s not to say the project didn’t have its challenges. Integrating off-the-shelf components into a project always seems to bring its own little inconveniences. In this case, the skeleton the MP3 player both expect to be triggered with button pushes, but taping the button down wasn’t enough to get the skeleton moving when power was applied. [bryan] ended up using relays to simulate button pushes, and a 555 timer circuit to take care of incorporating a suitable delay.
As [bryan] puts it, “a technical
tour de force
it ain’t, but it is practical and it works and it was done on time” which is well said. Watch Skelly in action in the video, embedded below. There’s also a second video showing the homebrewed controller and MP3 player, both concealed under Skelly’s robe. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6695033",
"author": "make piece not war",
"timestamp": "2023-10-31T05:32:39",
"content": "Aint dat Geoff Peterson?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6695138",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2023-10-31T16:43:11",
... | 1,760,372,121.723807 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/30/ai-in-a-box-envisions-ai-as-a-private-offline-hackable-module/ | AI In A BoxEnvisions AI As A Private, Offline, Hackable Module | Donald Papp | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Crowd Funding",
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"ai",
"machine learning",
"offline",
"private"
] | [Useful Sensors] aims to embed a variety of complementary AI tools into a small, private, self-contained module with no internet connection with
AI in a Box
. It can do live voice recognition and captioning, live translation, and natural language conversational interaction with a local large language model (LLM). Intriguingly, it’s specifically designed with features to make it hack-friendly, such as the ability to act as a voice keyboard by sending live transcribed audio as keystrokes over USB.
Based on the RockChip 3588S SoC, the unit aims to have an integrated speaker, display, and microphone.
Right now it’s wrapping up a pre-order phase, and aims to ship units around the end of January 2024. The project is based around the RockChip 3588S SoC and is open source (
GitHub repository
), but since it’s still in development, there’s not a whole lot visible in the repository yet. However, a key part of getting good performance is [Useful Sensors]’s own
transformers library
for the RockChip NPU (neural processing unit).
The ability to perform things like
high quality local voice recognition
and run locally-hosted LLMs like
LLaMa
have gotten a massive boost thanks to recent advances in machine learning, and it looks like this project aims to tie them together in a self-contained package.
Perhaps private digital assistants can become more useful when users can have the freedom to modify and integrate them as they see fit. Digital assistants hosted by the big tech companies
are often frustrating
, and others have observed that this is ultimately because
they primarily exist to serve their makers
more than they help users. | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6695010",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-10-31T02:24:54",
"content": "Just how large does the local memory have to be for a working “large” language model?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6... | 1,760,372,121.841351 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/29/packing-for-supercon-heres-a-printable-case-for-your-badge/ | Packing For Supercon? Here’s A Printable Case For Your Badge | Arya Voronova | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cons"
] | [
"2023 Hackaday Supercon",
"2023 Hackaday Superconference",
"Supercon badge"
] | Hackaday Supercon 2023 is a week away, and if you’re still thinking about the equipment you need to take with you, here’s something you’ll want to print –
a case for the Supercon 2023 badge
that you will find inside of your goodie bag.
This year’s Supercon badge
is a gorgeous analog playground board we call Vectorscope, powered by an RP2040, MicroPython, and a ton of love for all of the creativity that we’ve seen you bunch express through the wonders of analog electronics. There’s a round LCD screen, SMD buttons galore, as well as some pokey through-hole headers, and if you’ve carried a badge around, you know that all of these can be a bit touchy! You’re in luck, though – just in time, [T.B. Trzepacz] brings us a 3D-printed shell.
Over
on Hackaday Discord,
we’ve been watching this shell go through multiple iterations throughout the past few days – the initial design pics appeared almost as soon as we published the
PCB files for the badge!
Yesterday, [T.B. Trzepacz] dropped by the Design Lab where we’ve been putting finishing touches on the badges, and armed with the real-world PCBs, made the final tweaks to the design – then gave us the go-ahead to spread the word.
This shell is practical but elegant and does a mighty fine job protecting both the badge and the wearer. Nothing is hidden away, from the buttons to the expansion headers, and the lanyard holes keep it wearable. At this time,
grab the Basic 2 files
– these should work for SLA and FDM printers alike, and they’re tolerant enough even for FDM printers below average. Pick your favourite color scheme, or go for one of the transparent SLA resins, and when you arrive at the Supercon, you’ll have a case you can rely on.
Want to give this case your own spin? Perhaps a Pip-Boy aesthetic or a Vectrex console vibe? Should you want to modify anything,
the Fusion360 sources are right there,
open-source as they ought to be. It’s been a pleasure watching this case design grow, and in case you’re looking to hire a skilled engineer in Berlin,
[T.B. Trzepacz] is looking for work! | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694693",
"author": "T. B. Trzepacz",
"timestamp": "2023-10-29T16:27:26",
"content": "Thanks Arya for writing my project up!I really want to stress that I made this project very plain for the purpose of it being a blank slate for other people to remix to make their own personalized ... | 1,760,372,121.878922 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/29/take-the-tedium-out-of-fabric-cutting-make-the-laser-do-it/ | Take The Tedium Out Of Fabric Cutting, Make The Laser Do It | Donald Papp | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"fabric",
"laser",
"laser cutter",
"sewing",
"time saver"
] | Fabric must be cut before it can be turned into something else, and [fiercekittenz] shows how
a laser cutter can hit all the right bases to save a lot of time
on the process. She demonstrates processing three layers of fabric at once on a CO2 laser cutter, cutting three bags’ worth of material in a scant 1 minute and 29 seconds.
The three layers are a PU (polyurethane) waterproof canvas, a woven liner, and a patterned cotton canvas. The laser does a fantastic job of slicing out perfectly formed pieces in no time, and its precision means minimal waste. The only gotcha is to ensure materials are safe to laser cut. For example, PU-based canvas is acceptable, but PVC-based materials are not. If you want to skip the materials discussion and watch the job,
laying the fabric in the machine starts around [3:16] in the video
.
[fiercekittenz] acknowledges that her large 100-watt CO2 laser cutter is great but points out that smaller or diode-based laser machines can perfectly cut fabric under the right circumstances. One may have to work in smaller batches, but it doesn’t take 100 watts to do the job. Her large machine, for example, is running at only a fraction of its full power to cut the three layers at once.
One interesting thing is that the heat of the laser somewhat seals the cut edge of the PU waterproof canvas. In the past, we’ve seen defocused lasers used to
weld and seal non-woven plastics like those in face masks
, a task usually performed by ultrasonic welding. The ability for a laser beam to act as both “scissors” and “glue” in these cases is pretty interesting. You can learn all about using a laser cutter instead of fabric scissors in the video embedded below.
Thanks to [Tim Gremalm] for the tip! | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694653",
"author": "Andy",
"timestamp": "2023-10-29T11:54:20",
"content": "The only problem is, that laser burns the edges, so the edges are not as clean as with cutting. I tried so many different material with my laser, and for decorative use (ex. cloth) I prefer cutting the mater... | 1,760,372,121.521407 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/28/using-eproms-and-eeproms-as-programmable-logic-with-lisp/ | Using EPROMS And EEPROMs As Programmable Logic With Lisp | Maya Posch | [
"FPGA",
"Software Development"
] | [
"eeprom",
"eprom",
"lisp",
"Programmable Logic Array"
] | That EPROMs, EEPROMs and kin can be used as programmable logic should probably not come as a major surprise, but [Jimmy] has created
a Lisp-based project
that makes using these chips as a logic array very straightforward. All it takes is importing the package into one’s Lisp project and defining the logic, before the truth function generates the binary file that can be written to the target chip.
Suggested is the one-time-programmable AT27C512R EPROM (64k x8), but any 8-bit parallel interface (E)EPROM should work, with non-OTP chips being nice unless the chip has to go into a production device. A possible future improvement is the addition of 16-bit (E)EPROM support.
The use of EEPROMs is common with PLA-replacements, as with, for example, the Commodore 64, where the official PLA IC tends to go bad over time. Due to the complexity of the logic in these PLA ICs, here
CPLDs
are used, which internally are still EEPROM-based, but feature many more programmable elements to allow for more complex logic. If all you need is a bit of glue logic and you are looking for something in between a stack of 74-logic ICs and a CPLD, an EEPROM may be just be the solution, regardless of whether you prefer to create the binary image with Lisp or C.
Top image: Die of an Altera EPM7032 EEPROM-based Complex Programmable Logic Device (CPLD). (Credit: ZeptoBars, Wikipedia) | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694616",
"author": "Mike Massen",
"timestamp": "2023-10-29T05:20:57",
"content": "Ah yes, its very straight forward method, good way to manage all sortsof functional logic with no buggy software, though do need to handlepotential for race hazards, ie Data out from EEprom 1 to other... | 1,760,372,122.078165 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/28/ecoeda-integrates-your-junk-bin-into-your-designs/ | EcoEDA Integrates Your Junk Bin Into Your Designs | Dan Maloney | [
"Parts"
] | [
"bom",
"design",
"e-waste",
"eda",
"junk bin",
"KiCAD",
"recycle",
"reuse",
"salvage",
"schematic"
] | If you’re like us, there’s a creeping feeling that comes over you when you’re placing an order for parts for your latest project:
Don’t I already have most of this stuff?
With the well-stocked junk bins most of us sport and the stacks of defunct electronics that are almost always within arm’s length, chances are pretty good you do. And yet, we always seem to just click the button and place a new order anyway; it’s just easier.
But what if mining the treasure in your junk bin was easier? If you knew right at design time that you had something in your stash you could slot into your build, that would be something, right? That’s the idea behind
ecoEDA
, a Python-based KiCAD plugin by [Jasmine Lu], [Beza Desta], and [Joyce Passananti]. The tool integrates right into the schematic editor of KiCAD and makes suggestions for substitutions as you work. The substitutions are based on a custom library of components you have on hand, either from salvaged gear or from previous projects. The plug-in can make pin-for-pin substitutions, suggest replacements with similar specs but different pinouts, or even build up the equivalent of an integrated circuit from available discrete components. The video below gives an overview of the tool and how it integrates into the design workflow; there’s also
a paper
(PDF) with much more detail.
This seems like an absolutely fantastic idea. Granted, developing the library of parts inside all the stuff in a typical junk bin is likely the biggest barrier to entry for something like this, and may be too daunting for some of us. But there’s gold in all that junk, both literally and figuratively, and putting it to use instead of dumping it in a landfill just makes good financial and environmental sense. We’re already awash in e-waste, and anything we can do to make that even just a little bit better is probably worth a little extra effort. | 26 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694587",
"author": "Stephen Walters",
"timestamp": "2023-10-29T02:11:39",
"content": "What about valves/tubes?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6694590",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-10-29T02:32:44",
... | 1,760,372,122.236557 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/28/cheap-yellow-display-builds-community-through-hardware/ | “Cheap Yellow Display” Builds Community Through Hardware | Dan Maloney | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"community",
"dev board",
"documentation",
"ESP32",
"github",
"lcd",
"resistive",
"touch screen"
] | For the most part, Hackaday is all about hardware hacking projects. Sometimes, though, the real hack in a project isn’t building hardware, but rather building a community around the hardware.
Case in point:
[Brian Lough]’s latest project
, which he dubs “CYD,” for the “cheap yellow display” that it’s based on; which is a lot easier to remember than its official designation, ESP32-2432S028R. Whatever you call it, this board is better than it sounds, with an ESP32 with WiFi, Bluetooth, a 320×480 resistive touch screen, and niceties like USB and an SD card socket — all on aforementioned yellow PCB. The good news is that you can get this thing for about $15 on Ali Express. The bad news is that, as is often the case with hardware from the Big Rock Candy Mountain, the only documentation available comes from a website we wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
To fix this problem, [Brian] started what he hopes will be a collaborative effort to build a knowledge base for the CYD, to encourage people to put these little gems to work. He has already kick-started that with a ton of quality documentation, including setup and configuration instructions, tips and gotchas, and some sample projects that put the CYD’s capabilities to the test. It’s all on
GitHub
and there’s already at least one pull request; hopefully that’ll grow once the word gets out.
Honestly, these look like fantastic little boards that are a heck of a bargain. We’re thinking about picking up a few of these while they last, and maybe even getting in on the action in this nascent community. And hats off to [Brian] for getting this effort going. | 29 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694575",
"author": "Phil Barrett",
"timestamp": "2023-10-29T00:56:53",
"content": "I went looking for your discord channel but couldn’t find it. Discover shows nothing named cheap-yellow-display. Not a discord pro for sure but gave up after a few minutes of trying.So, I’ll ask the... | 1,760,372,122.303252 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/28/brick-laying-machine-builds-without-mortar/ | Brick-Laying Machine Builds Without Mortar | Kristina Panos | [
"home hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"bricklaying",
"concrete blocks",
"housing",
"pick and place",
"robot"
] | Move over, 3D printed houses. There’s a new game in town, and it is able to use standard concrete blocks to build the walls of a house in just one day.
Australian company FBR’s Hadrian X is
a tablet-controlled system that follows CAD models to lay the blocks one by one
. As you can see in the video after the break, the blocks are laid so quickly that there’s no time for mortar, so they dip the bottom of each block in construction adhesive instead. In the second video after the break, you can watch Hadrian-X build a curved wall.
There are several things to consider when it comes to outdoor robots, such as wind and unwanted vibration. In order to correct for these nuisances, FBR came up with
Dynamic Stabilisation Technology (DST)
. While we don’t have a lot of details on DST, the company calls it “a highly accurate system that continuously adjusts the position of a robot’s end effector to ensure it is always held with stability at the correct point in 3D space.”
Curious about printed housing?
Here’s the current-ish state of affairs
. | 45 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694543",
"author": "Daniel",
"timestamp": "2023-10-28T21:19:53",
"content": "And then they need someone to fill the vertical gaps.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6694797",
"author": "KevinC",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,372,122.403366 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/28/open-source-key-programmer-for-hitag2-keys/ | Open Source Key Programmer For HiTag2 Keys | Lewin Day | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"car",
"key",
"transponder key"
] | Hitag transponders have been used in a wide variety of car keys as a protective measure against hot-wiring and theft. They’re also a reason why it’s a lot more expensive to get car keys duplicated these days for many models that use this technology. However, there is now an open source programmer that works with these transponder keys,
thanks to [Janne Kivijakola].
The hack uses an old reader device salvaged from a Renault in a scrapyard, hooked up to an Arduino Mega 2560 or Arduino Nano. With this setup, key transponders can be programmed via a tool called AESHitager, which runs on Windows. It’s compatible with a variety of Hitag transponders, including Hitag2, Hitag3, and Hitag AES, along with the VVDI Super Chip and certain types of BMW keys.
If you’ve been having issues with coded keys, this project might just be what you need to sort your car out. Everything you need is available
on GitHub
for those wishing to try this at home.
We’ve seen some interesting hacks in this space before, too
. Video after the break. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694557",
"author": "SkriptDaddy",
"timestamp": "2023-10-28T22:27:02",
"content": "I’ve got almost all parts at home. great project.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6694565",
"author": "Russ Cottrill",
"timestamp": "2023... | 1,760,372,122.449499 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/28/impostor-syndrome-its-not-your-fault/ | Impostor Syndrome: It’s Not Your Fault! | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"easy hacks",
"impostor syndrome",
"newsletter",
"scroll wheel",
"usb"
] | [Crispernaki] and I have something in common. We both saw
this awesome project
that made a scroll wheel out of a VHS head back in 2010, and wanted to make one. We both wanted to put our own spin on the gadget, (tee-hee), discovered that it was harder than either of us wanted to commit to, and gave up.
Flash forward about a million Internet years, and [crispernaki]
finally made his
and wrote it up. The only problem is that it was too easy. In 2010, making USB gadgets was a lot more involved than it is today. (Back then, we had to chisel device descriptors on stone tablets.) Nowadays, the firmware is just a matter of importing the right library, and the hardware is a magnetic rotation sensor breakout board, a magnet, and super glue. Cheap, and easy.
All of this led our hero to feeling insecure. After all, a hack that beat him a dozen years ago turned out to be dead easy today. Maybe it was too easy? Maybe he wasn’t a “real” hacker? These are the signs of
impostor syndrome
– that feeling that just because you aren’t the world’s best, or climbing the highest mountain, or hacking the hardest project, you’re not worthy.
Well, listen up. Impostors don’t finish projects, and impostors don’t write them up to share with all the rest of us. By actually doing the thing – hacking the hack – all chances of being a fake are ruled out. The proof is sitting there on your desk, in all its Altoids-tin glory.
And it’s not your fault that it was too easy this time around. You can’t do anything to turn back the hands of time, to make the project any harder these days, or to undo the decade of hacker technical progress on the software side, much less change the global economy to make a magnetic sensor unobtainable again. The world improved, you got your hack done, and that’s that. Congratulations! (Now where do I buy some of those on-axis magnets?)
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning?
You should sign up
! | 68 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694461",
"author": "john A ferguson",
"timestamp": "2023-10-28T14:23:25",
"content": "I don’t about the rest of you, but I do a lot of projects that are beyond and sometimes way beyond my understanding of the issues. Usually they don’t work right away but eventually.I must say tha... | 1,760,372,122.609893 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/28/plasma-cutting-and-3d-printing-team-up-to-make-bending-thick-sheet-steel-easier/ | Plasma Cutting And 3D Printing Team Up To Make Bending Thick Sheet Steel Easier | Dan Maloney | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"alignment",
"bending",
"bracket",
"jig",
"plasma",
"plasma cutter",
"press brake",
"sheet steel",
"tool"
] | Metalworking has always been very much a “mixed method” art. Forging, welding, milling, grinding; anything to remove metal or push it around from one place to another is fair game when you’ve got to make something fast. Adding in fancy new tools like CNC plasma cutting and computer-aided drafting doesn’t change that much, although new methods often do call for a little improvisation.
Getting several methodologies to work and play well together
is what [tonygoacher] learned all about while trying to fabricate some brackets for an electric trike for next year’s EMF Camp. The parts would have been perfect for fabrication in a press brake except for the 4 mm thickness of the plate steel, which was a little much for his smallish brake. To make the bending a little easier, [tony] made a partial-thickness groove across the plasma-cut blank, by using a reduced power setting on the cutter. This worked perfectly to guide the brake’s tooling, but [tony] ran into trouble with more complicated bends that would require grooves on both sides of the steel plate.
His solution was to 3D print a couple of sacrificial guide blocks to fit the bed of the press brake. Each guide had a ridge to match up with a guide groove, this allowed him to cut his partial grooves for both bends on the same side of the plate but still align it in the press brake. Yes, the blocks were destroyed in the process, but they only took a few minutes to print, so no big deal. And it’s true that the steel tore a little bit when the groove ended up on the outside radius of the bend, but that’s nothing a bead of weld can’t fix. Good enough for EMF is good enough, after all.
The brief video below shows the whole process, including [tony]’s interesting SCARA-like CNC plasma cutter, which we’re a little in love with now. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen
3D prints used as tools in metalworking
, of course, but we picked up some great tips from this one. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694487",
"author": "Joseph Clark Ray",
"timestamp": "2023-10-28T15:55:15",
"content": "I feel like the partial depth of cut with the plasma cutter was a good idea, putting internal chamfers on thick bent pieces is common. I think doing it with the plasma cutter likely made the shee... | 1,760,372,122.494323 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/28/paperless-rfid-tags-are-carbon-based/ | Paperless RFID Tags Are Carbon-Based | Kristina Panos | [
"green hacks",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"carbon",
"rfid",
"single-use electronics"
] | RFID tags are great little pieces of technology, but unfortunately, the combination of paper, metal, and silicon means they are as bad as some modern pregnancy tests — single-use electronic devices that can’t be recycled.
Some prototypes of the RFID tags.
A team of design program graduates from London’s Royal College of Art aim to change that.
They’ve devised a mostly-paper RFID tag
that’s as safe to recycle as a piece of paper with a pencil doodle on it.
The team’s startup, PulpaTronics have created a design that uses paper as its only material. The circuitry is marked on the paper with a laser set to low power, which doesn’t burn or cut the paper, but instead changes to composition to be conductive.
PulpaTronics were also able to create a chip-less RFID tag much the same way, using a pattern of concentric circles to convey information. The company estimates that these tags will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 70%, when compared with traditional RFID tags. They’ll also cost about half as much.
RFID is used in many industries, but it’s also great for hacking.
Here’s an 8-track player that harnesses the power of RFID tags to play songs off of an SD card
.
Thanks for the tip, [gir.st]! | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694418",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2023-10-28T08:58:48",
"content": "Err… the headline doesn’t seem to match the content… the article says “ a design that uses paper as its only material” – which is great news for disposable ones.Did you mean plasticless?",
"parent_id": nu... | 1,760,372,122.669955 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/27/build-an-easy-replica-of-hal-9000/ | Build An Easy Replica Of HAL 9000 | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"adafruit",
"hal",
"hal 9000",
"hal9000",
"propmaker feather"
] | Adafruit’s PropMaker Feather is a microcontroller board designed specifically for building props with electronic features. Thus, what better way to show it off than by building a nifty replica of the most menacing AI ever to roam this solar system? That’s right,
it’s the Adafruit HAL9000 build!
Following the 80/20 rule, this version is intended to be reasonably authentic while remaining affordable and easy to build. It’s built around Adafruit’s existing Massive Red Arcade Button, which looks like a decent simulacra of HAL9000’s foreboding, perceptive lens. It’s placed in a case assembled from laser-cut acrylic, with a neat inkjet-printed label on top. Where previously, sound effects were courtesy of an Arduino Uno with a Wave Shield, this version uses the PropMaker Feather, based on the RP2040, instead. It’s actually possible to assemble with zero soldering thanks to quick-connect wires and screw terminals on the PropMaker Feather.
Fundamentally, if you’re building a simple prop that needs audio or LEDs, the PropMaker Feather could be a useful tool for the job. Alternatively, consider building a HAL replica with more capability,
like controlling your home
. Just don’t give it too much responsibility—we all know how that ends. Video after the break. | 31 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694404",
"author": "Voja Antonic",
"timestamp": "2023-10-28T06:26:52",
"content": "HAL9000 is the most imaginatively conceived movie character, my obsession since 1968, when I first saw the film. Since then I have made many replicas, here is the last one:https://hackaday.io/project... | 1,760,372,122.738079 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/27/the-many-ways-to-play-colossal-cave-adventure-after-nearly-half-a-century/ | The Many Ways To Play Colossal Cave Adventure After Nearly Half A Century | Maya Posch | [
"Games"
] | [
"colossal cave adventure",
"text game"
] | Born from a passion for caving and the wish to turn this into a digital adventure for all ages, Colossal Cave Adventure has grown from its quiet introduction in 1976 by William Crowther into the expanded game that inspired countless others to develop their own take on the genre, eventually leading to the realistically rendered graphical adventures we can play today. Yet even Colossal Cave Adventure has recently got a refresh in the form of a 3D graphical version, which has led [Bryan Lunduke] to take a look at how to best
revisit the original text adventure
.
Your Colossal Cave Adventure awaits… (Credit: Bryan Lunduke)
For those who are on Linux or a BSD system, the easiest way is to hop over to the package manager and install
Colossal Cave Adventure
straight away with the package
bsdgames
on Debian-based systems, or
colossal-cave-adventure
on others. A port by Eric S. Raymond of the 1995 version of the game can also be found as Open Adventure, and there’s a
1990-era DOS version
you can experience on real hardware or even in a browser window, if that’s your thing. Or
get it
for your Amiga, Macintosh or OS/2. These days you can even get ready-to-use maps of the entire cave and surroundings, which along with walkthroughs can make things far too easy.
As for the newly released version of the game, it’s available on the usual store outlets,
including GoG
, and
reviews
of the game do seem to appreciate that it is essentially a like-for-like translation of the texture adventure into a graphical one. As for whether a nearly-half-a-century old game holds up to scrutiny by sticking to what worked when Dungeons & Dragons was still the new kid on the block and systems like the PDP-10 ruled the roost, this is very much debatable, but one has to have respect for a game that has stuck around for so long, across so many system architectures and programming languages. Plus it also
gave us Zork
.
(Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip) | 15 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694396",
"author": "CMH62",
"timestamp": "2023-10-28T02:53:20",
"content": "Fantastic! I recall how mad my wife got with me many decades ago when the guy who lived in the apartment upstairs would come by with a “portable” computer and we’d play many hours long into the night while... | 1,760,372,122.791243 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/27/pc-fan-controller-works-on-most-operating-systems/ | PC Fan Controller Works On Most Operating Systems | Bryan Cockfield | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"computer",
"controller",
"cooling",
"desktop",
"fan",
"fan controller",
"nas",
"network",
"network attached storage",
"pc",
"sata",
"usb"
] | For better or worse, most drivers for PC-related hardware like RGB components and fan controllers are built for Windows and aren’t generally of the highest quality. They’re often proprietary and clunky, and even if they aren’t a total mess they generally won’t work on Linux machines at all, or even on a headless setup regardless of OS. This custom fan controller, on the other hand, eschews the operating system almost entirely in favor of
an open source fan controller board
that can be reached over a network instead.
The project’s creator, [Sasa Karanovic], experimented with fan splitters to solve his problems, but found that these wouldn’t be the ideal solution given the sheer number of fans he wanted in his various computers, especially in his network-attached storage machine. For that one he wanted ten fans, with control over them in custom groups that would behave in certain ways depending on what the computer was doing. His solution uses two EMC2305 five-fan controller chip which communicates over I2C on a custom PCB with a RP2040 at the center. This allows the hardware to communicate with USB to the host computer for updating firmware and controlling over the network. There’s also a 1-wire and I2C bus exposed in case any external sensors need to be integrated into this system as well. To get power for all of those fans, the board uses a SATA connector to get power from the computer’s power supply.
With the PCB built and all of the connections to the host computer made, the custom board is able to control up to 10 fans in any custom configuration without needing a monitor or a driver since it is accessible over the network through an API. It’s also
open-source
so any changes to the firmware or hardware can easily be made for most air-cooled PC situations. If you’re less concerned about the internal case temperature and more concerned about all the heat your PC is dumping into a living space,
you might want to look into venting your PC outside instead
. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694370",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2023-10-27T23:53:05",
"content": "id rather get fan bus strips from the pcb mill of my choice. this is how i manage to run 5 fans off of 2 fan headers. especially when one of the headers can push enough current for a water pump and ca... | 1,760,372,122.878309 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/27/mechanical-scorpion-robot-is-a-cute-little-critter/ | Mechanical Scorpion Robot Is A Cute Little Critter | Lewin Day | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"robot",
"scorpion"
] | Plenty of robots stick to a pair of driven wheels to keep locomotion simple. If you’re bold though, or just like creepy crawlies,
you might instead appreciate this cute scorpion robot build.
Real scorpions have eight legs, but this design has just four legs, which keeps the parts count lower and control much simpler. It still looks a bit like a scorpion, though, by virtue of its cute little tail. It’s not just for show either—it mounts a camera which can be positioned at different angles via the tail’s servos. A Raspberry Pi Zero W is the brains of the operation, and allows the robot to be controlled via WiFi or Bluetooth.
Naturally, there is some additional complexity to the walking design. A full ten servos are used across the multiple legs and tail linkages. Most of the parts are 3D printed, however, so it’s quite easy to build at home once you’ve got all the parts to hand.
The robot critter has a shuffling gait, but we’d love to see it modified to walk and climb in different manners with the right programming and mechanical modifications. We’ve featured some other great
creepy crawly builds
over the years, too. Video after the break. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694345",
"author": "deshipu",
"timestamp": "2023-10-27T20:16:17",
"content": "No matter how much programming you do, you can’t have much better gaits with this leg configuration. You would either need to add four more servos, to have a proper 3-degree of freedom per leg, or have th... | 1,760,372,122.831245 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/26/remembering-the-muddiest-of-times-with-the-mud1-and-mud2-online-rpgs/ | Remembering The MUDdiest Of Times With The MUD1 And MUD2 Online RPGs | Maya Posch | [
"Games"
] | [
"mud",
"muds",
"multi-user dungeon"
] | Before there were massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like
EverQuest
, the genre was called a Multi-User Dungeon (MUD), following in the trend of calling text adventures at that time ‘dungeon crawlers’. These multi-player games required you to bring along your own imagination, for these were purely text-based affairs. Despite the first of these (MUD1) having been released all the way back in 1978 for the DEC PDP-10, these games are still being played today, long after they stopped being in the (game) news cycle.
The brief history and today’s status of MUD1 is covered in a
recent article by [Bryan Lunduke]
, following its creation in 1979 in the UK by [Richard Bartle] and [Roy Trubshaw], its struggles and eventual renaming to ‘
British Legends
‘
Technically all you need to play is a telnet client, though you can always use a graphical web browser to log into a text adventure. Much like playing a
game like Zork
— which heavily inspired MUDs — you got to use your wits and map drawing skills to figure out how to navigate around the world. You can also play the new and improved MUD:
MUD2
. Make sure to take a peek on [Richard]’s
aesthetically yellow MUD-related
website and the latest gossip in the
Muddled Times
before joining either the
UK MUD2 server
or the
Canadian one
.
Although definitely leaning on one’s imagination more than the advanced graphics of a graphical MUD like
EverQuest
require, there’s a lot of fun to be had in these MUDs, as well as the
plethora of others
.
Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip. | 14 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694229",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2023-10-27T06:18:31",
"content": "I logged in as mudguest and could tell it is not my cup of tea (or extra strong mug of coffee), a good example of a more modern MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) would be Ancient Anguish (elf/orc/dwarf/half-elf/huma... | 1,760,372,123.13233 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/26/blatano-art-project-tracks-devices-in-its-vicinity/ | Blatano Art Project Tracks Devices In Its Vicinity | Lewin Day | [
"Art"
] | [
"art",
"bluetooth",
"ESP32"
] | Computers, surveillance systems, and online agents are perceiving us all the time these days. Most of the time, it takes place in the shadows, and we’re supposed to be unaware of this activity going on in the background. The Blatano art piece from [Leigh] instead shows a digital being
that actively displays its perception of other digital beings in the world around it.
The project is based on an ESP32, using the BLE Scanner library to scan for Bluetooth devices in the immediate vicinity. Pwnagochi and Hash Monster tools are also used to inspect WiFi traffic, while the
CovidSniffer
library picks up packets from contact-tracking apps that may be operating in the area.
This data is used to create profiles of various devices that the Blatano can pick up. It then assigns names and little robotic images to each “identity,” and keeps tabs on them over time. It’s an imperfect science, given that some devices regularly change their Bluetooth identifiers and the like. Regardless, it’s interesting to watch a digital device
monitor the scene
like a wallflower watching punters at a house party.
If you’ve built your own art-surveillance devices to comment on
the state of modernity
, don’t hesitate to
drop us a line! | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694392",
"author": "Adrian",
"timestamp": "2023-10-28T02:31:17",
"content": "I love the idea of using a 35mm slide viewer as enclosure.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8051482",
"author": "LEIGH L KLOTZ JR",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,372,123.042666 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/26/interactive-chameleon-lamp-changes-color-at-your-whim/ | Interactive Chameleon Lamp Changes Color At Your Whim | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Art"
] | [
"arduino pro micro",
"chameleon",
"color sensor",
"diorama"
] | You never forget your first diorama, especially when it’s interactive. Although admittely a bit late to celebrate
Erntedankfest
(Germanic Thanksgiving), [Markus Bindhammer] is ahead of the curve when it comes to the American version.
This interactive diorama lamp
features a cute chameleon that [Markus sculpted from a wire frame and a lump of clay]. In the chameleon’s midsection is a ping pong ball that does the work of diffusing an RGB LED. Wires run out the far side and through the bamboo stand and connect to a
TCS34725
RGB color sensor and an Arduino Pro Micro.
The lamp does what you think — hold any colored object up to the color sensor, and the chameleon will change colors to match. When no one is interacting with the lamp, it slowly runs through a rainbow of colors. Be sure to check out the build video after the break.
Don’t have a color sensor?
You can roll your own
with an RGB LED, a photocell, and not much else. If you’re wondering how they work,
we’ve seen the color sensor demystified
. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694393",
"author": "Reactive Light",
"timestamp": "2023-10-28T02:37:39",
"content": "[Markus sculpted from a wire frame and a lump of clay]HaD naming conventions get sillier by the day.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6694600",... | 1,760,372,123.082934 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/26/tims-draw-bot-gets-around-with-a-pen/ | Tim’s Draw Bot Gets Around With A Pen | Lewin Day | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"drawbot",
"drawing robot",
"robot"
] | If you grew up playing with LOGO on an old 8-bit computer, you’re probably familiar with the concept of a drawbot. It’s a simple robot that drags a pen around to draw on paper.
[Tim] decided to build one that uses a simple skid-steer design to get around the page.
An Arduino Nano is the brains of the operation, paired with a CNC Shield that allows it to drive a pair of stepper motors. The stepper motors drive the wheels via cogged belts, with the 3D-printed rims fitted with square rubber drive belts used as tires for additional grip. A third jockey wheel is used for balance, in addition to the two main driven wheels. A servo is used to raise and lower the pen as needed. All the hardware is mounted on to a simple tray chassis, which was 3D printed along with most of the other basic componentry.
The robot does a good job of plotting out a drawing on a small scale, with [Tim] using it to outline his name on paper. We’ve featured some other great drawbots before, too,
including this nifty spray-can version
. Video after the break. | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694149",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2023-10-26T20:56:05",
"content": "Obligatory XKCD:“Instructions”, and of coursethe explanation.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6694156",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2023-... | 1,760,372,123.005726 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/26/a-tiny-board-for-driving-leds-in-whatever/ | A Tiny Board For Driving LEDs In…Whatever | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"addressable leds",
"game boy",
"led"
] | Whether you’re into chiptune or just playing
Tetris
on original hardware, you might like rocking a heavily-customized Game Boy. Lovely flashing LEDs can only improve the aesthetic, so if that’s what you’re after, you might consider the
ARCCore board from [NatalieTheNerd].
The board is a compact and easy way to drive some addressable LEDs, with a form factor designed to take up a small amount of space when stuffed into a Game Boy or other game console. It rocks an RP2040 microcontroller set up to drive a strip of WS2812B LEDs. Three buttons are used to configure the color and brightness settings. The board is designed to run on 3.3 to 5 V, thanks to an onboard buck converter. It’s capable of delivering enough juice to run up to 10 RGB LEDs, though you could potentially use more if you ran them from external power.
You can use just about any microcontroller on the market today to run addressable LEDs if you so desire. If you want a compact drop-in solution that takes up less space, though, you might find the ARCCore useful. If you’ve got your own nifty kit for running addressable LEDs, don’t hesitate to share it with the broader hacker massive —
hit the tipsline! | 19 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694132",
"author": "limroh",
"timestamp": "2023-10-26T19:10:46",
"content": "> It rocks an RP2040 microcontrollerthat seems wrong to me. Can ‘we’ establish a new word for RP2040’s and the ESPs and so on?Like maybe “megacontroller”? Or at least “macrocontroller”?ATtiny’s, PIC’s and ... | 1,760,372,123.307582 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/26/simple-badge-is-simple-but-its-yours/ | Simple Badge Is Simple, But It’s Yours | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Microcontrollers",
"Slider"
] | [
"badge",
"Raspberry Pi Pico"
] | Making conference badges, official or unofficial, has become an art form. It can
get pretty serious
. #
badgelife
.
But DEFCON-goers aren’t the only people making fancy personalized nametags. Hams often had callsign badges going back as far as I can remember. Most were made of engraved plastic, but, at some point, it became common to put something like a flashing LED on the top of the engraved antenna tower or maybe something blinking Morse code.
Going back to that simpler time, I wanted to see if I could make my own badge out of easily accessible modules. How easy can it be? Let’s find out. Along the way, we’ll talk about multicore programming, critical sections, namespaces, and jamming images into C++ code. I’ll also show you how to hijack the C preprocessor to create a little scripting language to make the badge easier to configure.
Bottom Line Up Front
Clean, yet classic
Ham radio FTW!
A fanciful X-ray view
The photo shows the Pico badge. It has an RP2040 CPU but not a proper Raspberry Pi Pico. The
Waveshare RP2040-Plus
clone has a battery connector and charger. It also has a reset button, and this one has 16 MB of flash, but you don’t need that much. The
LCD
is also a Waveshare product. (This just happened to work out. I bought all of this stuff, and I don’t even know anyone at Waveshare.) The only other thing you need is a USB C cable and a battery with an MX 1.25 connector on it with the correct polarity. Hardware done! Time for software.
For the software, you have a lot of options. The Waveshare documentation shows you how to drive the display using standard C code and Micropython. I decided to go a different way and stick with the Arduino tools. [Earlephilhower] has a fantastic
board support package
for the RP2040. I’ve been using it lately with excellent results. It has a lot of great things baked in, including straightforward support for multicore and more.
The badge is more or less a slide show. You can display images and write text either on a solid background or over an image. Each slide appears for a set amount of time although, within limits, you can speed it up or slow it down. You can see a quick demo in the video below.
Obviously, if you want to customize it, you could
grab my code
and change it. But that means you need to understand a little about it. Who has time for that? Instead, the code can take a script file that — eventually — turns into C code, but you don’t have to know much about the internals of the badge.
For example, suppose you want to show a jolly wrencher with your name written across it. The script looks like this:
Sbwimg(wrencher,GREEN,BLACK)
Stext(TCENTER,TCENTER,"-AL-")
There are commands to draw color and monochrome images, fill the screen with colors, and print using various fonts and colors.
The badge can send you to its own GitHub page
The buttons respond almost instantly because they are run by the RP2040’s second core. This is probably overkill, but it is nearly effortless to do. The four buttons along the left side let you select a few scenes or loops, change the slide show timing, and pause the show.
The joystick up and down gives you finer control over the timing, while the left and right jump to different parts of the slide show. Pushing the joystick toggles the screen on or off. To customize the buttons, you need a little custom C code, but you don’t need a deep understanding of the hardware or software.
The Deets
The software only has four major parts: the display, the button interface, services to the script, and the actual script language processing. All of these are simple once you dig into them.
The graphics library I used is the
Arduino GFX library
. This library is impressive because it handles many different display types. You must define a bus to tell the library how to talk to the display. In this case, that’s SPI on specific pins. Then, the library itself is abstracted from the communication channel. You can easily use the screen as a text output device or a graphics output device. It even supports u8g2 fonts.
Buttons and Multicore
At first, I just checked each switch as part of the standard loop processing. Why not? But there’s a problem. The very nature of the badge means that most of the time, the processor is executing a delay between “slides.” While that was happening, the keys were not being scanned. You could, of course, break the delay into small parts simply to check the keys in between.
However, the RP2040 has two perfectly fine cores, and one of them normally stays asleep. By default, your program runs on core 0 along with the USB serial port. So why not use that extra core? Programming with multiple cores must be hard, though, right?
Actually, no. If you want two things going on simultaneously, you only have to define
setup1()
and
loop1()
in your program (see
core1.cpp
). This is like the standard Arduino
setup
and
loop
, but it will wake up core 1 and run on it. It is that simple.
The issue, of course, is when you want to communicate between the cores. The RP2040 support package does have a FIFO-style form of interprocess communication, but for this simple job, I went with something easier.
The two cores share one variable:
button
. Core 0 reads this variable and resets it to zero. Core 1 marks bits in the variable that correspond to active button pushes. It never resets the bits, so the main code will see a button push whenever it looks, even if the button was already released.
The core 1 code also has provisions for debouncing the switches and only reporting a single event to the main thread per button press. The trick is not to have both CPUs reading and writing that variable simultaneously. In a regular operating system, you’d have the idea of a critical section. In this case, I use the API call to freeze the “other” core for the brief period required to read or write the buttons variable. For example:
rp2040.idleOtherCore();
buttons |= xbtn; // put in any that are set; client will reset them
rp2040.resumeOtherCore();
I didn’t want to delay the keys too long, so the
scaledelay
routine (in
badge.cpp
) breaks the delay into 100 millisecond slices. Of course, that means delays have a practical resolution of 100 milliseconds, but that’s no big deal for this application. After each 0.1-second delay, the loop checks for any keypress, and if found, the loop exits.
Core 1 delays for 5 milliseconds in its main loop. This gives the other core a chance to run and means buttons don’t need a long press to work. Going shorter has little value, and you could probably go a little longer, which might economize on battery life.
Script Services
I wanted to provide services to the script so you could customize the badge without much effort. There is a callback function (
customize
) that, if provided, can do things like pause the slide show or loop it at different points.
At first, I put these functions in a static class. That way, you had to refer to them explicitly from the customize function. If your code had a function called
pause
, for example, it didn’t matter because you needed to call
BADGE::pause
to get the pause service.
After a bit, though, I realized there was no real value in having it in a static class, and a better choice would be to use a namespace. The
customize
code looks exactly the same either way. You still call
BADGE::pause
. However, now you are calling a function in the
BADGE
namespace, not a static function in the
BADGE
class. A small distinction, but handy. For example, you could do a use to import the pause function or even the whole namespace if you wanted to.
In the original code, I had static variables that were “private” to the service code. These variables are now in a nameless namespace. This is very similar to static: the code in the file can use what’s defined there, but it isn’t visible to anything else.
Compiling the Script
The script is straightforward to implement because I’ve hijacked the C preprocessor. Each script step is an element in an array of structures. Then there are C preprocessor defines that set up that array and each element (see
pico-badge.h
). For example, this script:
Sbegin
Sclear(RED)
Stext(3,10,"Hello!")
Send
Expands to:
SCRIPT script[]= {
{ CLEAR, NULL, NULL, RED, 0 },
{ TEXT, "Hello!", NULL, 3, 10}
};
unsigned script_size=sizeof(script)/sizeof(script[0])
That’s it. The preprocessor does all the work of compiling. Just remember that things are set up when the array initializes. For example, the default script uses
tdelay
to hold the base delay between slides. Once the array builds, changing
tdelay
doesn’t do anything for you. You’d have to modify the item in the array, which is not much fun.
The
Stag
macro lets you set a numeric label (like a Basic line number) that you can later find. The numbers don’t have to be sequential — they are just to identify a position in your script. Some of the script helpers take tags so you don’t have to count (and recount) array elements to refer to a specific part of the script.
Images
If you want images, you must put them in arrays. Some websites can help with this for
monochrome
or
color
images. The GIMP can also export to .C or .H files, as seen in the video below.
If you start with the code in
script.cpp
, you should be able to figure out how to get it all together.
What’s Left?
Not bad for some off-the-shelf hardware. It isn’t going to win any prizes at your next conference, but you can easily customize it and make it your own. If you have one at Supercon, find me at the soldering challenge table and show off your build.
What can’t zip ties do?
I still need to produce an enclosure for the badge, although, with a 220 mAh battery wedged between the boards, it does pretty well by itself. I used a few zip ties and some super glue to make a makeshift connector for a lanyard. I wouldn’t mind putting a clock display option together, but you’d need a way to set the clock. A battery charge monitor would be nice, too.
If you could find a Pico-like CPU with both the battery charger and wireless, that would open up some possibilities. A great deal of the device capability — like PIOs and the USB port — is going to waste, too. Since the Arduino package supports
LittleFS
, you could read files from the “disk.” It probably ought to be able to
play Life
, too. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694124",
"author": "make piece not war",
"timestamp": "2023-10-26T18:46:45",
"content": "Hi Al. Does it … ahem …Aaaa, doest it p..(deep breath) Can you play Doom on it?The answer is yes, but your buttocks will hurt ;)Nice project. Keep’em comming.",
"parent_id": null,
"dept... | 1,760,372,123.458243 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/26/simple-hack-lets-smartphone-take-resin-printer-time-lapses/ | Simple Hack Lets Smartphone Take Resin Printer Time-Lapses | Dan Maloney | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"ldr",
"photography",
"resin",
"sla",
"time-lapse"
] | With how cheap they’re getting, everyone seems to be jumping on the resin printer bandwagon. They may not be able to fully replace your trusty old FDM printer, but for certain jobs, they just can’t be beaten. Sadly though, creating those smooth time-lapse videos of your prints isn’t quite as easy to do as it is on their filament-based counterparts.
Not as easy, perhaps, but not impossible. [Fraens] found a way to
make time-lapses on any resin printer
, and in a wonderfully hacky way. First, you need to find a smartphone, which shouldn’t be too hard, given how often we all tend to upgrade. [Fraens] recommends replacing the standard camera app on the phone with
Open Camera
, to prevent it from closing during the long intervals with nothing happening. The camera is triggered by any readily available Bluetooth dongle, which is connected via a simple transistor circuit to an Arduino output. To trigger the shutter, a light-dependent resistor (LDR) is connected to one of the microcontroller’s inputs. The LDR is placed inside the bed of the resin printer — an Anycubic Photon in this case — where light from the UV panel used to cross-link the resin can fall on it. A simple bit of Arduino code triggers the Bluetooth dongle at the right moment, capturing a series of stills which are later stitched together using DaVinci Resolve.
The short video below shows the results, which look pretty good to us. There are
other ways to do this
, of course, but we find the simplicity of this method pleasing. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694119",
"author": "Ben",
"timestamp": "2023-10-26T18:27:14",
"content": "…of course, the OTHER other way to do this would be to hack the firmware so that after printing it lowers the print back into the resin, then pulls it out again while you film at normal speed.",
"parent_i... | 1,760,372,123.543328 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/27/3d-printed-dump-truck-carries-teeny-loads/ | 3D Printed Dump Truck Carries Teeny Loads | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"radio control",
"truck"
] | What do you do when you already have a neat little radio-controlled skid-steer loader? Well, if you’re [ProfessorBoots], you build
a neat little dump truck to match!
The dump truck is built out of 3D printed components, and has proportions akin to a heavy-duty mining hauler. The dump bed and wheels were oversized relative to the rest of the body to give it a more cartoonish look.
An ESP32 is the brains of the operation. The build is powered by a nifty little 3.6 V rechargeable lithium-ion battery with an integral Micro USB charge port. It’s paired with a boost converter to provide a higher voltage for the servos and motors. Drive is to the rear wheels, thanks to a small DC gear motor. Unlike previous skid-steer designs from [ProfessorBoots], this truck has proper servo-controlled steering. The printed tires are wrapped in rubber o-rings, which is a neat way to make wheels that grip without a lot of fuss. The truck also has a fully-functional dump bed, which looks great fun to play with.
The final build pairs great with
the loader that [ProfessorBoots] built previously
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694366",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-10-27T23:22:50",
"content": "It needs to be printed in Cadmium Yellow.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6694367",
"author": "gregg4",
... | 1,760,372,123.584211 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/27/the-dar-es-salaam-hacker-scene-and-gamut-detection/ | The Dar Es Salaam Hacker Scene And Gamut Detection | Anne Ogborn | [
"Featured",
"hardware",
"Interest",
"Robots Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"arduino",
"microcontroller",
"robot"
] | We’re on a sort of vacation in Tanzania at the moment and staying in a modest hotel away from the tourist and government district. It’s a district of small shops selling the same things and guys repairing washing machines out on the sidewalk. The guys repairing washing machines are more than happy to talk. Everybody’s amazingly friendly here, the hotel guy grilled us for an hour about our home state. But I really didn’t expect to end up in a conversation about computer vision.
In search of some yogurt and maybe something cooler to wear, we went on a little walk away from the hotel. With incredible luck we found a robotics shop a few blocks away.
Mecktonix
is a shop about two meters each way, stuffed full of Arduinos, robots, electronics components, servos, and random computer gear, overseen by [Yohanna “Joe” Harembo]. Nearby is another space with a laser engraver and 3D printer. The tiny space doesn’t stop them from being busy. A constant stream of automotive tech students from the nearby
National Institute of Transport
shuffle in for advice and parts for class assigned projects.
In between students, Joe demos an autonomous car he’s working on. In classic hacker fashion, he first has to reattach the motor driver board and various sensors, but then he demos the car and its problem – the video frame rate is very slow. We dive in with him and try to get some profiling using
time.monotonic_ns()
. He’s never done profiling before, so this is a big eye opener. He’s only processing one video frame every 4.3 seconds, using YOLO on a Pi 3, and yup, that’s the problem. I suggest he change to gamut detection or a Pi 4.
Gamut Detection
If you’re not familiar with gamut detection, it’s one of the simplest of all computer vision techniques, so it’s easy to implement on slow processors and almost trivial to code. Basically, it’s “look for a color”. If you want your robot to follow you, wear a lime green T shirt. Now the robot just has to look for lime green. Same for catching a ball or following a line. The algorithm is simple – convert each pixel to HSV, where hue corresponds to the direction around the color wheel, saturation corresponds to how concentrated the color is, and value how bright. Brightness depends on the lighting, so you can throw value away and just set limits for H and S. Anything within those limits is part of our target. The box formed by those limits is our “gamut”.
There are a couple speedups you can apply as well. First, ask yourself how much resolution you need from the camera. If you only want to track a green T shirt that’s never less than 24 pixels on screen, turn the resolution down by a factor of six each way and look for four-pixel T shirts. You now have 1/36th as much data to process and your algorithm runs 36 times faster. If you can’t control the camera resolution, you can shrink the image or just sample every nth pixel. Second, you can often ask for a YUV or YIQ image from the camera. Discard Y and set your limits in IQ or UV coordinates. It’s about the same as HSV.
Joe’s eating this up – he’s had limited chances to talk with somebody else who is into computer vision. As we write this, he’s still trying with YOLO, but at lower resolution. If it doesn’t work he’ll try gamut detection. And it’s not his only project. Passenger carrying motorcycles called pikipikis are common here. A student has a project to enforce passengers wearing a helmet, and we fiddle with the student’s project.
The Dar es Salaam Scene
There’s other tech happening in Tanzania too. A few blocks away is [Ruta Electronics], a similar sugar cube sized shop developing smart meters. Everything from cases to PCB etching happens in the tiny shop. Downtown there are a few tech startups. There’s a fab lab, mostly oriented towards children. And on a quiet side street off the main drag, there’s a tiny shop with three guys who are hacking like crazy.
For us, we’ve had a chance to make a friend from a different culture and play with a robot car together — what could be better? When you’re traveling, are you on the lookout for other hackers or hackerspaces? It’s worth the effort and brings our community together in a way that even the internet can’t. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694347",
"author": "YoDrTentacles",
"timestamp": "2023-10-27T20:28:11",
"content": "So amazing to see other hacker scenes in the world. Thank you for enlightening us.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6694352",
"author": "Cap... | 1,760,372,123.502301 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/27/hackaday-podcast-242-mechanical-math-kaboombox-and-racing-the-beam/ | Hackaday Podcast 242: Mechanical Math, KaboomBox, And Racing The Beam | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up from their separate but equally pin drop-quiet offices to discuss the best hacks of the previous week. Well,
we
liked these one, anyway.
First up in the news, it’s finally time for
Supercon
! So we’ll see you there? If not, be sure to check out the talks as we live-stream them on
our YouTube channel
!
Don’t forget — this is your last weekend to enter
the 2023 Halloween Hackfest contest
, which runs until 9 AM PDT on October 31st. Arduino are joining the fun this year and are offering some spooky treats in addition to the $150 DigiKey gift cards for the top three entrants.
It’s time for a new What’s That Sound, and Kristina was able to stump Elliot with this one. She’ll have to think of some more weirdo sounds, it seems.
Then it’s on to the hacks, beginning with an insanely complex mechanical central air data computer super-teardown from [Ken Shirriff]. We also learned that you can 3D-print springs and things by using a rod as your bed, and we learned whole lot about rolling your own electrolytic capacitors from someone who got to visit a factory.
From there we take a look at a Commodore Datassette drive that sings barbershop, customizing
printf
, and a
really
cool dress made of Polymer-dispersed Liquid Crystal (PDLC) panels. Finally we talk about racing the beam when it comes to game graphics, and say goodbye to Kristina’s series on USPS technology.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Download and savor at your leisure
.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 242 Show Notes:
News:
2023 Hackaday Superconference
2023 Halloween Contest on Hackaday
Hasbro Kids Proton Pack Conversion
Front 242: Back Catalog
What’s that Sound?
Fill out the form, place yer bets
! Kristina stumped Elliot, maybe you’ll fare better.
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Reverse-Engineering The Mechanical Bendix Central Air Data Computer
Retrotechtacular: The Differential
Harmonic Analyzer Mechanical Fourier Computer
Retrotechtacular: Mechanical Targeting Computers
KaboomBox Is A Firecracker Of A Music Player
3D Printing On A Spinning Rod
2023 Halloween Hackfest: Haunted Keyboard Is Free From Ghosting
Learning About Capacitors By Rolling Your Own Electrolytics
Commodore Datassette Does Barbershop Quartet
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Linux Fu: Customizing Printf
Using LEDs To Determine A Video Camera’s True Framerate
Stage Lighting Hack Keeps La Bohème From Becoming A Dumpster Fire
The Insatiable Hunger Of Paper Shredder-Based Locomotion
Daily Inspections Keep Your Spitfire In Tip-Top Shape
Kristina’s Picks:
Is That A Record Player In Your Pocket Or…
A Typewriter For The Paperless Age
Adobe Scientist Cuts A Dash With LCD Shifting Dress
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Game Graphics: Racing The Beam
David Crane – The Internal Magic of the Atari 2600 – Louisville Arcade Expo 2015 – YouTube
You’ve Got Mail: Grilled, Scrambled, And Other Delicious Stamps | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6696140",
"author": "iHally",
"timestamp": "2023-11-04T21:00:23",
"content": "The quality of the episodes are fantastic. Thanks for all the effort all of you put into it. Favorite podcast to binge when I need to stir the brain juices. A detail about a recent hack or the references t... | 1,760,372,123.633838 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/27/a-simple-and-effective-3d-filament-splicer/ | A Simple And Effective 3D Filament Splicer | Jenny List | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"filament",
"filament splicing"
] | There are times in every 3D print enthusiast’s life when it would be convenient to join two pieces of filament. The problem with simply melting them together is that the resulting join has a blob of plastic surrounding it which has difficulty making it through the printer’s internals. [Pete Prodoehl] has a solution,
in the form of a well-executed splicing jig
that’s sure to leave a join which will glide through your printer.
The trick lies in performing the join in a space only marginally wider than the filament width, in the case of 1.75 mm filament a short piece of 1.775 mm PTFE tube encased in a 3D printed clamp. A 90-degree cut piece of filament is fed through the tube and heated with a candle, then withdrawn into the tube where a 45-degree cut piece is pushed in to fuse with it. The result is a seamless and bulge-less join, that can pass through an extruder without issue and print continuous pieces from different filaments.
It’s a very effective technique, but it’s not the only one we’ve seen over the years.
This one by comparison heats the filament in a hair straightener
, and relies on gently pulling the join apart as it solidifies in order to reduce the bulge. | 29 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694298",
"author": "Cyna",
"timestamp": "2023-10-27T15:37:03",
"content": "No to the very first sentence.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6694306",
"author": "Jeena",
"timestamp": "2023-10-27T16:18:08",
... | 1,760,372,123.700495 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/27/this-week-in-security-1password-polyglots-and-roundcube/ | This Week In Security: 1Password, Polyglots, And Roundcube | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"1Password",
"polyglot",
"Roundcube",
"Zenbleed"
] | This week we got news of a security incident at 1Password, and we’re certain we aren’t the only ones hoping it’s not a repeat of what happened at LastPass.
1Password has released a PDF report on the incident
, and while there are a few potentially worrying details, put into context it doesn’t look too bad.
The first sign that something might be amiss was an email from Okta on September 29th — a report of the current list of account administrators. Okta provides authentication and Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities, and 1Password uses those services to manage user accounts and authentication. The fact that this report was generated without anyone from 1Password requesting it was a sign of potential problems.
And here’s the point where a 1Password employee was paying attention and saved the day, by alerting the security team to the unrequested report. That employee had been working with Okta support, and sent a browser session snapshot for Okta to troubleshoot. That data includes session cookies, and it was determined that someone unauthorized managed to access the snapshot and hijack the session,
Firesheep
style.
Okta logs seemed to indicate that the snapshot hadn’t been accessed, and there weren’t any records of other Okta customers being breached in this way. This pointed at the employee laptop. The report states that it has been taken offline, which is good. Any time you suspect malicious action on a company machine, the right answer is power it off right away, and start the investigation.
And here’s the one part of the story that gives some pause. Someone from 1Password responded to the possible incident by scanning the laptop with the free edition of Malwarebytes. Now don’t get us wrong, Malwarebytes is a great product for finding and cleaning the sort of garden-variety malware we tend to find on family members’ computers. The on-demand scanning of Malwarebytes free just isn’t designed for detecting bespoke malicious tools like a password management company should expect to be faced with.
But that turns out to be a bit of a moot point, as the real root cause was
a compromised account in the Okta customer support system
, as
revealed on the 20th
. The Okta report talks about stolen credentials, which raises a real question about why Okta support accounts aren’t all using two-factor authentication.
DICOM Polyglot
Researchers at Shielder were running a red-team test against a customer, and discovered a vulnerable install of Orthanc, software used to handle medical imaging. So, they
rolled up their sleeves, reverse engineered the patch, and developed an exploit
. And in order to exploit this particular flaw, they used one of my favorite tricks — a polyglot file. That’s when a given file is valid when interpreted as multiple file types.
The flaw is an unrestricted file upload. Important to note here, the unrestricted element is the file location. The file must still be a valid DICOM image file, but once uploaded it can be written anywhere on the file system. Now, DICOM files are weird. Namely, the first 128 bytes are reserved as an “Application Profile”, and are not used as magic bytes to determine whether a file is valid DICOM. It’s like it’s a custom-made format for building a polyglot. One might go so far as to say that’s a security weakness within the DICOM file format itself.
The question becomes, what can you do with just 128 bytes? Normally I’d try to think of some way to stuff 128 bytes of shellcode in there, and write it over some binary that’s sure to be run. But that’s way too complicated, given the tools on hand. The solution Shielder went with was to put a brief JSON config in those 128 bytes, and throw in a NULL to get the JSON parser to ignore the rest of the file. That config turns on an API endpoint that executes any LUA script you send it, likely intended for debugging. Another API call reboots the server to apply the new settings, and the nut is cracked. Polyglots are fun!
Patch Your Roundcube!
The Roundcube webmail platform released a series of updates on the 14th,
fixing a 0-day Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attack
that was being used in the wild. The exploit used an
svg
tag with base64 encoded HTML to bypass the sanitization code in Roundcube. This one is nasty, in that it simply requires a user to view the email in order to run JS in the browser, with full access to the webmail interface.
To date,
this exploit has been seen in the wild used against European governments and NGOs
. With that said, enough details about the exploit have been released to trivially put together a Proof of Concept. And sending email is easy, so it’s probably just a matter of time until this exploit is included with all the other spam and malware in our inboxes.
Roundcube is used widely, and gets included in other solutions like iRedMail, but usually doesn’t get updated automatically. Thankfully
the update process is pretty simple
, though I did hit a headscratcher on one of the instances I worked to upgrade. There, the permissions on the config file were modified during the upgrade, and an unhelpful error message was accompanied by silence in the error logs. Fixing the permissions made everything work as expected.
Zenbleed from the Browser
When we covered Zenbleed, one of the worst-case scenarios was the flaw being exploitable from right in the browser. The good news is that
none of the JavaScript engines that Trent and David tested ever use the
vzeroupper
instruction
that triggers the bug. However, when paired with another exploit to escape the JS interpreter and run actual shellcode, Zenbleed does work even within the browser sandbox.
For bonus points, this attack makes the captured system memory available to the JavaScript code, and the test page just displays it as part of the web page. In a real attack, that data would silently get uploaded for later analysis. So, Zenbleed can’t run simply from JavaScript, but with a bit of work, and another exploit, it can run from within the browser. Click through to the article to see the code and Russ’s excellent notes on it.
Trusting Trust Goes Open Source
Fourty years ago, Ken Thompson published his landmark paper, “
Reflections on Trusting Trust
” (PDF). It turns out, the actual source code referenced in that tale was never released —
until now
. The demo is a compiler that compiles a password stealer into any binary it touches, including another compiler. If you’re using this compiler, even completely open source code isn’t trustable.
In response to a Keynote from Thompson earlier this year, Russ Cox sent an email asking for the legendary source, and got a copy, much to our delight. The actual code is short, and only has a few magic bits to make it work. What’s even more interesting is that the self-replicating backdoor did escape out into the wild shortly, but was squashed because of a bug, where the compiler would grow in size each time it was compiled.
Bits and Bytes
There’s a newly-discovered malware framework,
Stripedfly
, that has quietly been infecting Windows and Linux computers for the last six years. It was first dismissed as a simple crypto-miner, but more recent analysis has found it to be a much more comprehensive tool, probably a true Advance Persistent Threat — APT being a nice way of saying government-backed malware.
Open redirects are usually a bad idea, but they’re extra double bad
when they’re in an OAuth login flow
. This was a problem in the Harvest time-tracking system, particularly in the integration with Outlook Calendar. Convince a user to click on a link using that redirect, and the OAuth token is leaked. | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694293",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2023-10-27T14:59:29",
"content": "When I was young I watched scary films through gaps between my fingers. Now I am old I get the same urge reading this column each week!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,123.865249 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/27/retrotechtacular-crash-testing-truck-attenuators-for-science/ | Retrotechtacular: Crash Testing Truck Attenuators, For Science | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrotechtacular",
"Slider"
] | [
"attenuator",
"Caltrans",
"crash",
"crash test",
"honeycomb",
"retrotechtacular"
] | There are those among us who might bristle at something from the early 1980s qualifying for “Retrotechtacular” coverage, but it’s been more than 40 years since
the California Department of Transportation’s truck-mounted attenuators crash testing efforts
, so we guess it is what it is.
If you’re worried that you have no idea what a “truck-mounted attenuator” might be, relax — you’ve probably seen these devices attached to the backs of trucks in highway work zones. They generally look like large boxes attached to frames at the rear of the truck which are intended to soften the blow should a car somehow not see the giant orange truck covered with flashing lights and drive into the rear of it at highway speeds. Truck-mounted attenuators are common today, but back in 1982 when this film was produced, the idea was still novel enough to justify crash-testing potential designs.
Hexcell aluminum honeycomb. Thin as foil, but can still stop a car.
And, boy, did Caltrans crash test! By our count, 18 cars of various makes and models were harmed in the making of this film, along with one very abused dump truck. The tests start with a couple of control crashes into the truck sans attenuator, just to get the lay of the land. The results are predictably horrific, especially for cars from the 1970s. Along for the ride was the delightfully named “Willie Makeit,” a crash test dummy who may or may not be distantly related to the somewhat more famous
“Buster.”
It appears that rather than buying commercial units, Caltrans was testing its own designs for attenuators, all of which were based on honeycomb aluminum called Hexcell. They state that the aluminum in this material is only “7/10,000-ths of an inch” thick — just for scale, that’s about the thickness of standard aluminum foil from the kitchen, and not even the heavy-duty stuff.
Even so, the attenuators performed admirably. They tried a couple of designs, with the best being an arrangement of increasingly larger blocks of Hexcell, to sort of ease the incoming car into the main attenuation block. They spared no expense, either, testing every design against both large cars and smaller models. They must have gotten a good deal on 1972 Matadors for the large car category; incidentally, did anyone ever tell the geniuses at AMC’s marketing department that “Killer” isn’t a great name for a car?
Although Caltrans obviously put a lot of effort and taxpayer money into these crash tests, the whole thing has a very DIY feel to it. No fancy test crash lab was used, just a big open stretch of asphalt and a wire-guided mechanism to launch the cars. Their method for measuring the velocity of impact for unrestrained objects on the interior of the car was quite homebrew too; a clear plastic container that turns on a light when a sliding weight makes it to the front of the tube. All the successful tests kept the impact velocity below 27 mph (43 km/h), which would be about the same speed you’d be going after diving off a three-story building. Ouch!
Hats off to the folks at Caltrans for doing these tests and pushing back a little on the more brutal aspects of the laws of physics. Speaking from experience, motor vehicle accidents are generally much more survivable than they were back in the 1980s, and we’ve got good engineering like this to thank for a lot of the progress.
Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694264",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2023-10-27T12:28:12",
"content": "Well, hey, that foil stuff was used as shock absorbers for the manned lunar landings, so it’s got a good pedigree.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "66942... | 1,760,372,123.758503 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/27/why-game-boy-ips-screens-flicker/ | Why Game Boy IPS Screens Flicker | Lewin Day | [
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"game boy",
"nintendo",
"screen"
] | The Nintendo Game Boy was a very popular handheld in its time, but its display technology has not aged gracefully. Ripping out the original screen and dropping in a modern IPS LCD is a popular mod, but that often comes with a weird flicker now and then.
[makho] is here to explain why.
The problem was that the Game Boy didn’t have any way to do transparency in the original hardware. Instead, sprites that were supposed to be a little bit transparent were instead flickered on and off rapidly. The original LCD was so slow that this flicker would be largely hidden, with the sprites in question looking suitably transparent. However, switch to a modern IPS LCD with its faster refresh rate, and the flickering will be readily visible. So it’s not a bug — it’s something that was intentionally done by developers that were designing for the screen technology of the 1980s, not the 2020s.
IPS screens have become
the must-have upgrade
for modern Game Boy users. Most would tell you the improved image quality and rich color is worth a little flicker here and there. | 17 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694238",
"author": "Daid",
"timestamp": "2023-10-27T08:15:09",
"content": "Note that this isn’t the only “issue” with IPS screens on gameboy colors. It’s also that the colors are completely wrong. The saturation levels on the real gameboy color are much lower. Which is why the most... | 1,760,372,123.812042 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/25/level-your-trailer-or-rv-with-this-nifty-helper-device/ | Level Your Trailer Or RV With This Nifty Helper Device | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"camper",
"rv",
"Teensy"
] | Getting your RV or trailer parked nice and level is key to getting a good night’s sleep. Traditional methods involve bubble levels and trial and error, but [MJCulross] wanted something better. Enter the
Teensy RV Leveling Helper.
The device uses an accelerometer to detect the pitch and roll angles of the RV. It then displays these on a small screen, and performs calculations on how much the RV must be raised at each corner to bring it level. The RV’s width and wheelbase can be entered via a simple touchscreen interface to ensure the calculations are correct. There’s also a trailer mode which calculates three-point leveling figures for the wheels and the hitch, as opposed to the four-wheeled RV mode.
The result is that the correct leveling blocks can be selected first time when parking up the RV or trailer. It’s a lot less tedious than the usual method of parking, leveling, checking, and then leveling again.
We don’t see a lot of camper hacks around here, but we’ve noticed a new trend towards
lightweight cycle campers in recent years.
If you’ve found your own nifty hacks for your home on the open road, don’t hesitate to let us know! | 30 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693919",
"author": "C. Scott Ananian",
"timestamp": "2023-10-25T19:04:45",
"content": "Take my money! This is *highly* relevant to my interests…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6700856",
"author": "kd5rxt-mark",
... | 1,760,372,123.933425 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/25/keebin-with-kristina-the-one-with-the-foot-keyboard/ | Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Foot Keyboard | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"anti-microbial",
"Crary typewriter",
"foot keyboard",
"knob",
"monoblock split",
"rotary encoder",
"VCR scroll wheel"
] | [crispernaki]’s opening comments to this
VCR head scroll wheel
project lament that overall technical details aren’t “complex, ground-breaking, or even exciting.” Since when does that matter? The point is that not only did the thing finally, eventually get built, it gets daily use
and
it sparks joy in its owner.
This feel-good story is one of procrastination, laziness, and one aha! moment, and it’s roughly twelve years in the making. Inspired by
an Instructable from long ago
, [crispernaki] ran straight to the thrift store to get a VCR and take it apart.
The original plan was to just reuse the VCR head’s PCB and hide it in an enclosure, and then figure out way to block and unblock the path between an IR emitter/receiver pair. After many disemboweled mice and fruitless attempt, the project was once again shelved.
But
then
, [crispernaki] remembered the magnetic rotary encoder demo board that was just sitting around, along with various microcontrollers and Altoids tins. And it all quickly came together with a Teensy 2.0 and some bits and bobs, including a magnet glued on the shaft of the VCR head. A chip on the demo board does all the heavy lifting, and of course, the Teensy does the work of emulating an HID.
Because Box Navy Switches Aren’t Loud Enough
Some people just can’t get enough clack from their switches to satisfy their ears or annoy those around them. Inspired by a video of someone waltzing into computer science class and busting out a typewriter on which to take notes, [orhun] has created
daktilo
, which brings typewriter clack to your modern keyboard. There is a ding that’s quite pleasant, and it happens every time you press Enter.
Of course I installed it. I’m using it right now. As the proud owner of several typewriters, I can say that this almost sounds more like a staple gun than any typewriter I’ve ever heard, but it might be my browns and the little Kinesis beep getting in the way. So if you hate your open office concept, this is the software for you.
If you’re not into the whole typewriter/staple gun thing, there are other sounds you can switch to, like a different typewriter, a music box where every key is a different note, and ducktilo, which should be self-explanatory.
Finally, a Keyboard for the Feet
Yeah, I don’t know, either. But I can definitely appreciate the ergonomics of
Manta, the world’s first commercial foot keyboard
(
translated
). It’s product number six on the page.
The idea behind this keyboard is to provide an input device for people with upper limb disabilities. The description says this keyboard was inspired by the bat ray fish, which, now that I see one, is quite evident. The trackball is a nice touch, as is the anti-microbial uh, heel rest. Because, you know, feet.
But can we talk about what it would even be like to type successfully with your feet? I don’t know about you, but I can’t really flex and control individual toes aside from the big ones. Given that the keys are sort of large and rectangular, it might be sort of okay to use your big toes like thumbs. I do hold out a lot of hope that this keyboard can help people with disabilities. I’m not even sure if this is a real thing yet. So far, it looks like not quite. But you know what is real?
My foot keyboard
.
Thanks for the tip, [Dennis]!
The Centerfold: How Low Can You Go?
Usually our subject is not so close up, but I really appreciate the angle here. You can see the dips of the keycaps, the gentle swoop of the thumb cluster, and of course, you can check out the
lovely low-profile and skirted knob
that [OakNinja] created for the EC12 rotary encoder. This is all not to mention the lovely underglow that appears to come through a few layers of clear filament.
There’s a knob on both sides, and [OakNinja] uses one for volume and one for scrolling. Sounds to me like a great way to save time and mouse muscles. In case you’re wondering about those pretty keycaps,
they’re custom
!
Via
reddit
Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad?
Send me a picture
along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!
Historical Clackers: the Crary Typewriter
Image via
Antikey Chop
Is this the first keyboard with two space bars? Maybe. The Crary Typewriter was invented in 1892 by John Mason Crary of Jersey City, NJ. As you can see from this top-down view, the lower case letters are closest to the typist, while figures are the furthest.
This machine was capable of typing all fractions, double letters such as æ, mathematical signs, and even fancy scrollwork for borders according to
this awesome type sample
.
It could print a ridiculously long 30-inch line, making it convenient for ledgers and record books. Yeah, that’s right, you could feed a whole book into it.
I love this extremely rare typewriter, especially from this angle. To me, it bears a great resemblance to
the Malling-Hansen writing ball
, though it’s hard to say which one might have been easier to use.
ICYMI: The Chrumm Keyboard
What do you do when there’s no one keyboard out there to satisfy your particular needs? Well, you build one yourself, of course. And hopefully, you put it out into the world in an open-source manner, like
[summific]’s Chrumm keyboard
.
I’m not sure what I love the most about this build. Maybe it’s the gorgeous pair of flexible keyboards that allow for a nice natural tenting angle. Or maybe it’s the tenting angle itself.
This monoblock masterpiece is based on the Raspberry Pi Pico, a fine choice for a keyboard. That’s a 3D-printable case without any visible screws, and the palm rests are firmly attached to the underside.
Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards?
Help me out by sending in a link or two
. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to
email me directly
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693892",
"author": "Doug",
"timestamp": "2023-10-25T17:27:36",
"content": "I’m sorry if this is an obvious question, but what is Keebin’ ?? ChatGPT doesn’t know and it’s smarter than me so help a meatbag out please.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{... | 1,760,372,124.002135 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/25/a-quick-and-stealthy-mobile-slot-antenna-from-copper-tape/ | A Quick And Stealthy Mobile Slot Antenna From Copper Tape | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"copper foil",
"ham",
"slot antenna",
"stealth",
"tape"
] | [Ben Eadie (VE6SFX)] is at it again with the foil tape, and this time he’s whipped up a
stealthy mobile sunroof antenna
for the amateur radio operator with the on-the-go lifestyle.
You may recall
[Ben]’s recent duck tape antenna
for the 70-cm ham band, an ultra-lightweight design that lends itself to easy packing for portable operation. The conductors in that antenna were made from copper foil tape, a material that’s perfect for all sorts of specialized applications, like the slot antenna that he builds in the video below. In the ham world, slot antennas are most frequently seen cut into the main reflector of a direct satellite dish, often in hopes of avoiding the homeowner association’s antenna police. Even in the weird world of RF, it’s a strange beast because it relies on the absence of material in a large planar (or planar-ish) conductive surface.
Rather than grabbing an angle grinder to make a slot in the roof of his car, [Ben] created a “virtual” slot with copper tape on the inside of his car’s sunroof. His design called for a 39″ (0.99-m) slot, so he laid out a U-shaped slot to fit the window and outlined it with copper foil tape. His method was a little complex; he applied the copper tape to a transparent transfer film first, then stuck the whole thing to the underside of the glass in one go. It didn’t quite go as planned, but as he learned in the duck tape antenna, the copper tape makes it easy to repair mistakes. A BNC connector with pigtails is attached across the slot about 4″ (10 cm) up from the end of one of the short legs of the slot; yes, this looks like a dead short, but such are the oddities of radio.
Is it a great antenna? By the numbers on [Ben]’s NanoVNA, not really. But any antenna that gets you heard is a good antenna, and this one was more than capable in that regard. We’ll have to keep this in mind for impromptu antennas and for those times when secrecy is a good idea. | 41 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693879",
"author": "AC2EV",
"timestamp": "2023-10-25T15:40:53",
"content": "This may be because many automotive glass applications have a metal oxide layer in the glass. This doesn’t work well with antennas.Most of the ones I’ve seen say “solar”… or similar on the label.",
"par... | 1,760,372,124.232854 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/25/2023-hackaday-supercon-cory-doctorow-signs-on-as-keynote-speaker/ | 2023 Hackaday Supercon: Cory Doctorow Signs On As Keynote Speaker | Tom Nardi | [
"cons",
"Featured",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"2023 Hackaday Supercon",
"2023 Hackaday Superconference",
"cory doctorow"
] | As if you weren’t already excited enough about the speakers and events that will be part of this year’s Hackaday Supercon, today we can finally reveal that journalist, activist, author, technologist, and all around geek Cory Doctorow will be presenting the keynote address
on Saturday morning
.
Cory has always been an outspoken supporter of digital freedom, from helping develop OpenCola in 2001 as a way to explain the concepts behind free and open source software, to his more recent work at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He’s made his novels available for purchase
directly from his personal website
in DRM-free file formats, and he’s even developed a habit of releasing some of them for free under the Creative Commons license. The hacker ethos is strong with this one.
Over the last year, he’s been particularly vocal about what he calls
Enshittification
— the inevitable decay of any online service where the users are, whether they realize it or not, the product. It’s a concept that’s perfectly exemplified by the ongoing slow-motion implosion of Twitter, and Reddit’s increasingly hostile treatment of its community. Cory explains that one of the signposts on this particular journey is when user-created tools, such as web scrapers or bots, are banned by the powers that be. Reverse engineering, especially when it can uncover a way out of the Walled Garden, is strictly forbidden.
Luckily, there’s a way out. Cory will be delivering his talk
An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw It Into Reverse
, not only to those who will be physically attending Supercon, but to the entire Hackaday community via our live YouTube stream of the event. It’s a presentation that’s critically important to an audience such as ours — while nearly anyone with an Internet connection can appreciate the problem he’s describing, hackers and makers are in a unique position to actually do something about it. Following the principles Cory will detail in his talk, we can build services and networks that actually respect their users rather than treating them like the enemy.
It Won’t Be Long Now
By the time this post hits the front page of Hackaday, there will be slightly more than a week to go before several hundred of our best friends descend on the city of Pasadena for Supercon. We recently
unveiled the Vectorscope badge
, dropped
two posts listing
off all
of this year’s presenters
, and offered up a
list of fascinating workshops
. The stage is now officially set for what we consider, as humbly as possible, to be the greatest gathering of hardware hackers, builders, engineers, and enthusiasts in the world.
Check out the schedule
and plan your Supercon ahead of time.
Tickets for the 2023 Hackaday Supercon are, perhaps unsurprisingly, completely sold out. But you can still
add your name to the wait list on Eventbrite
, which will put you in the running to grab any returned tickets should somebody have to back out at the last minute. Failing that, there’s always 2024.
Featured Image: Copyright Julia Galdo and Cody Cloud (JUCO),
www.jucophoto.com/
, CC BY-SA 2.0 | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693863",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2023-10-25T14:36:47",
"content": "Oh the irony of a talk on the enshittification of the internet being shown on youtube!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6693880",
"author": "Orze... | 1,760,372,124.284742 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/25/reverse-engineered-gba-board-could-come-in-handy/ | Reverse-Engineered GBA Board Could Come In Handy | Lewin Day | [
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"Gameboy Advance",
"gba",
"nintendo"
] | Retro gear is beloved, both for what it can do, and what it reminds us of. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, after all. But then, so is corrosion — and the latter has a habit of killing hardware and driving up prices for remaining units. Thankfully, hard workers like [NatalieTheNerd] are out there, creating reproduction PCBs to keep old hardware alive.
Her Game Boy Advance (GBA) reproduction PCB
is a great tool for the restoration and modding communities.
The board was reverse engineered, with [Natalie] sharing various scans and schematics of the GBA’s motherboard on
the Modded Game Boy Club website.
The project recreates the AGB-CPU-03 version of the GBA, and is designed to be produced on a 1 mm board with an ENIG process. You can combine the PCB with some salvaged parts and a new shell and build yourself
a remarkably fresh GBA
, if you so desire.
Beyond it’s intended use, [Natalie] points out the board outlines could be used as a basis for RetroPie or ESP32 projects that fit into a standard Game Boy Advance form factor. We love that idea. We’ve seen [Natalie’s] work before too, in the form of this
neat little macropad
. Nifty as always! | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693861",
"author": "Clancydaenlightened",
"timestamp": "2023-10-25T14:25:19",
"content": "Well the gba was released in 2000/2001 so the hardware patents expired in 2020/2021So technically in the United States I can make my own gameboy advance console and sell it, just can’t call it... | 1,760,372,124.152207 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/25/make-your-own-1970s-magnetic-stripe-cards/ | Make Your Own 1970s Magnetic Stripe Cards | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"70's calculators",
"calculator",
"magnetic stripe",
"sharp"
] | We’re now all used to near-limitless storage on flash and other semiconductor technologies, but there was a time when persistent storage was considerably less easy to achieve. A 1970s programmable calculator from Sharp approached the problem with magnetic strips on special cards, and since [Menadue] has one with no cards,
he set about making his own
.
These cards are a little different to the credit-card-style cards we might expect, instead they’re a narrow strip with a magnetic stripe down their centre. The unusual feature can be found at the edge, where a row of perforations provide the equivalent of a clock line.
The newly manufactured cards have the clock slots machined along their edges, and then the magnetic part formed from self-adhesive magnetic strip. This last thing is a product we were not aware existed, and can think of plenty of possible applications.
The result as you can see in the video below the break are some cards with variable reliability. There’s a suggestion that white cards might work less well with the infrared light used in the clock detector, also a suspicion the low batteries make reading less easy, but still he’s able to retrieve a stored program. An extinct medium is revived.
Longtime readers will know
we’ve spent time in calculator country before
. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693844",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2023-10-25T12:57:34",
"content": "I once had an old HP desktop calculator with a CRT display that used magnetic cards for storing programs.I lived in Tokyo in the late 80s. They used magnetic cards for pay phones and for the subway syste... | 1,760,372,124.328458 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/24/hdmi-for-the-original-xbox/ | HDMI For The Original Xbox | Lewin Day | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Xbox Hacks"
] | [
"hdmi",
"xbox"
] | The original Xbox was a console based on PC architecture that launched back in 2001. That was long before HDMI became a defacto standard for home AV systems. However, it’s possible to mod the Xbox to output lovely crisp digital video over HDMI for use with modern screens,
as covered by [Modern Vintage Gamer].
The mod, originally known as
XboxHDMI
and later
XboxHD+
, is a pure digital output mod, and was developed by [Dustin Holden]. Unlike other solutions, it doesn’t work by converting the console’s existing analog output. Instead, it captures pixel data straight out of the GPU and pumps it out over HDMI, along with 5.1 surround sound, too.
Mods like these
have become popular in recent years for multiple reasons. Original HD output cables for older consoles are often hard to come by, and many used analog outputs that are no longer suitable for using with modern screens. For those that don’t want to keep older CRTs and flat screens going for older consoles, digital video output kits are a great way to keep using your old consoles well into the future. Video after the break. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693806",
"author": "PietdeVries",
"timestamp": "2023-10-25T08:40:47",
"content": "or it’s just drawing attention to something cool you can do with an old console, for people who might not know this is an option.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,372,124.377322 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/24/making-magnetic-tape-from-scratch/ | Making Magnetic Tape From Scratch | Jenny List | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"magnetic media",
"magnetic tape",
"tape"
] | The use of magnetic tape and other removable magnetic media is now on the wane, leading to scarcity in some cases where manufacture has ceased. Is it possible to produce new magnetic tape if you don’t happen to own a tape factory?
[Nina Kallnina] took the effort to find out
.
It’s probably one of those pieces of common knowledge, that magnetic media use iron oxides on their surface, which is the same as rust. But the reality is somewhat more complex, as there is more than one iron oxide. We follow [Nina] through this voyage of discovery in a Mastodon thread, as she tries first iron filings, the rust, and finally pure samples of the two iron oxides Fe3O4 and Fe2O3. She eventually achieves a working tape with a mixture of Fe2O3 and iron powder, though its performance doesn’t match manufactured tape. It turns out that there are two allotropes of Fe2O3, and she leaves us as she’s trying to make the one with better magnetic properties.
These results look promising, and while there is evidently a very long way to go before a home-made magnetic coating could replicate the exacting demands of for example a hard drive platter it’s evident that there is something in pursuing this path.
This may be the first time we’ve seen tape manufacture, but
we’ve certainly seen extreme measures taken to rejuvenate old tapes
. | 34 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693544",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2023-10-24T13:22:44",
"content": "I distinctly remember James Burke’s voice “This is recorded in sticky tape and rust” from secret life of machines.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "66... | 1,760,372,124.445754 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/24/learning-about-capacitors-by-rolling-your-own-electrolytics/ | Learning About Capacitors By Rolling Your Own Electrolytics | Dan Maloney | [
"Parts"
] | [
"aluminum",
"anode",
"capacitor",
"cathode",
"dielectric",
"electrolyte",
"electrolytic",
"oxide"
] | Ever wonder what’s inside an electrolytic capacitor? Many of us don’t, having had at least a partial glimpse inside after failure of the cap due to old age or crossed polarity. The rest of us will have to rely on
this behind-the-scenes demo
to find out what’s inside those little aluminum cans.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s more aluminum, at least for the electrolytics [Denki Otaku] rolled himself at the Nippon Chemi-Con R&D labs. Interestingly, both the anode and cathode start as identical strips of aluminum foil preprocessed with proprietary solutions to remove any oils and existing oxide layers. The strips then undergo electrolytic acid etching to create pits to greatly increase their surface area. The anode strips then get anodized in a solution of ammonium adipate, an organic acid that creates a thin aluminum oxide layer on the strip. It’s this oxide layer that actually acts as the dielectric in electrolytic capacitors, not the paper separator between the anode and cathode strips.
Winding the foils together with the paper separator is pretty straightforward, but there are some neat tricks even at the non-production level demonstrated here. Attachment of lead wires to the foil is through a punch and crimp operation, and winding the paper-foil sandwich is actually quite fussy, at least when done manually. No details are given on the composition of the electrolyte other than it contains a solvent and an organic acid. [Denki] took this as an invitation to bring along his own electrolyte: a bottle of Coke. The little jelly rolls get impregnated with electrolyte under vacuum, put into aluminum cans, crimped closed, and covered with a heat-shrink sleeve. Under test, [Denki]’s hand-rolled caps performed very well. Even the Coke-filled caps more or less hit the spec on capacitance; sadly, their ESR was way out of whack compared to the conventional electrolyte.
There are plenty more details in the video below, although you’ll have to pardon the AI voiceover as it tries to decide how to say words like “anode” and “dielectric”; it’s a small price to pay for such an interesting video. It’s a much-appreciated look at an area of the industry that few of us get to see in detail. | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693513",
"author": "NFM",
"timestamp": "2023-10-24T11:28:03",
"content": "Oh, UCC do factory tours, or was it a special visit? (Can’t watch the video on the train….)I’d visit if they have tours available!Only the other side of Tokyo…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"re... | 1,760,372,124.596442 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/23/light-guns-arent-just-for-crts-anymore/ | Light Guns Aren’t Just For CRTs Anymore | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Games",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"duck hunt",
"gaming",
"gun4ir",
"leds",
"light gun",
"lightgun",
"samco",
"wii",
"wiimote"
] | For how much of a cultural phenomenon light gun games like
Duck Hunt
were, they didn’t survive the transition from CRT televisions to LCDs particularly well because of all of the technological quirks the light guns exploited in older technology that simply disappeared with modern TVs. But it’s not impossible to get a similar gameplay from modern technology as evidenced by the success of the Wii and its revolutionary Wiimote, and there are plenty of modern games that use similar devices. There are a few paths to getting older light guns working again, though.
The first system to note, called
SAMCO
, uses a system of LEDs and a camera to synchronize the game’s flashes to the new technology and translate the input back into the game.
Gun4ir
uses a similar technique, and boasts extremely high accuracy and low latency largely due to being programmed in assembly. Both systems can use either an infrared tracking sensor or a Wiimote sensor as the LEDs and while the SAMCO system can run on a Raspberry Pi Pico, Gun4ir exclusively uses ATmega32U4 boards with the optimized assembly programming.
Both SAMCO and Gun4ir offer PCBs for anyone looking to try them out without designing their own circuit boards, and once the electronics are assembled they can either be put in an original NES-era light gun, put in a
custom printed enclosure
, or even stuffed into a Nerf gun. For others looking for a more turnkey solution, there are
also offerings from companies like Sinden
which make complete system. You can always
build your own system to restore the functionality of original light guns from scratch
if that’s more your style.
Thanks to [LookAtDaShinyShiny] for tipping us off to the latest happenings in the light gun community!
Photo courtesy of
Wikimedia Commons | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693486",
"author": "70sjukebox",
"timestamp": "2023-10-24T06:58:16",
"content": "Recentlyhttps://hackaday.com/2023/10/17/can-an-8-bit-light-gun-work-on-a-modern-tv/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6693531",
"author": ... | 1,760,372,124.65022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/23/the-imac-gpu-becomes-upgradeable-with-pcie/ | The IMac GPU Becomes Upgradeable, With PCIe | Jenny List | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"eGPU",
"imac",
"PCIe"
] | Over its long lifetime, the Apple iMac all-in-one computer has morphed from the early CRT models through those odd table-lamp machines into today’s beautiful sleek affairs. They look pretty, but is there anything that can be done to upgrade them? Maybe not today’s ones, but the models from the mid-2000s can be given some surprising new life. [LowEndMac] have featured
a 2006 24″ model that’s received a much more powerful GPU
, something we’d have thought to be impossible.
The iMacs from that era resemble a monitor with a slightly chunkier back, in which resides the guts of the computer. By then the company was producing machines with an x86 processor, and their internals share a lot of similarities with a laptop of the period. The card is a Mac Radeon model newer than the machine would ever be used with, and it sits in a chain of mini PCIe to PCIe adapters. Even then it can’t drive the original screen, so a replacement panel and power supply are taken from another monitor and grafted into the iMac case. This along with a RAM and SSD upgrade makes this about the most upgraded a 2006 iMac could be.
Of course, another approach is
to simply replace the whole lot with an Intel NUC
. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693457",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2023-10-24T02:34:20",
"content": "About as ‘upgradable’ as the engine in a modern car.Going to need to change the drivetrain, dashboard, steering wheel, pedals, wiring harness, brakes and all the computers too. Then you get to start looking ... | 1,760,372,124.695173 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/23/diy-shredder-creates-insulation/ | DIY Shredder Creates Insulation | Bryan Cockfield | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"cardboard",
"ceiling",
"fiberglass",
"garage",
"insulation",
"roof",
"shredder",
"solar energy"
] | Plenty of us have experience with paper shredders, but there are all kinds of machines designed to completely destroy other materials as well, from metal and plastic, to entire cars. [Action BOX] built their own heavy-duty shredder capable of dismantling things like cell phones and other robust handheld objects, but after seeing what it would physically shred they
decided to give it an actual job creating insulation
for the attic space in their garage.
The shredder itself uses opposing metal plates arranged on sets of two cylinders, with each cylinder powered by it’s own large motor. In total, the entire system uses around 1.5 kW, so to make their green insulation project as green as possible they decided to power it with an equivalent amount of solar panels. For the insulation they’re using a year’s worth of boxes from various deliveries, and after a time-consuming process preparing the boxes for the shredder, shredding the strips of cardboard, and packaging it in garbage bags their efforts netted them enough to partially fill the space between four ceiling joists.
Despite not having nearly enough to insulate a garage after all of that work, they still went through the effort to test their insulation against similarly sized fiberglass batts. Despite a brief hiccup where their test equipment caught on fire, they found the cardboard shreds were only slightly less efficient than the fiberglass. They even went as far as to address any concerns with flammability by treating some of the cardboard with a boron solution to add a measure of fire resistance. While this didn’t turn out to be the cost-effective solution they had hoped, as a proof-of-concept it’s certainly feasible especially for those who can’t head to a big box store to buy insulation directly. If you can buy your insulation at the store, though,
there are a lot crazier things to do with it
.
Thanks to [Jordan] for the tip! | 28 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693429",
"author": "Bob Marlee",
"timestamp": "2023-10-24T00:05:15",
"content": "This is a terrible idea as implemented. Proper cellulose insulation is treated with boric acid to reduce flammability and it’s attractiveness to critters. Those trash bags certainly won’t help mitigate... | 1,760,372,124.763762 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/23/using-leds-to-determine-a-video-cameras-true-framerate/ | Using LEDs To Determine A Video Camera’s True Framerate | Maya Posch | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"framerate",
"frames per second"
] | Interpolation and digital cropping are two techniques which are commonly used by marketing folk to embellish the true specifications of a device. Using digital cropping a fictitious zoom level can be listed among the bullet points, and with frame interpolation the number of frames per second (FPS) recorded by the sensor is artificially padded. This latter point is something which [Yuri D’Elia] came across with a recently purchased smartphone that lists a 960 FPS recording rate at 720p. A closer look reveals that this is
not quite the case
.
The smartphone in question is the
Motorola Edge 30 Fusion
, which is
claimed
to support 240 and 960 FPS framerates at 720p, yet the 50 MP OmniVision OV50A sensor in the rear camera is
reported
as only supporting up to 480 FPS at 720p. To conclusively prove that the Motorola phone wasn’t somehow unlocking an unreported feature in this sensor, [Yuri] set up an experiment using three LEDs, each of which was configured to blink at either 120, 240 or 480 Hz in a side-by-side configuration.
As [Yuri] explains in the blog post, each of these blinking frequencies would result in a specific pattern in the captured video, allowing one to determine whether the actual captured framerate was equal to, less than or higher than the LED’s frequency. Perhaps most disappointingly about the results is that this smartphone didn’t even manage to hit the 480 FPS supported by the OV50A sensor, and instead pegged out at a pedestrian 240 FPS. Chalk another one up for the marketing department. | 17 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693386",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T20:52:38",
"content": "I wonder if at any point that high fps mode did work, as it is quite possible it did but the software updates happened to bork it or it technically can do it, but only when the image processor is cooled... | 1,760,372,124.819766 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/23/kaboombox-is-a-firecracker-of-a-music-player/ | KaboomBox Is A Firecracker Of A Music Player | Kristina Panos | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"DF Player",
"mp3 player",
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"rfid"
] | Ka-chunk. Let’s face it, 8-tracks were not that great. But the players, that’s another story. The Panasonic RQ-830S, aka the dynamite or TNT player is just one of many lovely designs that used to grace the shelves of electronics stores. Hackaday alum [Cameron Coward] came across a non-working model and used it to create
the KaboomBox
.
Just like before, all [Cameron] has to do is stick a tape in, and music starts playing. But now, instead of using rust on tape, the music is accessed via RFID and lives on an SD card inside the 8-track player.
Power it on, and a tiny LCD screen showing through the track number window first displays the KaboomBox logo, then shows a timer whenever it’s waiting for a tape. And just like before, pushing down on the plunger skips to the next track.
The new guts include a Raspberry Pi Pico and an RFID reader, plus a DF Player Mini to handle the digital-to-analog conversion and amplify the signal, and an SD card to store the music. Now, [Cameron] is only limited by the size of the SD card. Check out the demo video after the break.
We’ve seen all kinds of boomboxen around here, from
the lit
to
the Bluetooth
to
the payphone variety
. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693361",
"author": "Van L Loggins",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T19:18:54",
"content": "Being a child born in 1973 I still remember 8-track players, we had one on our home stereo. The second car I ever owned as a teenager was a 1977 Ford LTD with the half-vinyl landau top and it had th... | 1,760,372,124.889174 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/24/retro-computing-coding-competition-still-open/ | Retro Computing Coding Competition Still Open | Richard Baguley | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"CHIP-8",
"COSMAC VIP"
] | There’s still time to enter
Octojam 10
, a competition to write a new program for a rather old (and virtual) machine: the CHIP-8. This interpreted language on a virtual machine was used in the 1970s and 1980s to write games that could run on several consoles, such as the
COSMAC VIP.
Since then, a community of tinkerers has grown up around CHIP-8 and figuring out how to get the most out of the minimal resources the machine gives you.
The CHIP-8 offers 4096 bytes of memory, but 512 Bytes is taken up by the CHIP-8 interpreter and another 96 bytes by the display. So, it’s an exercise in carefully packing as much as possible into a small space. If you prefer, entries for Octojam 10 can also run on
SuperChip, a CHIP-8 version
for the HP-48 graphing calculator, or
XO-Chip
. This extension makes some of the routine tasks of programming a primitive platform more accessible, like drawing on the screen and playing annoying buzzing music.
The competition is open until 1st November, so you’d better get a wiggle on. If you want inspiration, check out the
CHIP-8 archive
, which contains entries to previous Octojam competitions and other programs.
If you are looking for the ultimate hacker street cred, you could try writing a CHIP-8 game on a
Nintendo Switch running a Playstation Vita emulator
, which is running
VITA-8, a CHIP-8 emulator for the PS Vita
. Alternatively, you can use
Emma_02
, an emulator that creates a virtual COSMAC VIP or a range of related consoles on several platforms. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693753",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-10-25T02:39:48",
"content": "Seems an emulator or two out there.https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1747719458",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6693756",
"... | 1,760,372,126.569816 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/24/flaming-skull-hood-ornament-is-not-suitable-for-use-in-traffic/ | Flaming Skull Hood Ornament Is Not Suitable For Use In Traffic | Lewin Day | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"fire",
"fire breathing",
"flames",
"skull"
] | It’s one thing to mount a big skull—human or animal—to the front of your car. Really, though, a good hood skull should breathe fire to truly inspire enmity or awe. Thankfully, when [Anthony] went about modifying his ex-school bus,
he was sure to equip it with suitably flaming equipment.
It’s dangerous, so don’t try this one at home and melt your car, you hear?
The build started with an off-the-shelf replica cow skull, in lovely flame-resistant metal. It was then plumbed with a propane feed that could be triggered by a 12-volt solenoid. This was combined with a high-voltage coil driving a grill igniter to provide the necessary initiating spark.
To go forth with flames, first, a missile switch must be flipped up and engaged to arm the system. Then, hitting the skull-and-crossbones button will send fire surging forth from the front of the vehicle.
Alternatively, a wireless keyfob can be used, which bypasses the arming system—so leaving the remote in a pocket is ill-advised.
Amazingly, a former project posted on Hackaday
served as an inspiration for this build
. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693729",
"author": "jenningsthecat",
"timestamp": "2023-10-24T23:25:19",
"content": "“Not Suitable For Use In Traffic”? I’m sure some of us here would beg to differ, at least in some situations… ;-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_... | 1,760,372,126.623653 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/24/driving-an-oled-screen-with-a-6502-single-board-computer/ | Driving An OLED Screen With A 6502 Single-Board Computer | Lewin Day | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"6502",
"assembly",
"raspberry pi",
"serial terminal",
"terminal"
] | Twenty years ago, if you wanted an LCD for a project, you’d probably end up with something salvaged from a mobile phone or an HD44780 character display. These days, little OLEDs can be had for a few bucks and they’ve taken the maker world by storm. [Anders Nielsen] has recently been experimenting with driving these displays from the vintage 6502 CPU,
and he’s even got scrolling operation down pat.
The best part is that [Nielsen] is doing all this on a single-board computer running his own assembly code. That’s right – there’s no compilers here. It’s bare metal coding at it’s best. The build uses a 6507 chip running at 1 MHz, paired with a 6532 RIOT and just 128 bytes of RAM—a similar setup to the Atari 2600.
The video explains how the code stacks up and drives the display, achieving the scrolling effect. It makes a huge difference to usability, especially compared to chunking pages at a time to the postage stamp-sized screen. He demonstrates a legitimate usage case too, using the setup as a serial terminal for a Raspberry Pi.
The 6502 architecture still looms large in the collective consciousness; we’ve been talking about
programming it in assembly for years.
Video after the break. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693717",
"author": "Jc",
"timestamp": "2023-10-24T22:16:52",
"content": "Video on other websites disabled",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6693719",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,372,127.16049 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/24/high-voltage-turns-welder-into-plasma-cutter/ | High Voltage Turns Welder Into Plasma Cutter | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"cutter",
"plasma",
"plasma cutter",
"torch",
"welder",
"welding"
] | For doing basic steel welding, most of us will reach for a MIG welder. It might not be the best tool for every welding job, but it’s definitely the most accessible since they tend to use only basic parts, easy-to-find gas, and can run from a standard electrical outlet. A plasma cutter isn’t as common, and while they’re certainly useful, [Rulof] wanted to forgo the expense of buying one off the shelf. Instead, he used parts of an old welder and a few other odds and ends to
build his own plasma cutter
.
The welder he’s working from in this project uses low-voltage alternating current to drive the welding process, but since a plasma cutter ionizes gas it needs high-voltage direct current. A 200 A bridge rectifier with some heat sinks from a Mac and an old stereo get this job done, but that’s not the only step in the process. A driver board and flyback transformer is used to generate the high voltage needed for the cutting head. There are some DIY circuit protection and safety features built in as well, including a spark gap using two nails, galvanic isolation from a transformer built from copper pipe, and some filtering coils made from old copper wire and iron bars.
With everything connected to the old welding machine and some pressurized air inside to push out the plasma, [Rulof] has a functional plasma cutter that can make short work out of a variety of metals at a fraction of the cost of a commercial tool. With the cutting tool finished, we’d recommend mounting it to
a home-built CNC machine next
.
Thanks to [Adjustinthings] for the tip! | 29 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693683",
"author": "Simon",
"timestamp": "2023-10-24T20:09:19",
"content": "Am I the only one that gets a nasty sunburn from electric welders? Seeing a bare hand holding the torch makes my skin itch.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment... | 1,760,372,126.689421 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/24/linux-fu-customizing-printf/ | Linux Fu: Customizing Printf | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Linux Hacks",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] | [
"gcc",
"linux",
"printf"
] | When it comes to programming in C and, sometimes, C++, the
printf
function is a jack-of-all-trades. It does a nice job of quickly writing output, but it can also do surprisingly intricate formatting. For debugging, it is a quick way to dump some data. But what if you have data that
printf
can’t format? Sure, you can just write a function to pick things apart into things
printf
knows about. But if you are using the GNU C library, you can also extend
printf
to use custom specifications. It isn’t that hard, and it makes using custom data types easier.
An Example
Suppose you are writing a program that studies coin flips. Even numbers are considered tails, and odd numbers are heads. Of course, you could just print out the number or even mask off the least significant bit and print that. But what fun is that?
Here’s a very simple example of using our new
printf
specifier “%H”:
printf("%H %H %H %H\n",1,2,3,4);
printf("%1H %1H\n",0,1);
When you have a width specification of 1 (like you do in the second line) the output will be H or T. If you have anything else, the output will be HEADS or TAILS.
Easy!
But first, we need to add the %H specifier, and it’s easy. It would be even more straightforward, but the system is very flexible, so there are a few hurdles. The key lies in the
printf.h
header. This defines several functions that allow you to bend
printf
to your will.
You have to provide two functions. The first takes an output stream, a structure of information, and a
void *
to the current
printf
argument list. The function’s job is to grab the argument and output to the stream. The information structure has things like the field width and precision, which you can use or not, as you see fit. The function returns the length of the output.
The second function receives the same information structure and several arguments to process. It also receives two arrays. This function is tasked to tell the
printf
code how many arguments of what type the specifier needs. This function is usually simple. You probably only take one argument of a known type, so you put a predefined constant in the first array, and you are done. However, if you want to do something more complicated, it is a bit more work.
A Little Harder
If you need to take multiple items off the stream (for example, you are printing complex numbers), the second function might fill in more than one array item, and it will also return the count. You can also define custom types that you have to register (using
register_printf_type
) and then you have to fill in a size in the size array, too.
However, these are unusual. Most of the time, you just need to enter a data type and return 1. Here’s an example:
static int print_coin_arginfo( const struct print_info *info,
size_t n, int argtype[], int size[])
{
if (n>0) argtypes[0]=PA_INT // there needs to be at least an integer waiting for us
return 1; // only one thing to read
}
Nothing to it!
The Main Event
The primary function doesn’t have to be hard, although maybe what you want to do is difficult — that can’t be helped. You do have to cast the incoming pointer to the correct type. Of course, if
print_coin_arginfo
returned more than one item (which it won’t), you would have to process each argument.
The only other complexity is to handle the data in the information structure if you want to. The main things of interest are the
prec
and
width
members of the structure. But you can also find modifiers like the “l” flag (as in %ld) and other flags. You can use or ignore these. In our case, we care about the width since we will print H or T if the width is 1. We also want to know about the width for formatting and if we are left justified. So, the following would all be legitimate:
%H - Just do it
%1H - Print H or T
%20H - Print with a 20-character field (right justified)
%-20H - Sam as %20 but left-justified
Here’s the function:
static int print_coin (FILE *stream,
const struct printf_info *info,
const void *const *args)
{
int headstails;
char *buffer;
int len;
/* figure out our string */
headstails = *((const int *) (args[0]));
if (info->width!=1)
{
buffer=(headstails&1)?"HEADS":"TAILS";
}
else
{
buffer=(headstails&1)?"H":"T";
}
/* Pad to the minimum field width and print to the stream. */
len = fprintf (stream, "%*s",
(info->left ? -info->width : info->width),
buffer);
return len;
}
We cheat and use
fprintf
, but that’s allowable. Obviously, it wouldn’t be a good idea to use %H in that
printf
!
Gothchas
You can download a complete copy from a
Gist
. If you try the code as it is — — you will get warnings because the compiler is smart enough to know about
printf
, but not smart enough to know you’ve messed with
printf
. You can turn off the warning from the command line or with a pragma. Interestingly, using
-Wno-format
seems to turn off all the warnings. But if you will need to turn off both warnings with the pragma method:
#pragma GCC diagnostic ignored "-Wformat"
#pragma GCC diagnostic ignored "-Wformat-extra-args"
Of course, the other problem is that this is very specific to the GNU library. You are making your code very non-portable by doing this. If you care, then don’t do it! If you don’t — maybe you are just using it while debugging, or you know you won’t have to move your code — then this is a nice way to extend the library. You also have to worry if a future version of the library will use your format specifier letter. Typically, standard ones are lowercase, but sometimes, a standard one uses both upper and lower (for example, %x and %X to control the output case of hex number). You have been warned!
Linux has a long history of being able to customize things that don’t seem customizable. The
file system
, for example. Or even
sharing your WiFi using your WiFi
. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693621",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2023-10-24T17:30:09",
"content": "In the line 4 code under “A Little Harder” there’s a rogue & instead of a ;",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6693626",
"author": "Al William... | 1,760,372,126.528994 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/24/using-industrial-ct-to-examine-a-129-usb-cable/ | Using Industrial CT To Examine A $129 USB Cable | Dan Maloney | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"apple",
"CT computed tomography",
"industrial CT",
"scanner",
"Thunderbolt",
"usb"
] | What in the world could possibly justify charging $129 for a USB cable? And is such a cable any better than a $10 Amazon Basics cable?
To answer that question, [Jon Bruner] fired up
an industrial CT scanner to look inside various cables
(
Nitter
), with interesting results. It perhaps comes as little surprise that the premium cable is an Apple Thunderbolt 4 Pro USB-C cable, which sports 40 Gb/s transfer rates and can deliver 100 Watts of power to a device. And it turns out there’s a lot going on with this cable from an engineering and industrial design perspective. The connector shell has a very compact and extremely complex PCB assembly inside it, with a ton of SMD components and at least one BGA chip. The PCB itself is a marvel, with nine layers, a maze of blind and buried vias, and wiggle traces to balance propagation delays. The cable itself contains 20 wires, ten of which are shielded coax, and everything is firmly anchored to a stainless steel shell inside the plastic connector body.
By way of comparison, [Jon] also looked under the hood at more affordable alternatives. None were close to the same level of engineering as the Apple cable, ranging as they did from a tenth to a mere 1/32nd of the price. While none of the cables contained such a complex PCB, the Amazon Basics cable seemed the best of the bunch, with twelve wires, decent shielding, and a sturdy crimped strain relief. The other cables — well, when you’re buying a $3 cable, you get what you pay for. But does that make the Apple cable worth the expense? That’s for the buyer to decide, but at least now we know there’s something in there aside from Apple’s marketing hype.
We’ve seen these industrial CT scanners used by none other than [Ken Shirriff] and [Curious Marc] to
reverse engineer Apollo-era artifacts
. If you want a closer look at the instrument itself, check out the video below | 79 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693603",
"author": "elwing",
"timestamp": "2023-10-24T16:13:49",
"content": "It sure can’t compare to the cheapest cable, these are really nice cables. but it still definitely do not worth the price tag… not when you compare some other cables… I got some for like less than 6$ with ... | 1,760,372,127.022751 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/24/game-graphics-racing-the-beam/ | Game Graphics: Racing The Beam | Julian Scheffers | [
"Featured",
"Games",
"Interest",
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Original Art"
] | [
"computer graphics",
"game graphics",
"games",
"racing the beam"
] | Have you ever wondered how the graphics in your favorite video games worked? This is the start of a series on game graphics, and what better place to start than how exactly the original Mario Bros. got those glorious pixely pixels onto the screen. Buckle in, because we’re “racing the beam” with systems like the NES, Commodore 64, and many other classics from the 1980s.
And to understand the 1980’s, it’s important to understand how the televisions of the time worked. Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) televisions work by precisely bombarding a phosphor layer with electrons, which excites the phosphor, which then releases visible light. The beam scans from left to right then top to bottom, giving each pixel a small fraction of a second of time. All of this effectively means that pixel data needs be sent at the same time as when the pixels are being lit up, which is why this type of graphics is often dubbed “racing the beam”.
Another thing to understand about the 1980s is that 64 kB was a lot of memory. Back then, there was almost never enough memory to store an entire frame of video, nor were the CPUs of the time anywhere near fast enough to fill such a framebuffer. Because of this, these computers grouped 8 x 8 pixels into “tiles” or “characters” and used those repeatedly when they needed them, greatly reducing the amount of memory required. Such a tile is usually represented by a single byte in the “tile map” memory, which is in turn used as an index into the “tile data”, which is what actually stores the images of the tiles.
Coloring By Numbers
Simple 8×8 tiles with a foreground color
Colors were implemented in many different ways, but there are two solutions that are far more common than the rest: tile colors and tile palettes.
The simpler approach of the two, which I call “Tile Colors”, gives you two colors to work with. The tile stores the “picture” and then colors it in with a per-tile foreground color, against a larger background color. The tile color was stored in a similar way to the tile map and was a simple index to a color value. For example, the Commodore 64 uses one background color shared across all tiles and another foreground color per tile.
Tiles with palettes can be more colorful
Using just tile colors and a background color might sound very restrictive (and it is) but that didn’t prevent Commodore 64 games from looking great. This screenshot demonstrates the technical limitations of tile colors very well, showing clearly a black background with a single color per tile in the foreground, but also tiles of different colors.
The more advanced approach is to use multiple bits per pixel in the tile data and to assign a palette to a tile using the color data. As is the theme here, the color palettes were in yet another piece of memory, though this time it’s usually in the actual video chip instead of RAM.
This screenshot shows a combination of multiple layers for tiles and palettes for said tiles, allowing for parallax scrolling of a background and more colorful tiles respectively.
Bitmap Modes
Multi-color bitmap mode on the C64
(Concubism by Archmage)
Some games do decide to use more memory in return for a higher resolution. In such “bitmap modes”, there is no “tile data” to look up because instead of using tiles, the image data is used directly. Bitmap modes trade memory for detail, but still use tile-sized chunks for colors. This is often eight times as much memory, because tiles are eight by eight, which is often too much if you also want to play a game. But for those few games that do use bitmap mode during gameplay there’s another drawback: it takes orders of magnitude more time to update than tiles.
This art shows what a Commodore 64 is capable of in multi-color bitmap mode. In this mode, the pixels are stretched horizontally, and can have one of four colors: background, alternate 1 and 2 and foreground. This art combines multi-color bitmap mode and manual dithering to give the illusion of higher color resolution.
Sprites
A scene from Super Mario World with many sprites
Tiles are great for static background images, but can be quite limiting when displaying moving characters, and bitmap mode still wouldn’t fix clashing colors. This is where
sprites
come in: sprites are usually made out of one or more tiles, or tiny bitmap images, that can be placed arbitrarily on the screen. Instead of replacing all the pixels like tiles do, sprites are overlays on top of the background image.
This screenshot from Super Mario World shows about 16 sprites, which is half of how many the SNES can show on one scanline. Mario, the shell, the points, and the turtles are all rendered as sprites.
On the SNES, for instance, sprites are tiny bitmap images that use palettes the same way tiles do, so they’re even more flexible. Rendering these to the screen was taken care of by the graphics hardware, so the CPU overhead in using a sprite was minimal.
Scanline Interrupts
Simulated perspective is made possible by scanline interrupts.
Scanline interrupts are a technique that’s more reliant on the CPU than on the graphics chip. They use the fact that the video chip must necessarily know what scanline it is drawing to synchronize the CPU to it. This allows effects that render each scanline normally, but change the parameters between said scanlines.
This allows games to show multiple different graphics modes, more sprites than there can be on one scanline, or even make the illusion of 3D! In combination with
affine transformations
, Super Mario Kart created the illusion of depth. The street is made up of the same alternating patterns, but depending on where they’re drawn on the screen, they are drawn wider or thinner, and shifted off to the left or right, and voila, the illusion is complete.
We’ll talk more about the matrix math in game graphics later on, but note that this is really just multiplying to change the width, and adding an offset to make the road curve.
Conclusion
While racing the beam is a very different approach to graphics than we have now, it’s definitely possible to make games look good and even do some very nice looking art. Basic tiles are good at displaying text but are inferior in detail to bitmap mode. On the other hand, bitmap mode consumes much more memory than tiles do, and is too detailed to be effectively updated by 1980s CPUs alone. Sprites can be used to have moving elements in otherwise “static” scenes and are present in almost all implementations of racing the beam. Finally, scanline interrupts allow programmers to get much more out of the hardware by strategically changing the settings at the perfect time. Putting it all together lets an animated plumber drive a go-kart.
Next, we’ll step forward in time to when memory wasn’t so scarce, and talk about basic 2D graphics with a framebuffer and how shape primitives are drawn. See you then! | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693564",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-10-24T14:21:24",
"content": "History of cheaper memory and it’s effects on computer development, a non-scholarly paper.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6693632",
"author": "... | 1,760,372,127.22278 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/23/retrotechtacular-the-175000-laser-printer/ | Retrotechtacular: The $175,000 Laser Printer | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Retrocomputing",
"Retrotechtacular",
"Slider"
] | [
"laser printer",
"mainframe"
] | Laser printers today are cheap and readily available. But in 1976, they were the height of printing technology.
The IBM 3800
was the $175,000 printer to have in that year. (Video, embedded below.) But you couldn’t have one on your desktop. Even if you could afford it, the thing is the size of a car, and we don’t even want to guess what it weighs. The printer took tractor-fed continuous form paper and could do 167 pages a minute at about 150 dots per inch (actually 180 x 144). For the record, that was as much as 1.7 miles of paper an hour!
In those days, people who would use this printer traditionally had massive banks of noisy impact printers. We imagine this device saved many data processing person’s hearing. Compared to a modern laser printer, though, it needed a lot of maintenance. For example, the initial models needed a xenon flash lamp replaced every month, although later models could go years on one bulb. Looking at some of the hardware in the video, it was probably made closer to the end of life for these printers which were made through 1999.
Big Iron and the Burster
If you didn’t get a chance to play with one of these giants, you might wonder what a burster is. This was a common computer room machine that took apart forms at perforations. For example, you might load a fanfold stack of payroll checks. The burster would split them apart after printing, leaving you with a nice stack of separate checks. It would also remove the tractor feed edges. Don’t confuse this with a decollator, which would strip carbon copies apart. You can’t use carbon paper multicopy forms with a laser printer. The printer did have a special mode where it would print multiple copies of the same page in one pass.
A diagram from the IBM 3800 brochure
The printer had exciting features like the ability to print a form simultaneously as it printed the data. To do this, you installed a negative that was “printed” on the photoconductive drum with that same flash tube mentioned earlier before the laser did its work.
Laser printers have a lot in common with photocopiers. The process is the same except the copier gets an image on the drum via optics while the laser printer draws on the drum with — surprise — a laser. IBM started development with an IBM Copier I, but it couldn’t handle the throughput required for the 3800, so it was only the starting point. The machine does remind you of a copier on the inside, though. Ultimately, the printer’s 9,000 separate parts would wind up in the hands of about 10,000 IBM users.
Sub Models
The printer had several submodels. The first model had an option to print directly from a tape drive. Other models were faster, had kanji characters, and improved resolution. All the printers had a helium-neon laser, but improvements in optics pushed resolution to 240 dots per inch. The 25 milliwatt laser used an innovative low-helium-diffusion glass, meaning the tube lasted about ten times longer than comparable commercially available laser tubes in 1976.
There were many tricks and innovations used in the printer. For example, a special contrast mark appeared on every page. The printer read the mark with an LED sensor to adjust the amount of toner and to detect blank pages being printed accidentally. You can read
a brochure about the modern marvel
.
If you love the
old big iron
, there are plenty of videos out there. You can
relive the days of raised floors
, coffee cups, and ashtrays. | 38 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693331",
"author": "Bruce",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T17:07:28",
"content": "I was on the receiving end of one of these. I wrote a lot of tech & user documentation in a government programming office. It was nice printer, and with sufficient knowledge of the input code, a lot of th... | 1,760,372,126.911835 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/23/arudwatch-design-study-is-compelling-concept-for-diy-smartwatch/ | Arduwatch Design Study Is Compelling Concept For DIY Smartwatch | Lewin Day | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"arduwatch",
"design study",
"smart watch",
"smartwatch"
] | Smartwatches are a battleground these days, with smartphone manufacturers vying to have the prettiest, sleekest, and longest-lasting device on the market. Meanwhile, DIY efforts continue to improve in sophistication as better components become available.
[Rocky Bergen’s] Arduwatch is a particularly appealing design study,
with such visual flair that we’d love to see it become a reality.
The design was inspired by
the Arduboy
, itself a lightweight homebrewed handheld console of impressive simplicity. [Rocky]’s concept hinges on taking that credit-card sized platform and repurposing it as a wearable device instead. The squared-off, retro design of the Arduwatch is appealing, as is its simple four-button interface and the bright colors [Rocky] chose to show it off. Ultimately, too, its low-resolution display would realistically be more than suitable for a great variety of simple smartwatch tasks, which often just involve displaying notifications and the like.
[Rocky’s] work may just be a design study, but it’s well thought out and eminently viable. We’d love to see how well this design could work in the real world, particularly if built with some nice resin-printed parts paired with a quality watch strap.
If you’ve heard of [Rocky Bergen] before, it may be due to his exquisite collection of
retrocomputer papercraft designs
. If you’ve been cooking up your own DIY smartwatch ideas, don’t hesitate to hit up the
tipsline! | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693309",
"author": "Erik van Baarle",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T15:50:09",
"content": "please correct the title, arudwatch is incorrect",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6693313",
"author": "mh",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T1... | 1,760,372,126.736987 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/23/when-is-damascus-steel-not-from-damascus/ | When Is Damascus Steel Not From Damascus? | Jenny List | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"blacksmith",
"blacksmithing",
"damascus steel",
"iron",
"steel"
] | If you grow up around a working blacksmith’s forge, there are a few subjects related to metalwork on which you’ll occasionally have a heated discussion. Probably the best known is the topic of wrought iron,
a subject I’ve covered here in the past
, and which comes from the name of a particular material being confused with a catch-all term of all blacksmith-made items. I’ve come to realise over recent years that there may be another term in general use which is a little jarring to metalwork pedants, so-called Damascus steel. Why the Syrian capital should pop up in this way is a fascinating story of medieval metalworking, which can easily consume many days of research.
Damascus? Where’s That?
The banded pattern of the laminate formed from pattern welded layers of differing steels in a modern Damascus steel knife. “
DamaszenerKlinge
” by Soerfm
The Damascus steel you’ll see in YouTube videos, TV shows, and elsewhere is a steel with complex bands and striations on its surface. It’s often used in knife blades, and it will usually have been chemically treated to enhance the appearance of the patterns. It’s a laminate material made by pattern welding layers of different steels together, and it will usually have been worked and folded many times to produce a huge number of very thin layers of those steels. Sometimes it’s not made from sheets or ingots of steel but from manufactured steel products such as chains, in an attempt to produce a result with more unusual patterns.
In a Japanese Katana blade, the pattern comes from a thin layer of steel formed on the surface of the iron in the charcoal hearth, formed into layers as the metal is folded and welded. “
Katana
” by אהוד הלפרין
The point of making such a laminate goes beyond the patterns; like any such laminate the idea is to combine the properties of the different materials used. In this case an ideal knife must be hard enough to take a sharp edge yet also flexible and not brittle such that it does not crack or shatter when subject to stress, something the constituents of the laminate should be selected to deliver. In this way the smith is trying to replicate something like the laminates seen in a Japanese Katana sword, where thin layers of steel are formed on the surface of the iron in the smith’s charcoal-fired hearth, which become alternating layers of steel and iron in a similar folding process.
Making these Damascus steels is a highly-skilled craft, and as you might expect a knife made this way is likely to be expensive, and pretty good at holding an edge, if that’s what you’re after in a knife. But are they really Damascus steel? Like the whole wrought iron question, there’s something to get smiths talking.
Will The Real Damascus Steel Please Stand Up?
The patterns on this Iranian Damascus steel sword blade come from high-carbon inclusions in the Indian crucible steel. “
Watered pattern on sword blade1
” by Rahil Alipour Ata Abadi
The phrase “Damascus steel” comes to us from medieval-period swords manufactured in the Middle East, and known at least to Western Europeans through their sale in Damascus. These swords share the surface patterning with the modern blades described above, and were legendary for the properties of the metal.
But their manufacture wasn’t the same pattern-welded laminate, and neither did their steel come from Damascus itself. Instead they were made from ingots imported into the Arab world and made by ironmasters in modern-day southern India and Sri Lanka. The steel from those regions was so-called crucible steel, in which the steelmaking process takes place in a sealed crucible in the liquid phase rather than in the solid or semi-solid phase as in for example on the surface of the Japanese Katana steel. The particular impurities found in the ores from these regions gave rise to a very high-carbon steel with significant quantities of carbide inclusions, and it was these which lent the finished product its patterned appearance.
The Point Is In The Forge Work
So if the original Damascus steel is derived from a particular medieval steelmaking process from a specific region and the modern Damascus steel is a pattern-welded laminate of different steels, which is the real Damascus steel? As a language purist I’d err towards the original, but that’s not to dismiss the value of the modern pretender. It’s worth getting hot under the collar about the use of the phrase “wrought iron” because the real thing is something special while the fakes are often mass-produced rubbish, but that’s not the case with Damascus steel.
The modern Damascus steel knife may never have been near Damascus and certainly won’t be made from Indian or Sri Lankan crucible steel, but just like the blade you’d have bought in medieval Damascus, it represents the skill and work of a blacksmith at the peak of their craft. Pattern welding steel to make a laminate is
hard
, I’ve tried it and I can tell you it’s not for the dilletante smith. Anyone who can do that to a high standard is worth paying very good money indeed for their work.
Header image: “
Damascus steel hunting knife
” by Rich Bowen | 47 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693290",
"author": "Andy Pugh",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T14:16:53",
"content": "And it is well known that the more layers the better, until they are invisible, what I will start selling as “homeopathic damascus”.I will contend that properly chosen and treated mono-steel will outper... | 1,760,372,126.83076 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/23/is-that-a-record-player-in-your-pocket-or/ | Is That A Record Player In Your Pocket Or… | Al Williams | [
"Portable Audio Hacks"
] | [
"mikiphone",
"record player",
"turntable"
] | If aliens visited the Earth, they might find our obsession with music hard to fathom. We have music in our homes, our cars, and our elevators. Musical performances draw huge crowds and create enormous fame for a select few musicians. These days, your music player of choice is probably the phone in your pocket. What our grandparents wouldn’t have done to have a pocket-sized music player. Wait…, it turns out they had them. [Rare Historical Photos] has pictures and other material related to the
Mikiphone
— a “pocket phonograph.” We don’t know how it sounded, but it is a fantastic piece of work visually. Actually, thanks to the [Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound], you can hear one of these rare machines playing in the video below. If only it were playing Toni Basil.
The device was made in the 1920s and had a decidedly strange tonearm. You wind it up with a gigantic key mechanism. There’s no electricity. A bakelite resonator became the speaker attached to the tone arm. The device was made in Switzerland by a company that started in music boxes. However, the design was the work of two brothers named Vadász.
Apparently, there were between 100,000 and 180,000 Mikiphones produced. The case is 11.5 cm in diameter and less than 5 cm thick. While the device could be transported in your pocket, it did require you to assemble it before it would play. So, this was less of a Walkman and more of a boom box for its time. If you can’t visualize how it all fits in the case, check out the second video, below, from [Columbia].
You can have a record player
in your car
. Why not
underwater
? | 26 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693271",
"author": "br? fdp.",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T12:27:18",
"content": "“We have music in our homes, our cars, and our elevators.”I saw myself a curious case of nursery rhymes being played 24/7 in a public lavatory to deter homeless. Really awkward.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,127.283942 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/23/framework-motherboard-turned-cyberdeck/ | Framework Motherboard Turned Cyberdeck | Danie Conradie | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"cyberdeck",
"Framework laptop"
] | The beauty of a modular ecosystem lies in how it allows individuals to repurpose components in unconventional ways. This is precisely what [Ben Makes Everything] has achieved by using a Framework laptop’s motherboard and battery to create a
slab-style cyberdeck
. (Video, embedded below.)
The
Framework
motherboard presents an excellent choice for custom portable computer projects due to its relatively compact size and built-in modular I/O port options, all based on USB-C. Framework even released
additional documentation
to support this use-case. It’s significantly more powerful than the standard Raspberry PI, which is typically employed in similar projects. Ben chose a 2400 x 900 IPS display that can draw power and video through a single USB-C cable. For user input, he opted for an Apple keyboard and an optical trackball with a PS2 interface. He utilized a Arduino Pro Micro as a PS2-to-USB adaptor, using the remaining pins on the Arduino as a versatile interface for electronic projects.
The enclosure is crafted from machined aluminum plates with 3D printed spacers to secure all components. The screen can be tilted up to 45 degrees for more ergonomic desktop use. The Framework motherboard is equipped with four USB-C ports for peripheral devices; [Ben] allocated one for the display and another for a USB hub which connects the keyboard, Arduino, and external USB and HDMI connectors. The remaining USB-C ports are still available for original Framework expansion cards.
The completed project not only looks fantastic but may also be highly functional. It would have been a great entry in our recent
Cyberdeck Challenge
. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693237",
"author": "elwing",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T08:18:22",
"content": "That one is gorgeous!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6693239",
"author": "hk",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T08:23:42",
"content": "Crying of ... | 1,760,372,127.332381 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/22/3d-printing-on-a-spinning-rod/ | 3D Printing On A Spinning Rod | Danie Conradie | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"4 axis",
"CR-10",
"FDM",
"springs"
] | FDM 3D printing traditionally operates on a layer-by-layer basis, using a flat bed to construct parts. However, [Humphrey Wittingtonsworth IV] demonstrates in his video how this process can be significantly enhanced in terms of mechanical strength and print speed by experimenting with
printing on a rotating rod
instead of the standard flat bed.
[Humphrey] modified a Creality CR-10 3D printer by removing the bed and installing a regular 8mm linear rod under the hotend. The rod is rotated by a stepper motor with a 3:1 belt drive. This lets him use the rod as the printing surface, laying down layers axially along the length of an object. This means parts that can stand up to bending forces much better than their upright-printed counterparts.
Additionally, this rotational action allows for printing functional coil and wave springs – even multi-layer ones – something that’s not exactly feasible with your run-of-the-mill printer. It can also create super smooth and precise threads as the print head follows their path. As an added bonus – it could also speed up your printing process as you’re just spinning a slim rod instead of slinging around an entire bed. So cylindrical parts like tubes and discs could be printed almost as quickly as your hotend can melt filament.
Of course, this approach isn’t without its challenges. It works best for cylindrical components and there’s a limit to how small you can go with inner diameters based on your chosen rod size. Then there’s also the task of freeing your prints from their rod once they’re finished. [Humphrey] addressed this by creating mesh sleeves that snugly fit over his center rod. This limits how much melted plastic can adhere to it, making removal a breeze.
This is not the first time we’ve seen experiments that deviate from flat layers. It’s possible to print overhangs without support using
non-planar slicing
, and
adding a fourth axis for the hotend
.
Thanks for the tip [George Graves]! | 32 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693242",
"author": "Jur",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T09:02:42",
"content": "Awsome, basically laser cladding but with a 3d printer and plastics, nicely done!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6693252",
"author": "Eph",
"tim... | 1,760,372,127.403355 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/22/math-book-gets-real-with-complex/ | Math Book Gets Real With Complex | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"books",
"mathematics"
] | The [Math Sorcerer] loves books. His
latest acquisition
is the famous
Real and Complex Analysis
, which is a very stout math book. How stout? Well, there are several chapters on holomorphic functions, including how to do a Fourier transform on such a function. There’s also an appendix about Hausdorff’s maximality theorem. What are those? Beats us; read the book. You can also watch the short video review of the text below.
The author asserts right up front that the exponential function is “undoubtedly the most important function in mathematics.” Undoubtedly. [The Math Sorcerer’s] videos remind us of browsing a bookstore or a library. You don’t get a book summary as much as a preview of what’s in it, so you can decide if you want to read it.
We have to admit that his book list isn’t light reading. The second video below covers
Elementary Quantum Mechanics
. Calling a quantum mechanics textbook elementary is an excellent oxymoron right up there with “random order” or “seriously funny.”
Suppose your calculus and differential equations aren’t up to snuff. In that case, the channel does offer videos, often featuring books, ranging from “
Math for Super Beginners
” and “
Learn Calculus Fast
,” which might be the first step in a long path to where you can enjoy either of the two books he mentions.
We like things that make
learning math faster and easier
. However, maybe you can go
too fast
. | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693189",
"author": "Pauline",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T02:17:57",
"content": "I have never before seen the words “Elementary” and “Quantum Mechanics” adjacent in a title before.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6693833",
... | 1,760,372,127.463043 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/26/the-simulated-universe-thought-experiment-and-information-entropy/ | The Simulated Universe Thought Experiment And Information Entropy | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Science"
] | [
"simulated universe"
] | Do we live in a simulation? This is one of those questions which has kept at least part of humanity awake at night, and which has led to a number of successful books and movies being made on the subject, topped perhaps by the blockbuster movie The Matrix. Yet the traditional interpretation of the ‘simulated universe’ thought experiment is one in which we – including our brains and bodies – are just data zipping about in a hyper-advanced simulation rather than physical brains jacked into a computer. This simulation would have been set up by (presumably) a hyper-advanced species who seem to like to run their own version of The Sims on a Universe-sized scale.
Regardless of the ‘why’, the aspect of this question where at least some scientific inquiry is possible concerns whether or not it would be possible to distinguish anything uniquely simulation-like in our environment that’d give the game away, like a sudden feeling of déjà vu in the world of The Matrix where you can suddenly perceive the fabric of the simulation. However, the major problem which we have to consider when trying to catch a simulation in the act is that to this point we cannot ourselves create even a miniature galaxy and intelligent beings inside it to provide a testable hypothesis.
Beyond popular media like movies and series like Rick & Morty, what do science and philosophy have to say about this oddly controversial subject? According to some, we have already found the smoking gun, while others are decidedly more skeptical.
Define ‘Simulation’
Part of the trick in proving whether or not we exist solely inside a simulation is to try and define this state and its properties. Presumably it’d mean that everything which we can observe, experience and apply reasoning skills to is ultimately the result of some input from a previous state, with a kind of clock setting the pace for the next universal update. From these transitions we could conceivably deduce the algorithms which underlie the simulation and unravel its secrets.
“sim city 4 Stack Interchange”
by [haljackey]
Yet the obvious counter-argument to this is that the Universe is already a kind of massively parallel analog computer, with the granularity of space-time setting the pace and the Universe’s further properties related to mass and energy enabling the contents of the whole ‘program’ to run (presumably
BigBang.exe
). Here the Universe is thus an unimaginably large analog computer, capable of keeping track of every aspect of space-time down to sub-Planck lengths. What, then, is the difference between the Universe and a presumed artificial universe?
The risk is that by trying to quantify some aspect of the laws of physics or the like as being ‘absolute proof’ or even just evidence of this Universe’s simulation-ness, it loses sight of our own ignorance regarding the observable Universe and the properties thereof. Even so, what is decidedly just a thought experiment has
taken on a life of its own
in the
Simulation Hypothesis
, with proponents espousing it mostly because it ‘feels right’. Yet this is a point where ancient philosophical concepts such as for example the
concept of
maya
in Indian philosophies serve to remind us of how little of these contemplations are new or original.
Meaning ‘illusion’ or ‘magic’,
maya
usually describes the idea that something may appear to be really what we think it is, yet upon closer inspection it turns out to be completely different. A good example here is that of when our imagination runs wild: say that we think we just saw something in the dark, something that could be a snake, an intruder or something equally threatening that kicks our fight-or-flight response into high gear. Yet when the dark is replaced with light, we see that the snake was a rope, and the intruder just a jacket tossed over a piece of furniture.
In this context, it only takes a child to realize that humans are very good at recognizing patterns and things which are in fact not there, if only because that’s how we’re neurologically wired – such as with face recognition – or all too often due to wishful thinking-turned-real when we really want something to be true. This raises the point of when is what we think we perceive real, and when is it merely another illusion?
Evidence Of Absence
One of the core aspects of the scientific method is that it is impossible to prove the absence of evidence, often illustrated by examples along the lines of
Russell’s Teapot
. Call it a mere axiom, but the fact remains that it is not possible to prove absolutely and beyond question that there is no tiny teapot in orbit between the Sun and Mars, nor that traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible, nor that we exist only inside a computer system that’d be so far beyond our understanding and possibly our physical reality that we couldn’t possibly begin to comprehend it.
It remains theoretically possible that any of these things could be true, even with significant
evidence of absence
on the side of these being false. Hence the agnostic position is logically the appropriate position to assume in such matters, lest one falls into either the trap of blindly arguing for evidence of absence in lieu of being open to further evidence, or to fall for the logical fallacy of
arguing from ignorance
. Even so, to keep matters reasonable, concepts such as
Occam’s Razor
are liberally employed to settle for the most likely truth.
Within all of this context, it is therefore interesting to read a number of recent publications by an associate professor of physics at the University of Portsmouth, including
this most recent one
by this Prof. Melvin M. Vopson in
AIP Advances
on how the ‘second law of infodynamics’ provides strong evidence that we live in a simulated universe.
Statistics And Other Illusions
Relationship between information entropy and number of mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 genome, according to Melvin M. Vopson (2022, Applied Sciences)
As a quick scroll through Prof. Vopson’s paper is likely to have one’s mind reeling with unanswered questions within the first few paragraphs, it’s perhaps a good idea to start at the beginning. This would appear to be
a May 2022 paper
published in
Applied Sciences
by Vopson as sole author with the title:
“A Possible Information Entropic Law of Genetic Mutations”
. This is a riveting read that seeks to overthrow essentially everything we think we know about how mutations in genetic material work and what their effect is, challenging the fundaments of Darwinism.
The basis for these rather strong claims is found in the application of
Shannon entropy
(information entropy, or IE) on the recorded genome samples of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as it evolved during the first two years of its spread across the globe. Information entropy is effectively the definition of uncertainty within a set of information, whether it’s a string of characters or genetic material. The lower the uncertainty, the lower the number of bits needed to encode this information. Here Vopson claims to have found a strong correlation between the number of mutations the viral genome underwent and the effect on the genome’s IE, postulating that this must mean that genetic mutations aren’t random, but always serve to reduce the IE of the genome.
Next, in July of 2022 a
follow-up research paper
was published in
AIP Advances
titled:
“Second law of information dynamics”
, in which Vopson and a colleague (S. Lepadatu) try to formalize this ‘law’, setting it up as essentially the inverse of the
second law of thermodynamics
, which dictates that the entropy of a system will always increase, as the Universe inevitably expands towards its (presumed) heat death. This ‘second law of infodynamics’ thus states that the entropy of a system will remain constant or decrease. At this point the very fundament of physics has been essentially rewritten, and we are still only in the second act of this peculiar play.
Final Act
The aforementioned 2023 paper published in
AIP Advances
by Vopson can be regarded as the penultimate triumph of this new ‘law of information dynamics’, as here it is applied to not just a viral genome, but to the electron shells that surround atoms. Drawing in both the
Pauli exclusion principle
and
Hund’s rule of maximum multiplicity
, it is argued that when at equilibrium in the ground state, these electrons occupy the shells according to this rule to minimize their information entropy, and thus that this way the fewest bits are needed to encode it, which would save space if this happened to be a simulated universe.
Unfortunately, the
2004 discovery by Slipchenko et al.
reported in
Angewendte Chemie
that 5-Dehydro-1,3-quinodimethane does not follow Hund’s first rule would seem to already violate this presumed ‘second law of infodynamics’. As the remainder of the paper seems to go off on various tangents regarding adiabatic energy exchanges of the Universe and the ‘problematic’ entropy budget of the same – before pointing at many things in the Universe being symmetrical as some kind of evidence of simulated data – it’s left as an exercise to the reader to perhaps make some sense of it.
Although I personally feel that
Sabine Hossenfelder’s take
on the simulated universe thought experiment is somewhat crude and dismissive, I do agree with the notion that it’s rather presumptive of a
Type 0
civilization – that has to predict the weather using a simulated weather model that’s more a rough approximation of the underlying physics – to somehow also be an expert on how such detailed simulations which we are currently incapable of would work or look, whether from the in- or outside.
No matter what you think of the possibility that we are all being all simulated bits of data, or disembodied brains bobbing gently in nourishing fluids, we can likely never fully dismiss it, even if it’s so unlikely that it should remain what it is: a thought experiment to be tinkered with now and then, if only because the cool media and books that sometimes appear due to it. | 38 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694079",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2023-10-26T15:08:53",
"content": "“At this point the very fundament of physics has been essentially rewritten, and we are still only in the second act of this peculiar play.”Yeah, uh. No. Did you actually read the paper you linked to? Quoting... | 1,760,372,127.551848 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/26/a-paper-printer-for-qr-code-menus/ | A Paper Printer For QR Code Menus | Lewin Day | [
"Lifehacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"menu",
"printer",
"qr code",
"thermal printer"
] | Do you miss the days of thumbing through a sticky, laminated booklet to order your food? Sick of restaurants and their frustrating electronic menus? Fear not, for
[Guy Dupont] and his QR code menu printer
are here to save the day.
Yes, that’s right — it’s a lunchbox-sized printer designed to spit out a paper version of a digital menu. Using a Tiny Code Reader from Useful Sensors, the device can scan a QR code at a restaurant to access its menu. A Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32 takes the link, and then passes it to a remote computer which accesses the menu online and screenshots it. The image is processed with TesseractOCR to extract food items and prices, and the data is then collated into a simple text-only format using ChatGPT. The simplified menu is finally sent to a thermal printer to be spat out on receipt paper for your casual perusal.
[Guy] was inspired to build the project after hating the experience of using QR code menus in restaurants and bars around town. It’s his latest project that solves an everyday problem, it makes a great sequel to his
smart jeans that tell you when your fly is down
. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694041",
"author": "Norbert",
"timestamp": "2023-10-26T12:23:36",
"content": "I like projects with these compact printers so this one, too!…but now that it is working: Isn’t this scenario more of a “solution looking for a problem”?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,372,127.611536 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/26/this-machine-has-lost-its-marbles/ | This Machine Has Lost Its Marbles | Jenny List | [
"Art",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"marble clock",
"marble run",
"marbles"
] | The astonishing variety of ways to tell the time which have appeared on these pages over the years provides a showcase of the talents and ingenuity of our community. Many clocks use designs we are familiar with, but every now and then along comes a clock that rings something new. So it is with [Ivan Miranda]’s latest work —
a digital clock that shows the time with a dot matrix made of marbles
. So far he’s published only part one of what will become a series. There’s
technically
no clock yet, but as it stands it’s enough of a marble machine to be a worthy project in its own right.
In the video below we see him solving the problems of creating free-running marble transport and handling via a conveyor belt, and solving such unexpected problems as cleanly releasing them from the belt, holding a row of marbles with a solenoid, and catching errant marbles that bounce free of the machine. The result is a rather pretty marble machine that makes an endless cascade of falling marbles on a curved track. We’re guessing that future videos will deal with the assembly of lines for the dot matrix display, such that the figures of the clock will be formed from black and white marbles, so this is a series to watch out for.
We’ve seen [Ivan]’s work in the past, not least for
his giant 3D printer
. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694027",
"author": "helge",
"timestamp": "2023-10-26T09:45:12",
"content": "Well good thing he makered it together, skipping all the lessons learned in the Wintergatan Marble Machine projects.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "... | 1,760,372,127.834089 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/25/booting-the-raspberry-pi-5-with-an-nvme-ssd/ | Booting The Raspberry Pi 5 With An NVMe SSD | Lewin Day | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"NVMe",
"nvme ssd",
"raspberry pi",
"ssd"
] | The Raspberry Pi has come a long way since its humble origins, adding faster processors and better interfaces with each new generation. Now, the Raspberry Pi 5 has a lovely new PCIe port right on board,
and [Jeff Geerling] has gone right ahead and slammed in an NVMe SSD as a boot drive.
[Jeff] explains that to use an NVMe to boot, you first have to modify /boot/config.txt to enable PCIe and modify the Raspberry Pi’s boot order. Once the bootloader is appropriately configured, you can boot straight off an SSD with Raspberry Pi OS installed. To get the operating system on to an NVMe drive, he recommends cloning an existing boot volume from a microSD install.
One of the primary reasons you might want to do this is speed. NVMe drives are generally a significant cut above even the best microSD cards, both in speed and reliability. [Jeff] also notes that you can
use
an NVMe SSD through a PCIe switch on the Pi 5 if you so desire, but you can’t currently boot with this configuration.
It’s a great feature to have on the Pi 5, and it follows on from the earlier implementation on
the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4
. Video after the break. | 27 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6694000",
"author": "Ewald",
"timestamp": "2023-10-26T05:07:46",
"content": "> One of the primary reasons you might want to do this is speedFor me the primary reason would be to avoid SDcard corruption, it doesn’t happen that often, but when it does it’s always a hassle to get that ... | 1,760,372,127.897085 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/25/that-coin-toss-isnt-actually-50-50/ | That Coin Toss Isn’t Actually 50/50 | Donald Papp | [
"Science"
] | [
"coin flip",
"fair",
"math",
"random"
] | A coin flip is considered by many to be the perfect 50/50 random event, even though — being an event subject to Newtonian physics — the results are in fact anything but random. But that’s okay, because what we really want when we flip a coin is an unpredictable but fair outcome. But what if that’s not actually what happens?
There’s new research claiming that
coin tosses demonstrate a slight but measurable bias
toward landing on the same side they started. At least, this is true of coin flips done in a particular (but common) way. Coins flipped with the thumb and caught in the hand land with the same side facing up 50.8 percent of the time.
The new research
builds on earlier work proposing that because of human anatomy, when a human flips a coin with their thumb, the motion introduces a slight off-axis tilt that biases the results. Some people do it less (biasing the results less) and some do it more, but while the impact is small it is measurable. As long as the coin is caught in the hand, anyway. Allowing the coin to fall on surfaces introduces outside variables.
Therefore, one can gain a slight advantage in coin flips by looking at which side is facing up, and calling that same side. Remember that the flipping method used must be that of flipping the coin with the thumb, and catching it with the hand. The type of coin does not matter.
Does this mean a coin flip isn’t fair? Not really. Just allow the coin to fall on a surface instead of catching it in the hand, or simply conceal which side is “up” when the coin is called. It’s one more thing that invites us all to ask
just how random is random, anyway
? | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693992",
"author": "Chris Pepin",
"timestamp": "2023-10-26T03:15:18",
"content": "You also have to watch out for people who can flip the coin after it’s landed in their hand if they need to change which side is “UP”. Always let the coin fall on the ground or other surface if you w... | 1,760,372,127.744906 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/25/upgraded-toy-guitar-plays-music/ | Upgraded Toy Guitar Plays Music | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"adc",
"arduino",
"costume",
"ESP32",
"guitar",
"halloween",
"music",
"sd card",
"speaker",
"toy"
] | Getting the finishing details on a Halloween costume completed is the key to impressing friends and strangers alike on the trick-or-treat rounds. Especially when it comes to things like props, these details can push a good Halloween costume to great with the right touches. [Jonathan]’s friend’s daughter will be well ahead of the game
thanks to these additions to a toy guitar which is part of her costume this year
.
The toy guitar as it was when it arrived had the capability to play a few lackluster sound effects. The goal here was to get it to play a much more impressive set of songs instead, and to make a couple upgrades along the way as well. To that end, [Jonathan] started by dismantling the toy and investigating the PCBs for potential reuse. He decided to keep the buttons in the neck of the guitar despite their non-standard wiring configuration, but toss out the main board in favor of an ESP32. The ESP32 is tasked with reading the buttons, playing a corresponding song loaded on an SD card, and handling the digital to analog conversion when sending it out to be played on the speaker.
The project doesn’t stop there, though. [Jonathan] also did some custom mixing for the songs to account for the lack of stereo sound and a working volume knob, plus he used the ESP32’s wireless capabilities to set the guitar up as a local file server so that songs can be sent to and from the device without any wires. He also released the source code on
the project’s GitHub page
for anyone looking to use any parts of this project. Don’t forget there’s
a Halloween contest going on right now
, so be sure to submit the final version of projects like these there! | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693960",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-10-25T23:09:47",
"content": "Instead of playing songs, I think it would be better if it played famous guitar riffs.P.s. He rickrolled us!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,127.784753 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/25/a-nicer-controller-for-cheap-power-supply-modules/ | A Nicer Controller For Cheap Power Supply Modules | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"ESP32",
"power supply",
"web interface"
] | These days, you can get all kinds of cheap power supply modules off a variety of online vendors. A lot of examples from brands like Juntek and Drok often have pretty poor interfaces though, with a couple of tactile buttons and a simple 7-segment display.
[rin67630] decided to whip up a better controller with a much more informative display
.
The controller is designed to work with programmable buck converter modules like the DPS3806, Buck3603, and BST900. It’s based on a TTGO ESP32 with an integrated color TFT LCD. It displays voltage at the input and output, the same for current, along with current setpoints. It also allows for control of a fan and charge cycles if so desired, and it has the ability to fetch time from an NTP server for proper scheduling. There’s also a web interface complete with graphs for really diving down into the nitty-gritty. Future plans include adding
an MPPT solar charging capability.
If you’ve ever wanted a cheap power supply module with really low-level control and rich data display, this could be just what you need. Meanwhile, you’ve got your own neat power supply in the works, don’t hesitate
to drop us a line. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693987",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2023-10-26T01:45:16",
"content": "Hard to look at all those 000’s. Leading zero suppression has been around a long time. Also all figures in columns make for easier reading.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,127.939577 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/22/hackaday-links-october-22-2023/ | Hackaday Links: October 22, 2023 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"air pollution",
"annular",
"dispersed media",
"eclipse",
"foam",
"hackaday links",
"museum",
"placeholder",
"spacecraft",
"speeding",
"sql injection",
"stratosphere",
"ticket",
"version"
] | The second of three major solar eclipses in a mere six-year period swept across the United States last week.
We managed to catch the first one back in 2017
, and still have plans for the next one in April of 2024. But we gave this one a miss, mainly because it was “just” an annular eclipse, promising a less spectacular presentation than a total eclipse.
Looks like we were wrong about that, at least judging by photographs of last week’s “Ring of Fire” eclipse. NASA managed to catch
a shot of the Moon’s shadow over the middle of the US
from the Deep Space Climate Observer at Lagrange Point 1. The image, which shows both the compact central umbra of the shadow and the much larger penumbra, which covers almost the entire continent, is equal parts fascinating and terrifying. Ground-based photographers were very much in the action too, turning in
some lovely shots of the eclipse
. We particularly like this “one-in-a-million” shot of a jet airliner photobombing the developing eclipse. Shots like these make us feel like it was a mistake to skip the 10-hour drive to the path of annularity.
“To err is human, but to really foul things up takes a computer,” or so the somewhat Luddite saying goes. Perhaps the saying would be more accurate if “programmer” were appended to it after a Georgia man found himself slapped with
a $1.4 million speeding ticket
. Granted, he was doing 90 mph in a 55 mph zone, which could have earned him a reckless driving charge, but even then, the maximum fine for that charge under Georgia law is limited to $1,000.
A phone call to the court confirmed that he had to pay the seven-figure charge or show up in court, which of course he did. That’s where he learned that the strangely specific $1,480,038.52 charge was just a “placeholder” in the court’s e-citation software, reserved for those doing more than 35 miles per hour over the posted limit and apparently meant to scare the hell out of them. From a coder’s perspective, this seems like a weird number to choose for a placeholder. We’d expect to see a power of two; 2
20
is close to the value they used, but not quite. Either way, perhaps the speeder’s best strategy here would have been to change his name to “DROP TABLE Violators;” or something like that.
Ever wonder what happens to spacecraft when they return to Earth? If you’re lucky, they end up in the drink at the
Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility
; if you’re not so lucky, something from space might end up
on a beach somewhere
. But along the way, a good part of the mass ends up as air pollution, or more specifically, as
metal alloy aerosols spread throughout the stratosphere
. Perdue Univerisity researchers used NASA’s
WB-57 High-Altitude Science
platform to fly through the stratosphere above Alaska and sample the rarified air, finding more than 20 elements up there, including aluminum, copper, lithium, and lead. The mass of the metals found exceeds what would normally be found in cosmic dust, and the ratios of metals look very much like those you’d expect to find on spacecraft.
Care for a blast from the past? Then be sure to check out
the Version Museum
, an online collection of the way things used to look back when the Internet was young. Remember when
Amazon
sold nothing but books? Or when
YouTube
used to let you “Broadcast Yourself”? They’ve got operating systems and applications, too —
Windows
all the way back to Version 1.01, t
he “Happy Mac” screen
, and
Excel
when it was text-based and called Multiplan. Sorry, though — they don’t have any history on Hackaday; perhaps they’ll take submissions.
And finally, if you’ve ever said to yourself, “Self, you just don’t know enough about foams,” you’re in luck — New Mind just released a video called
The Science of Foam
. And if you think there’s no way that a 23-minute video about foam could be interesting, think again. It covers all kinds of “dispersed media materials,” everything from the head on a mug of beer to synthetic polymeric foams used for insulation and packaging. If you’re at all into industrial chemistry and processes, it’s a fascinating video. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693169",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2023-10-23T00:05:45",
"content": "“But we gave this one a miss”Should have been in Albuquerque, there were hot air balloon festival at the same time. AIBF had been running for 51 years (skipped 2020 due to covid), this is the first time the... | 1,760,372,127.98436 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/22/antique-motherboard-speaks/ | Antique Motherboard Speaks | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"bios",
"motherboard"
] | [Bits und Bolts] has been restoring an old PC motherboard with the infamous bad electrolytic capacitors. The video of his exploits was interesting enough, but pretty standard stuff. What we found interesting though, was an odd feature of the ASUS Bios called “Post Reporter” that let the motherboard
speak error codes and status through the external speaker
. (Video, embedded below.) We aren’t sure who wanted that, and since we haven’t seen it around lately, we are guessing the answer was nobody wanted it.
We enjoyed watching the PCB rework. Those large internal ground plane layers do make it hard to unsolder and then solder the caps. That makes the job seem deceptively easy. However, if you want to skip to the exotic BIOS,
jump to the 8:20 mark
.
There seemed to be a lot of work on the system. The board had support for routing the system speaker through an onboard sound card, and there was software, apparently, that allowed you even to change the messages. It would have been fun to set your computer up to do a Mr. T impression: “I pity the fool that didn’t seat the memory correctly!”
The stock voice was not nearly as interesting. Of course, these days, you could
build a POST card
and let a microcontroller do the talking for you. If you prefer Speak and Spell to Mr. T, we have
just the library
for you. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693119",
"author": "Walrus",
"timestamp": "2023-10-22T20:10:34",
"content": "Calling a motherboard from this generation “antique” is quite a stretch… You can still find them in PC’s for nearly free at garage sales… Lmao",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,128.227462 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/22/adobe-scientist-cuts-a-dash-with-lcd-shifting-dress/ | Adobe Scientist Cuts A Dash With LCD Shifting Dress | Richard Baguley | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"adobe",
"fashion hacks",
"lcd"
] | Adobe research scientist [Christine Dierk] showed off an interesting new project at the Adobe Max conference:
Project Primrose, a dress covered with a series of liquid crystal panels that could react to movement, changing the design of the dress
. Now, Adobe has released a
paper showing some of the technical details of the process
.
The paper is from the User Interface & Software (UIST) conference in 2022, so the examples it uses are older: it discusses a canvas and handbag. The dress uses the same technology, though, draped over a scientist rather than a frame. If you can’t access the version from UIST, [Dierk] has a free version
here
.
The dress uses Polymer-dispersed Liquid Crystal (PDLC) panels from the wonderfully named Shanghai HO HO Industry Co and is designed for use in windows and doors for privacy. It uses an Indium Tin oxide-coated PET film that is opaque by default but becomes transparent when a voltage difference is applied across the material.
These panels are shaped to a hexagonal shape, then wired together with flexible PCBs in a daisy chain. Interestingly, [Dierk] found that the smaller the panels were made, the lower the voltage was required to trigger them. For their canvas example, they dropped the voltage to a much safer -15V to 15V levels to trigger the two states, which is much safer for a wearable device.
The panels are also not completely transparent when triggered: the paper describes them as having a “soft ivory” look when they are overlaying a reflective material. Greyscales can also be made using Pulse Coded Modulation (PCM) to vary the panel’s transparency. Driving the panels at 3.2KHz, they created 64 shades of grey.
The main controller is a custom PCB with a
Teensy 4.1
and a
BlueFruit LE SPI module
. The power comes from two 14.8V LiPo batteries, with converters to power the chips and switch modules so the Teensy can switch the -15 and +15V levels for the panels directly from each battery.
The array is made from modules, each with four panels connected to a controller PCB, which has several Analog Signal Device (ASD) ADG1414 chips. These receive the signals from the bus with switch registers to switch the panels individually.
Rather cleverly, [Dierk] uses the bus that daisy chains the modules together to deliver both power and the bus signal that controls the panels, using the -15 and +15V levels modulated with a 50Hz square wave to create the bus signal and power the panels at the same time. That’s a neat hack that reduces the complexity of the modules significantly.
The Teensy 4.1 controls the whole system and can use its IMU to sense movement and change the pattern accordingly. You don’t get to see the system’s electronics in the dress video, but they claim that the canvas example took just 0.58 Watts to drive, so the dress probably only needs a few watts.
It is a fascinating build (and a rather cute dress), and has a lot of potential. What would you do with this? | 64 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693084",
"author": "Cyna",
"timestamp": "2023-10-22T17:10:41",
"content": "Which is much safer than what? 1kV? At least provide enough details for the comparison.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6693103",
"author": "M... | 1,760,372,128.082725 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/22/nasa-jpls-voyager-team-is-patching-up-both-voyagers-firmware/ | NASA JPL’s Voyager Team Is Patching Up Both Voyagers’ Firmware | Maya Posch | [
"Space"
] | [
"voyager",
"Voyager 2"
] | It’s not every day that you get to update the firmware on a device that was produced in the 1970s, and rarely is said device well beyond the boundaries of our solar system. This is however exactly what the JPL team in charge of the Voyager 1 & 2 missions are facing, as they are
in the process of sending
fresh firmware patches over to these amazing feats of engineering. These patches should address not only the attitude articulation and control system (AACS) issues that interrupted Voyager 1’s communication with Earth a while ago, but also prevent the thruster propellant inlet tubes from getting clogged up as quickly.
Voyager 2 is the current testbed for these patches, just in case something should go wrong despite months of Earth-based checking, testing and validation. As Voyager 1 is the furthest from Earth, its scientific data is the more valuable, but ideally neither spacecraft should come out worse for wear after this maintenance session.
The AACS fixes are more of an insurance policy, as the original cause of the issue was found to be that the AACS had entered into an incorrect mode, yet without a clear understanding of how this could have happened. With these changes in place, recovery should be much easier. Similarly, the changes to the use of the thrusters are relatively minor, in that they will mostly let the spacecraft drift a bit more out of focus before the thrusters engage, reducing total thruster firings and thus the build-up of material in these inlet tubes.
With these changes the antennae of both spacecraft should remain trimmed firmly towards the blue planet which they left over forty-five years ago, and enable them to hopefully reach that full half century mark before those of us who are still listening have to say our final farewells. | 79 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693059",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2023-10-22T14:23:29",
"content": "Gotta just love how they are still able to manage wasting our tax dollars.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6693061",
"author": "Cyna",
... | 1,760,372,128.35428 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/22/custom-fume-hood-for-safe-electroless-plating/ | Custom Fume Hood For Safe Electroless Plating | Bryan Cockfield | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"air",
"Chemistry",
"corrosion",
"electroless plating",
"exhaust",
"fume hood",
"safety"
] | There are plenty of chemical processes that happen commonly around the house that, if we’re really following safety protocols to the letter, should be done in a fume hood. Most of us will have had that experience with soldering various electronics, especially if we’re not exactly sure where the solder came from or how old it is. For [John]’s electroless plating process, though, he definitely can’t straddle that line and
went about building a fume hood
to vent some of the more harmful gasses out of a window.
This fume hood is pretty straightforward and doesn’t have a few of the bells and whistles found in commercial offerings, but this process doesn’t really require things like scrubbing or filtering the exhaust air so he opted to omit these pricier and more elaborate options. What it does have, though, is an adjustable-height sash, a small form factor that allows it to easily move around his shop, and a waterproof, spill-collecting area in the bottom. The enclosure is built with plywood, allowing for openings for an air inlet, the exhaust ducting, and a cable pass-through, and then finished with a heavy-duty paint. He also included built-in lighting and when complete, looks indistinguishable from something we might buy from a lab equipment supplier.
While [John] does admit that the exhaust fan isn’t anything special and might need to be replaced more often than if he had gone with one that was corrosion-resistant, he’s decided that the cost of this maintenance doesn’t outweigh the cost of a specialized fan. He also notes it’s not fire- or bomb-proof, but nothing he’s doing is prone to thermal anomalies of that sort. For fume hoods of all sorts,
we might also recommend adding some automation to them
so they are used any time they’re needed. | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693035",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-10-22T12:05:53",
"content": "Nice build.But, what chemical processes does he undertake that need such an apparatus?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "... | 1,760,372,128.400602 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/22/stage-lighting-hack-keeps-la-boheme-from-becoming-a-dumpster-fire/ | Stage Lighting Hack KeepsLa BohèmeFrom Becoming A Dumpster Fire | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"dmx",
"effect",
"fire",
"led",
"opera",
"rgb",
"stage",
"stagecraft",
"theater"
] | With all due respect to the Utah Opera’s production of
La bohème
, we just couldn’t resist poking a little fun at master electrician [David Smith]’s
quick lighting hack
for the opera. And who knew an opera from 1896 would need a garbage can fire? Live and learn.
In what appears to be a case of “The show must go on,” [David] was called on to improve an existing fire effect for one scene in the opera, which was reportedly a bit “artificial and distracting.” This is a pretty common problem in live productions of all types; it’s easy to throw light at a problem, but it’s often hard to make it both convincing and unobtrusive. Luckily, he had both the time to come up with something, and a kit full of goodies to make it happen. A balled-up strip of Neopixels provided the light, with an Arduino running some simple code to randomize the intensity and color of the RGBs. [David] stuck with the warm white, red, and green colors, to keep the color temperature about right for a fire, and drove the LEDs with a couple of MOSFETs that he keeps in his kit to fix busted dimmer packs.
The overall effect worked well, but the holes knocked in the side of the greatly abused garbage can let too much light out, making the effect distracting on stage. The remedy was simple: a cylinder of printer paper surrounding the LED tape. The paper not only acted as a diffuser but held the tape in place inside the can. The electrical crew ran two circuits to the can — one to keep the Arduino running throughout the show, and one to power the LED tape. The former made sure the audience didn’t see the microcontroller boot sequence, and the latter gave the electrician a way to control the effect from the dimmer console. The brief video below shows it in action during a rehearsal.
Hats off to [David] and the whole crew for the stagecraft heroics and for getting this thrown together so quickly. | 20 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693011",
"author": "Andrew Stone",
"timestamp": "2023-10-22T09:22:34",
"content": "Not so much “hacking” as good old-fashioned stagecraft.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6693013",
"author": "PoopOnDeck",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,372,128.463981 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/21/atomic-antenna-uses-lasers/ | Atomic Antenna Uses Lasers | Al Williams | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"laser",
"rubidium"
] | If you think about it, an antenna is nothing more than a radio frequency energy sensor, or — more precisely — a transducer. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there could be different ways to sense RF that would work as an antenna. A recent paper in Applied Physics Letters explains
an atomic antenna
comprised of a rubidium vapor cell.
The interesting thing is that the antenna has no electrical components in the antenna, and can be located far away from the actual receiver. Instead of coax cables, the signal is read with a laser.
The experiment uses a 780 nm laser and a 480 nm laser to illuminate the sensor, which contains a corner reflector. The returned laser light changes based on the input signal at the antenna. That means, in theory, you could locate the antenna far away on a tower or mountaintop since the laser and sensing equipment don’t need to be close. The experiments had the sensor 10 m to 30 m away from the base station, but we’d imagine it would be possible to bridge larger gaps with some modifications.
The RF in question was in the 16 GHz – 20 GHz range. Unsurprisingly, the antenna cell is small, measuring 150 mm by 27 mm. The rubidium doesn’t require special temperatures. The lasers, too, aren’t anything unusual, producing just a few dozen milliwatts on each beam. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693002",
"author": "rtfur4u456u",
"timestamp": "2023-10-22T08:03:37",
"content": "for transmission and receive ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6693015",
"author": "Niels",
"timestamp": "2023-10-22T10:17:30",... | 1,760,372,128.673699 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/21/bluetooth-device-visualizer-reveals-devices-in-vicinity/ | Bluetooth Device Visualizer Reveals Devices In Vicinity | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"ESP32"
] | Have you ever wondered how many Bluetooth devices are floating around you? You could use one of those creepy retail store Bluetooth tracking systems, or set your smartphone to scan. Alternatively,
you could use the Bluetooth Devices Visualizer from [Jeremy Geppert].
The device was inspired by [Jeremy’s] trip to Hackaday Supercon 2022. Wanting to build something with LEDs that worked in a badge-like form factor, he set out on whipping up a device to scan and display a readout of Bluetooth devices in the immediate area.
The device is based on an ESP32 microcontroller, which provides the necessary Bluetooth hardware to scan for devices. It then displays the number of devices found using an 8 x 8 array of addressable LEDs. There is also a small OLED display on board for displaying relevant details to the device’s operation. The device neatly fits on a lanyard, and is more of an art project than anything else. It’s no wardriver, and details of devices found are not logged or stored in any way when the device is switched off.
With a variety of operational modes, it’s a fun way to get an idea of just how many Bluetooth devices are really out there these days. If you’ve got your own nifty Bluetooth hacks in the works, don’t hesitate to
let us know! | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693060",
"author": "JT",
"timestamp": "2023-10-22T14:28:54",
"content": "How does the device distinguish between bluetooth and the wifi and other cellular signals?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6693234",
"author": "... | 1,760,372,128.503725 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/21/pc-case-makes-portable-power-supply/ | PC Case Makes Portable Power Supply | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"pc case",
"power bank"
] | Recently, we’ve seen a lot of semi-portable power stations. These have some big rechargeable battery and various connection options. [Dereksgc] wanted to make his own and decided the perfect housing would be
a small PC tower case
. (Video, embedded below.) It makes sense. There are plenty of easy-to-work front panel inserts, a power supply box with an AC cord (the power supply is long gone), and it is big enough to fit the battery. You can see the result in the video below.
The bulk of the work was installing power supply modules and a charge controller on floppy disk blank panels. The battery — a 50 Ah LiFePO4 unit — fits nicely in the bottom. Some of the buttons and connectors find use in the new incarnation.
Economies of scale mean computer cases are cheap. Besides, if you cruise flea markets or even the dumpster, they are often very cheap all the way down to free. We were surprised he didn’t slip in a cheap AC inverter, although he added a handle to keep with the portable moniker. Since the charger gets hot, it made sense to put fans in the case which, of course, it is all set up for already. He did mention at the end that he had inverter plans for the future.
Is the case overkill? If you can design something, you might as well
overdesign it
. If this power bank isn’t big enough for you, we
have a suggestion
. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6693014",
"author": "wibble",
"timestamp": "2023-10-22T10:03:22",
"content": "I spose there must be a reason, but I’ve never understood why the DC barrel jack sockets come offset from centre. It annoys me!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,372,128.569706 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/21/building-a-robot-bartender-for-amazon/ | Building A Robot Bartender For Amazon | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"amazon",
"bartender",
"drink server",
"robot bartender"
] | [Audax] built an unassuming side table with a party trick. It could retract a glass inside and fill it up with bourbon. The nifty device gained plenty of positive attention online, leading to a commission from Amazon to build a new version. Thus, [Audax] set about a redesign to create
an even more impressive drink delivery system.
(Video, embedded below.)
The story is very much one of refinement and optimization, focusing on the challenges of building a customer-facing device. With just six weeks to create the new rig, [Audax] had to figure out how to make the machine sleeker and more compact for its debut at a special event. To achieve this, he eschewed the original frame design made of aluminium extrusion, going for a 3D-printed design instead. The wire nest of the original version was then subsequently eliminated by an outsourced PCB design. Other new features included a mobile app for control and an easier way to adjust pour size, for bigger or smaller drinks as desired. For ease of use, activation is via an Amazon Alexa Skill.
As is so often the way,
a last minute hurdle came up
, prompting [Audax] to fly to Seattle to troubleshoot the rig on site. Nevertheless, the automatic drink server came good in the end, and delivered on its promise. Video after the break. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692954",
"author": "MmmDee",
"timestamp": "2023-10-21T20:05:02",
"content": "I saw this story the other day, amazing description of the process of going from idea to working model. I was particularly intrigued as it perfectly describes that every project no matter how big or small ... | 1,760,372,128.619505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/21/arduino-controlled-coil-winder/ | Arduino-Controlled Coil Winder | Lewin Day | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"coil",
"coil winder",
"tools"
] | Coil winders are a popular project because doing the deed manually can be an incredibly tedious and time consuming task. After building one such rig, [Pisces Printing] wanted to find even further time savings,
and thus designed an improved, faster version.
At it’s heart, it’s a straightforward design, using a linear rail and a leadscrew driven by a stepper motor. Control is via an Arduino Nano, with a few push buttons and a 16 x 2 LCD display for user feedback.
Often, completing a first build will reveal all manner of limitations and drawbacks of a design. In this case, the original winder was improved upon with faster stepper motors to cut the time it took to wind a coil. A redesigned PCB also specified a better buck converter power supply to avoid overheating issues of the initial design. A three-jaw lathe-style chuck was also 3D printed for the build to allow easy fixing of a coil bobbin.
Designing custom tools can be highly satisfying in and of itself,
beyond the productivity gains they offer
. Video after the break. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692947",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2023-10-21T18:27:37",
"content": "It’s not a coil winder – until it winds TOROIDS!http://www.jovil.com/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6692950",
"author": "Drone",
"t... | 1,760,372,128.728235 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/21/the-eternal-dilemma/ | The Eternal Dilemma | Elliot Williams | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"2023 Hackaday Superconference",
"newsletter"
] | It’s two weeks until Supercon! We can almost smell the solder from here. If you’re coming, and especially if it’s your first time, you’re soon to be faced with the eternal dilemma of hacker cons, only at Supercon it’s maybe a trilemma or even a quadralemma: hang out with folks, work on the badge, go to talks, or show off all the cool stuff you’ve been working on the past year?
Why not all four? That’s exactly why we start off with a chill-out day on Friday, when we don’t have much formally planned. Sure, there’s a party Friday night, and maybe a badge talk or some workshops, but honestly you’ll have most of the day free. Ease into it. Have a look at the badge and start brainstorming. Meet some new people and start up a team. Or just bathe in the tremendous geekery of it all. This is also a great time to show off a small project that you brought along. Having the widget that you poured brain, sweat, and tears into sitting on the table next to you is the perfect hacker icebreaker.
On Saturday and Sunday, there will
definitely
be talks that you’ll want to attend, so scope that out ahead of time and plan those in. But don’t feel like you have to go to all of them, either. Most of the talks will be online, either right away or eventually, so you won’t miss out forever. But since our speakers are putting their own work out there, if you’re interested in the subject, having questions or insight about their talk is a surefire way to strike up a good conversation later on, and that’s something you can’t do online. So plan in a few talks, too.
You’ll find that the time flies by, but don’t feel like you have to do it all either. Ask others what the coolest thing they’ve seen is. Sample as much as you can, but it’s not Pokemon – you can’t catch it all.
See you in two weeks!
(PS: The art is recycled from a Supercon long, long ago. I thought it was too nice to never see it again.)
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning?
You should sign up
! | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692923",
"author": "Markus Bindhammer",
"timestamp": "2023-10-21T14:45:29",
"content": "Kudos to the artist. The skyline looks amazing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6692926",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestam... | 1,760,372,128.770034 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/21/cpu-cooler-in-a-printers-hot-end/ | CPU Cooler In A Printer’s Hot End | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"heat pipe",
"hot end"
] | [Proper Printing] often does unusual 3D printer mods. This time, he’s taking a CPU cooler made for a Raspberry Pi with some heat pipes and converting it into
a 3D printer hot end
. Sound crazy? It is even crazier than it sounds, as seen in the video below.
Heat pipes contain a liquid and a wick, so bending them was tricky. It also limited the size of the heat break he could use since the two heat pipers were relatively closely spaced. Once you have the cooler reshaped and a threaded hole for the heatbreak, the rest is anticlimactic. The heatbreak holds a heat block that contains the heating element and temperature sensor. A few changes were needed to the custom extruder cut out of acrylic, but that didn’t have anything to do with the fan and mount.
Normally, a hot end assembly has a substantial heat sink, and a fan blows air over it. The heat pipe technique is a common way to move heat away from a tight space. So, the way it is used here is probably not very useful compared to a conventional technique. However, we can imagine tight designs where this would be viable.
Heat pipes aren’t the same as
water cooling
, even though some use water inside. A heat pipe is a closed system. The fluid boils off at the hot end, condenses at the cool end, and wicks the liquid back to close the cycle. On the other hand, you can use more
conventional water cooling
, too. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692916",
"author": "Cyna",
"timestamp": "2023-10-21T13:36:51",
"content": "Actually, only crappy/cheap hotends have massive heatsinks, like the V5/V6.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6692946",
"author": "Eduard",
... | 1,760,372,128.832874 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/21/junk-bin-cyberdish-turns-you-into-the-satellite-tracker/ | Junk Bin Cyberdish Turns You Into The Satellite Tracker | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"dish",
"GOES",
"LNA",
"satellite",
"SAWbird",
"sdr",
"tracker"
] | The good thing about listening in on satellites is that they tend to beam down all kinds of juicy information from their lofty perches. The bad thing about satellites is that to stay in those orbits, they’ve got to be moving really fast, and that means that you’ve got to track them if you want to keep a nice consistent signal during a pass. And that can lead to all sorts of complexity, with motorized two-axis mounts and fancy tracking software.
Or does it?
Not if you’re willing to act as the antenna mount
, which is the boat [Gabe] from the
saveitforparts
channel on YouTube recently found himself in when searching for L-band signals from the GOES satellite. His GOES setup uses a 30″ (0.8 m) dish repurposed from a long-range wireless networking rig. Unfortunately, the old security camera pan-tilt unit it was mounted on wasn’t quite up to satellite tracking duty, so [Gabe] pulled the dish off and converted it to manual tracking.
With a freshly wound helical antenna and a SAWbird LNA at the focal point, the dish proved to be pretty easy to keep on track manually, while providing quite the isometric workout. Aiming was aided by an app called Stellarium which uses augmented reality to point out objects in the night sky, and a cheap tablet computer was tasked with running SDR++ and capturing data. Sadly, neither of these additions brought much to the party, with the latter quickly breaking and the former geared more toward stargazing than satellite snooping. But with some patience — and some upper-body strength — [Gabe] was able to track GOES well enough with the all-in-one “cyberdish” to get some usable images. The whole saga is documented in the video after the break.
Kudos to [Gabe] for showing us what can be accomplished with a little bit of junk and a lot of sticktoitiveness. He promises that a legit two-axis mount is in the works, so we’ll be on the lookout for that. We’ve seen
a few of those
before, and [Chris Lott] did
a great overview of satellite tracking gear
a while back, too. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692927",
"author": "James Reed Feeney",
"timestamp": "2023-10-21T15:05:41",
"content": "I’ve heard of people using these dishes to find unsecured WiFi internet connections, and tap into them.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "669... | 1,760,372,128.933223 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/20/pocket-calculator-isnt-a-brain-or-magic/ | Pocket Calculator Isn’t A Brain Or Magic | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Teardown"
] | [
"calculator",
"slide rule"
] | If you predate the pocket calculator, you may remember slide rules. But slide rules take a a little skill to use. There was a market for other devices that were simpler or, in some cases, cheaper. One common one was the “magic brain” or Addiator which was a little metal box with some slots that could add numbers. However, using clever tricks it could also subtract and — in a fashion — multiply. [Our Own Devices] has a
teardown of the device
you can see in the video below. It is deceptively simple, and the description of how it works is at least as interesting as the peek inside.
We remember these on the market and, honestly, always thought they were simple tally mechanisms. It turns out they are both less and more than that. Internally, the device is a few serrated sheet metal strips in a plastic channel. The subtraction uses a complement addition similar to how you do binary subtraction using 2’s complement math. Multiplication is just repetitive addition, which is fine for simple problems.
Normally, these devices are hard to open because they are riveted. However, [Jim] drilled his out and replaced the rivets with screws. It looks odd but much nicer for opening it up.
If the video doesn’t make sense, you can always consult the
original instructions
. We were surprised we couldn’t find a JavaScript simulator somewhere, although this
online calculator
might help a little. According to the
Slide Rule Museum
, the original version of this was the “Baby Calculator” made by a company around Chicago, possibly as early as 1917. The magic brains were Japanese imports and there were many other variants that you can find in the museum’s document.
We couldn’t help but think of the
Smarty Cat slide rule
we have in our collection. Most of our
slide rules
are, however, more conventional. | 18 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692907",
"author": "baz",
"timestamp": "2023-10-21T11:56:18",
"content": "Wow! Fascinating. I love the simple beauty of the mechanical era.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6692912",
"author": "Ostracus",
"time... | 1,760,372,129.059437 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/20/finally-an-open-source-8088-bios/ | Finally, An Open-Source 8088 BIOS | Lewin Day | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"8088",
"bios",
"intel",
"intel 8088"
] | The Intel 8088 is an interesting chip, being a variant of the more well-known 8086. Given the latter went on to lend its designation to one of the world’s favorite architectures, you can tell which of the two was higher status. Regardless, it was the 8088 that lived in the first IBM PC, and now,
it even has its own open-source BIOS.
As with any BIOS, or Basic Input Output System, it’s charged with handling core low-level features for computers like the Micro 8088, Xi 8088, and NuXT. It handles chipset identification, keyboard and mouse communication, real-time clock, and display initialization, among other things.
Of course, BIOSes for 8088-based machines already exist. However, in many cases, they are considered to be proprietary code that cannot be freely shared over the internet. For retrocomputing enthusiasts, it’s of great value to have a open-source BIOS that can be shared, modified, and tweaked as needed to suit a wide variety of end uses.
If you want to learn more about the 8088 CPU,
we’ve looked in depth at that topic before.
Feel free to
drop us a line
with your own retro Intel hacks if you’ve got them kicking around! | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692891",
"author": "slincolne",
"timestamp": "2023-10-21T08:33:04",
"content": "I think that calling it an 8088 BIOS is doing Sergey something of a disservice. There is code in the BIOS for nested PICs (not an 8088 feature) as well as keyboard controller with PS/2 mouse support.Mo... | 1,760,372,129.005174 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/20/converting-a-polaroid-sx70-camera-to-use-600-film/ | Converting A Polaroid SX70 Camera To Use 600 Film | Lewin Day | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"analog photography",
"camera",
"instant camera",
"instant photography",
"polaroid",
"polaroid camera"
] | These days, it’s possible to buy a number of different Polaroid instant cameras new off the shelf. That’s largely thanks to the retro resurgence that has buoyed interest in everything from vinyl records to analog synthesizers. However, if you’re truly old-school, you might still be rocking a vintage Polaroid SX-70 camera.
Thankfully, there’s a way to convert these old rigs to work properly with the more popular modern 600 film.
The interesting thing about the SX-70 camera design is that its shutter speed and aperture setting are essentially linked together as the aperture and shutter assembly are combined into one unit with a variable tear-drop shaped opening. Thus, the timing of the shutter opening and closing and the extent to which it opens are what determines exposure and aperture.
Thankfully, [Jake Bright] has learned a lot about these unique cameras and exactly how this complex system operates. He shares his tips on firstly restoring the camera to factory-grade operation, and then the methods in which they may be converted to work with modern film. Fundamentally, it’s about changing capacitors or resistors to change the shutter/aperture timing. However, do it blindly and you’ll have little success. You first need to understand the camera’s mechanics, pneumatics, and its “Electric Eye” control system before you can get things dialed in just so.
We’ve seldom seen such a great deep dive into a camera outside of full-fat engineering documentation. [Jake] should be commended on his deep understanding and command of these fine instant cameras from yesteryear.
May the Polaroid picture never die.
Video after the break. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692847",
"author": "Keshlam",
"timestamp": "2023-10-21T00:42:12",
"content": "Interesting. I have an SX70 stashed away, which I got because it had a failure that caused it to immediately spit out the entire contents of the film pack rather than just the pack’s cover sheet. Never di... | 1,760,372,129.105099 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/20/spinning-up-a-new-laundry-monitor/ | Spinning Up A New Laundry Monitor | Kristina Panos | [
"classic hacks",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"Arduino-esp32",
"ESP32",
"laundry",
"laundry monitor",
"split-core transformer"
] | For all that modern washers and dryers do, they don’t let you know when they’re finished. Or they do, but it’s only a short victory song that plays once and can be easy to miss. What most of us need is a gentle reminder that there’s damp laundry festering in the washer, or fresh laundry in the dryer getting wrinkly.
This laundry monitor from [Sparks and Code] is version 2.0
. The first version was working fine, but it was based on vibration (or lack thereof). Fast forward a few years, and [Sparks and Code] got a modern pair that’s so finely tuned, it doesn’t produce enough vibration to register. Back to the drawing board [Sparks and Code] went, and eventually came up with version 2.0.
Now, [Sparks and Code] is detecting whether the machines are on using a pair of split-core transformers to monitor power at the breaker box. With these, you just run the wire through the hole, and it gives the relative mV value going through the wire on a 3.5mm cable. Those cables are connected to an ESP32 inside the 3D-printed box, which is mounted above the cabinet door. Since [Sparks and Code] already has home assistants all over the house, it was easy to integrate and have them all play the message ‘please flip the laundry’.
Once this project was all buttoned up, they thought of one issue — the self-cleaning cycle. Since it takes about four hours, they like to run it overnight. You can see the problem here — no one wants to hear Alexa at 3AM. Fortunately, [Sparks and Code] was able to adjust the Python script to ignore these events. Be sure to check out the build video after the break.
If only the dryer could empty itself and fold the clothes.
Oh wait, there’s a robot for that
. | 17 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692800",
"author": "Gary Crowell",
"timestamp": "2023-10-20T20:18:32",
"content": "Uh, no. Besides the ‘short victory song’ my LG W/D (and others I’ve seen) gives me a notification on my phone when they finish or if they’ve incurred any problems. And when they need cleaning, And... | 1,760,372,129.166871 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/20/2023-halloween-hackfest-haunted-keyboard-is-free-from-ghosting/ | 2023 Halloween Hackfest: Haunted Keyboard Is Free From Ghosting | Kristina Panos | [
"Holiday Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"2023 Halloween Hack Fest",
"ChatGPT",
"halloween",
"haunted keyboard",
"keyboard",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi Pico W"
] | This may
look
like another DIY mechanical keyboard, but it’s hiding a secret.
[Mx. Jack Nelson] has combined Halloween and keyboards
in glorious, haunted fashion. Type a line, any line into this bad boy and you get a spooky, sort of cryptic response generated by AI.
Essentially, a Raspberry Pi Pico W does all the work, it handles the keyboard matrix, connects to Wi-Fi, sends the input to ChatGPT, and spits the response out on the screen wherever the cursor happens to be. Incidentally, it turns out [Mx. Jack Nelson] used ChatGPT to generate much of the CircuitPython code.
The layout is a custom 40% that is heavily influenced by the Akko 40%, with the Ctrl, Alt, and Win keys replaced by Ctrl, Cmd, and Opt. This was [Mx. Jack Nelson]’s first PCB, and you never forget your first. You don’t want to miss the demo video after the break.
Are keyboards just not spooky enough for you?
Here’s a creepy baby doll that does basically the same thing
. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692921",
"author": "Gayle",
"timestamp": "2023-10-21T14:38:45",
"content": "Very cool! 🎃👻",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,129.204764 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/20/nfts-and-tulipmania-a-little-bit-of-history-repeating/ | NFTs And Tulipmania: A Little Bit Of History Repeating | Al Williams | [
"Business",
"Featured",
"History",
"Rants"
] | [
"NFT",
"tulipmania"
] | We were not surprised to read that a company that tracks NFTs declared that
most NFTs are now worthless
. But the NFT — non-fungible token — market was huge, so around 23 million people invested in NFTs that are now worth nothing. Worse still, the company notes that because of oddities in how NFTs are priced, the real number of worthless assets is probably even greater than they think.
It is easy to look back and think that it was obvious. After all, an NFT of the Mona Lisa isn’t really the Mona Lisa. Nor does owning it confer any real benefit other than “bragging rights” of owning an NFT of the Mona Lisa. But that’s like saying Luke should have known Darth Vader was his father — it’s only evident after the fact. History is replete with bad ideas at the time that paid out down the road. Of course, history is also full of bad ideas that were simply bad ideas. For every Apple or Google stock you didn’t buy at $4 a share, there are a hundred $4 stocks that you shouldn’t have bought.
The Virus
The NFT craze was sort of a viral event. We usually think of these as part of the Internet culture, but that’s not really true. There is actually very little new on the Internet. The Internet just lets things reach further and faster than before.
Don’t believe me? Kilroy was a viral meme in the 1940s. Fads such as hula hoops, phone booth stuffing, and flagpole sitting were the ice bucket challenges of their day. But, of course, these things weren’t economic. Just fun fads. But economic fads that turn out to be a bad idea are nothing new, either.
Tulipmania
Tulip from the 1881 Book “Flora of Haarlem”
The most famous and possibly first economic bubble was the 17th-century tulipmania that infected Holland. We think of tulips as distinctly Dutch, but it turns out they originated in central Asia and only made their way to Holland somewhere in the 16th century. The Dutch loved tulips and started cultivating them, with different rare varieties having more value.
To add to the fun, you couldn’t tell what kind of tulip would come out of a bulb, especially since — as we know now — some of the more prized varieties had color variations caused by a virus in the bulb. At first, it was a bit of a game for the rich. However, it soon spread to the merchant class and beyond.
By 1634, everyone wanted in on the action. A single bulb could go for 5,000 florins. The florin’s value is hard to know for sure today, but one estimate based on the price of beer is that a florin is worth about $240 in today’s money. So a 5,000 florin bulb would have bought a lot of beer.
Bust
Everyone wanted in. The price of tulip bulbs just kept rising, seemingly without an end in sight. Sound familiar? People started buying tulip bulbs on credit, just like you buy stocks on margin, hoping the stock’s gain will let you repay the loan.
The problem, in hindsight, is inevitable. By 1637, prices dropped. Futures on tulip bulbs were now “upside down,” which was especially problematic if you bought them on margin. Bankruptcy and a supply glut ensued. Eventually, the government would allow tulip contracts to be voided at a fraction of their face value.
There is some debate among historians about the actual scale of the financial impact of this on the Dutch economy. Some say it nearly wiped the country out, while others say it affected only a small number of traders. But few disagree that it was a bubble. Investors acted irrationally, came to their senses, and then destroyed the overvalued market. Some think it was just the free market. Something is rare and expensive. Production ramps up to capitalize on the trend. Then supply is great, and prices drop. Perhaps. But if you spend enough on a single tulip bulb that will flower for a week and pay what it would cost to buy a mansion, it sounds like mania to us. At least an NFT of a tulip will last for a very long time.
A Fine Line
There is a fine line between knowing that something will be valuable and chasing a bubble. For example, if you could foresee the growth of cell phones, investing in towers would have been great — the rent to put an antenna on a tower can be $30,000 a year. But you are probably sorry you tooled up to make pet rock houses or Google Glass accessories.
We waited too late for our Jolly Wrencher NFT!
Part of it, of course, is knowing when to get out. If you dumped your bulbs before prices dropped, you probably made a killing. Even cell phone towers will eventually lose value if everything goes to satellite. The thing about cell phone towers is that it is a rational expense and a rational change. With tulips and NFTs, the price is driven not by value but by emotion, and then the change is just a return to rationality, not a natural progression.
So, what’s the next big investment? We don’t know, but if we did, we’d have more money to spend on hacker toys. We tried our hand at
minting NFTs
(not really; it was, after all, April 1st). We aren’t sure about the fad value of cryptocurrency, but
our Raspberry Pi is hard at work
.
Featured image: “
Tulips
” by Kris Runstrom. | 123 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692760",
"author": "Pete",
"timestamp": "2023-10-20T17:19:32",
"content": "It is easy to look back and think that it was obvious. After all, an NFT of the Mona Lisa isn’t really the Mona Lisa. Nor does owning it confer any real benefit other than “bragging rights” of owning an NFT ... | 1,760,372,129.62244 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/20/hackaday-podcast-ep-241-circuit-bending-resistor-filing-the-butterfly-keyboard-and-the-badge-reveal/ | Hackaday Podcast Ep 241: Circuit Bending, Resistor Filing, The Butterfly Keyboard, And The Badge Reveal | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi meet up virtually to talk about the week’s top stories and hacks, such as the fine art of resistor trimming and lessons learned from doing overseas injection molding. They’ll go over circuit bending, self-driving cars, and a solar camera that started as a pandemic project and turned into an obsession. You’ll also hear about Linux on the Arduino, classic ICs etched into slate, and an incredible restoration of one of the most interesting Thinkpads ever made. Stay tuned until the end to hear about a custom USB-C power supply and the long-awaited Hackaday Supercon 2023 Vectorscope badge.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Download your own, unlimited-edition MP3
of this week’s podcast.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 241 Show Notes:
What’s that Sound?
This record-breaking
What’s That Sound
has it’s winner! [Nervous Pajamas] can finally relax.
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Burnt Resistor Sleuthing
Hackaday Trims Its Own Resistors
Restoration Of A Thinkpad 701C
The Clock, Another Way To Modify The Sound Of A Synth Chip
Intro To Circuit Bending
Lessons Learned: Plastic Injection Molding For Products
Full Self-Driving, On A Budget
comma.ai — make driving chill
Solar Camera Built From Raspberry Pi
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
High SPL/Low cost mic preamp. – Fvfilippetti
Bone-Shaking Haunted Mirror Uses Stable Diffusion
Stretching The Flight Time On A Compressed Air Plane
Because You Can: Linux On An Arduino Uno
Tom’s Picks:
Memorialize Your Favorite Chips In Slate
Can An 8-Bit Light Gun Work On A Modern TV?
Even 3D Printers Are Taking Selfies Now
Can’t-Miss Articles:
USB-C For Hackers: Build Your Own PSU
2023 Hackaday Supercon Badge: Welcome To The Vectorscope | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692751",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2023-10-20T16:18:08",
"content": "Podcast got pushed out late this week, folks. It could take a half hour to show up at your aggregator of choice.Of course, it’s here now, embedded and downloadable!",
"parent_id": null,
"... | 1,760,372,129.455566 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/20/an-explosive-look-at-detonators/ | An Explosive Look At Detonators | Al Williams | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"blasting machine",
"detonator"
] | If you’ve ever watched a cartoon where something blows up, you’ve probably seen a detonator — the device with a plunger that, when you push it, some dynamite blows up a bridge or a building or whatever. Detonators may be common in cartoons, but they are very real, and [Our Own Device] talks about some
vintage detonators
and, along the way, gives a brief history of explosive compounds.
For many years, black powder — a low explosive — was the only game in town. But a flurry of scientific advances brought a new class of high explosives far more powerful than gunpowder. The story of antique explosive factory safety measures, and lack thereof, is also an interesting side detour.
We enjoyed the trip down memory lane. However, if you want to skip the history lesson, jump about 17 minutes in to get a better look at the hardware. The teardown follows soon thereafter. These boxes are built solidly and have many safety features to prevent accidental detonations. One is a dynamo device with some clever mechanisms to ensure that the unit produces enough voltage, the other uses a charged capacitor.
Our usual interest in pyrotechnics is usually aimed more at
fireworks
. You think of explosives as having an imprecise effect, but that
isn’t necessarily the case
. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692753",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2023-10-20T16:26:45",
"content": "Do modern detonators still use the fun push-down T-shaped handle? If not then what is the point",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6692763",
"autho... | 1,760,372,129.722602 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/20/this-week-in-security-browser-exploits-play-protect-and-turn-on-your-firewall/ | This Week In Security: Browser Exploits, Play Protect, And Turn ON Your Firewall! | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"android",
"cisco",
"CVE",
"ios",
"pytorch"
] | Google Chrome has done a lot of work on JavaScript performance, pushing the V8 engine to more and more impressive feats. Recently, that optimization has one more piece, the Maglev compiler, which sits between Sparkplug and TurboFan, as a mid-tier optimization step. With a Just In Time (JIT) system, the time saving of code optimization steps has to be carefully weighed against the time costs, and Maglev is another tool in that endless hunt for speed. And with anything this complicated, there’s the occasional flaw found in the system. And of course, because we’re talking about it here,
it’s a security vulnerability
that results in Remote Code Execution (RCE).
The trick is to use Maglev’s optimization against it. Set up a pair of classes, such that B extends A. Calling
new B()
results in an attempt to use the constructor from A. Which works, because the compiler checks to make sure that the constructors match before doing so. There’s another way to call a constructor in JS, something like
Reflect.construct(B, [], Array);
. This calls the B constructor, but indicates that the constructor should return an Array object. You may notice, there’s no array in the A class below. Tricking the compiler into using the parent class constructor in this fashion results in the array being uninitialized, and whatever happens to be in memory will set the length of the array.
class A {}
var x = Array;
class B extends A {
constructor() {
x = new.target;
super();
}
}
function construct() {
var r = Reflect.construct(B, [], x);
return r;
}
//Compile optimize code
for (let i = 0; i < 2000; i++) construct();
//-----------------------------------------
//Trigger garbage collection to fill the free space of the heap
new ArrayBuffer(gcSize);
new ArrayBuffer(gcSize);
corruptedArr = construct(); // length of corruptedArr is 0, try again...
corruptedArr = construct(); // length of corruptedArr takes the pointer of an object, which gives a large value
The trick here is to set up several data structures together so the uninitialized array can be used to corrupt the other objects, giving arbitrary read and write of the compiler heap. Shellcode can be loaded in as other data structures, and a function pointer can be overwritten to jump to the shellcode. RCE from simply running Javascript on a webpage. Thankfully this one was found, reported privately, and finally fixed on August 2nd.
Safari, Too
The Threat Analysis Group from Google did
an analysis of an iOS Safari 0-day exploit chain
, and it’s got an interesting trick to look at. Safari has added an extra sandbox layer to keep the web renderer engine from interacting with GPU drivers directly. This attack chain contains an extra exploit to make that hop, and it uses Safari Inter-Process Communication (IPC) to do it. The vulnerability is a simple one, a buffer overflow in the GPU process. But the rest of the story is anything but simple.
The rest of the exploit reads like building a ship in a bottle, using the toehold in the rendering process to reach in and set up an exploit in the GPU process. The process is to build an arbitrary read, an arbitrary write, flip bits to turn off security settings, and then use object deserialization to run NSExpression. The full write-up goes through the details in excruciating detail. It’s notable that iOS security has reached the point of hardening that it takes so much effort to turn an RCE into an actual system exploit.
Play Protect Expands
It’s no great secret that the ease of side-loading apps is one of Android’s best and worst features when compared to the iPhone. It’s absolutely the best, because it allows bypassing the Play store, running a de-Googled phone, and easily installing dev builds. But with that power comes great ability to install malware. It makes sense — Google scans apps on the Play Store for malware, so the easy way around that problem is to convince users to install malicious APKs directly. And that leads us to this week’s news, that
Google’s Play Store is bringing the ability to review sideload apps upon installation
, and warn the user if something seems particularly off.
It sounds very similar to the approach taken by Windows Defender, though hopefully malicious apps won’t be able to hijack the security process to block legitimate installs. One concerning detail is the radio silence about disabling the feature, either globally or on a per-install basis. The feature preview only shows the options to either scan the app, uploading some details to Google, or cancel the install. Hopefully this will work like visiting an insecure site in Chrome, where an extra click or two is enough to proceed anyways.
Where’s the Firewall?
Earlier this month, researchers at
Oligo published a system takeover exploit chain in TorchServe
. It’s… a legitimate problem for many TorchServe installs, scoring a CVSS 9.9. And arguably, it’s really not a vulnerability at all. It contains a default that isn’t actually default, and a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) that’s not a forgery. And for all the ups and downs, apparently nobody had the thought that a default ALLOW firewall might be a bad idea. *sigh* Let’s dive in.
PyTorch is a Python library for machine learning, and it’s become one of the rising starts of the AI moment we’re still in the midst of. One of the easiest ways to get PyTorch running for multiple users is the TorchServe project, which is put together with a combination of Python and Java, which will be important in a moment. The idea is that you can load a model into the server, and users can run their queries using a simple REST interface. TorchServe actually has three API interfaces, the normal inference API, a metrics API, and the management API, each on a different port.
The management API doesn’t implement any authentication checks, and the documentation does warn about this, stating that “TorchServe only allows localhost access by default”. It turns out that this statement is absolutely true:
TorchServe binds that interface to
127.0.0.1
by default
. While the Oligo write-up gets that technicality wrong, there is a valid point to be made that some of the example configs set the management interface bind on
0.0.0.0
. Docker is a different animal altogether, by the way. Binding to 127.0.0.1 inside a docker container blocks all traffic from outside the container, so the observation that the official TorchServe docker image uses
0.0.0.0
is a bit silly. So to recap, it’s bad to put insecure configuration in your documentation. The TorchServe project has worked to fix this.
Next, The second vulnerability comes with a CVE! CVE-2023-43654 is an SSRF — a weakness where an attacker can manipulate a remote server into sending HTTP requests to unintended places. And technically, that’s true. A request to the management API can specify where the server should attempt to download a new inference model. There is an
allowed_urls
setting that specifies how to filter those requests, and by default it allows any file or HTTP/S request. Could that be used to trigger something unintended on an internal network? Sure. Should the allowed URLs setting default to allowing anything? Probably not. Is this issue on the backend management API actually an SSRF worthy of a CVSS 9.8 CVE? Not even close.
And the last issue, CVE-2022-1471, is a Java deserialization RCE. This one is actually a problem — sort of. The issue is actually in SnakeYAML, and was fixed last year. One of the great disadvantages of using Java is that you have to rebuild the project with manually updated libraries. TorchServe didn’t bother to pull the fix till now. If your TorchServe server loads an untrusted inference models, this vulnerability leads to RCE. Except,
loading an inference model executes arbitrary code by design
. So it’s yet another technically correct CVE that’s utterly bogus.
Now, don’t take my tone of disdain as a complete dismissal of the findings. As far as I can tell, there really are “tens of thousands of IP addresses” exposing the PyServe administrative interface to the Internet. That really is a problem, and good for researchers at Oligo for putting the problem together clearly. But there’s something notably missing from the write-up or recommendations: Configuring the firewall! Why is anybody running a server with a public IP with a default ALLOW firewall?
Bits and Bytes
Forget the Ides of March, Beware the Cisco. This week we got news that
there’s a 0-day vulnerability being exploited in the wild, in IOS XE
. That firmware can run on switches, routers, access points, and more. And just a couple days ago,
a staggering 40,000+ devices were found to be compromised
. If you had the misfortune of running a Cisco IOS XE device, and had the HTTP interface exposed online, or to any untrusted traffic, just assume it’s compromised. Oof. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692796",
"author": "Mark",
"timestamp": "2023-10-20T20:03:03",
"content": "The Safari exploit seems really familiar. I think I saw this in a HaD post earlier:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDek2cp0dmI",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment... | 1,760,372,129.666971 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/20/debugging-a-1950s-computer-sounds-like-a-pain/ | Debugging A 1950s Computer Sounds Like A Pain | Richard Baguley | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"computer history",
"light gun",
"mit"
] | Debugging computers in the 1950s sounds like it wasn’t an easy task. That’s one of the interesting facts from this fascinating talk by [Guy Fedorkow] about the
Whirlwind, one of the first digital computers ever built
. The development of this remarkable computer started at MIT (Funded by the US Navy) in 1949 as a flight simulator but pivoted to plotting interceptions in the early 1950s. That was because the USSR had just set off their first
boosted nuclear bomb
, which could be mounted on a missile or bomber. So, the threat of incoming missiles and atomic bombers became real, and the need arose to intercept nuclear bombers.
As a real-time computer, Whirlwind received radar data from radar stations around the US that showed the location of the interceptor and the incoming bogey, then calculated the vector for the two to meet up and, erm, have a frank exchange of views. So, how do you debug one of the first real-time computers? Carefully, it seems.
The GUI aspect of the Whirlwind was a cathode ray tube (CRT) display and a light gun that could be used to select a spot on the screen. Point the gun at the screen, press the button, and the computer plotted the chosen spot. It could also be used more like a mouse: you could select a program to run by pointing the light gun at a menu of numbers on the screen. In its intended use, the operator would use the light gun to designate the interceptor and target. We’ve written more about the system (called Volscan) and how it evolved to be used in civilian air traffic control (ATC) systems
here
.
“While engaged in research problems involving extensive computation, Whirlwind computer, a portion of which is shown below, enhances the educational program at M.I.T.”
From the MIT Museum.
Amusingly, [
Guy Fedorkow
] describes how the builders of Whirlwind got a local furniture maker to build the cabinet for the CRT, only to realize that their navy paymasters would hit the ceiling if they realized that they had spent money on making the cabinet look nice. So, they painted it battleship grey and hoped they would not notice. The Navy had cause to be concerned: Whirlwind was consuming nearly eighty percent of the budget of the US Navy research office, according to [Federokow].
The Whirlwind was not a complex computer, though: it was a 16-bit computer with only 2048 words of memory. It could handle just 50,000 add functions a second. Compare that to a
Raspberry Pi 5,
which can handle over
10 GFLOPS
. The Whirlwind also consumed an incredible 100 kilowatts of power to perform this arduous computer task, while the
Pi 5 needs about 12 watts
. The Whirlwind didn’t support floating point maths, so it used several shortcuts to calculate the vector for the interceptor that approximated the trigonometric maths needed.
Remember that this is working in real-time, using actual radar data. That didn’t leave enough space for breakpoints or logging. So, [Fedorkow] thinks that they used pre-arranged problems and good planning to debug the system: they
“…didn’t just sit down and write the code and throw it on the machine. There are reports of all kinds of experiments and modules done to test pieces of the algorithm independently. So when they did assemble the whole thing, they probably knew how most of the pieces worked already…. In fact one of the young Frank Heart’s projects was to figure out how to “play back” the radar tapes onto 16mm film, I assume so they could see what the radar station would have been saying while the data was being replayed into Whirlwind. I think he tried several off-line tricks to try to get it to work with just the analog gear, but it seems ultimately he gave up and wrote WW code to drive a display. ”
(from the
article notes (PDF link)
to the article
Recovering Software For the Whirlwind Computer)
From the MIT Museum
The engineers broke the problem into parts and hand-calculated how the algorithm would interpret certain data sets. They then “ran” each part by calculating the results by hand, simulating the computer on paper. They did this because they only got access to the computer for about 12 hours a week, and they needed to ensure they got the most out of this time.
The Whirlwind project ran until 1959 when it was decommissioned and broken up into parts, replaced by the next wave of digital computers that offered much more computing power without the need to fill an entire basement for the power supply alone.
Thanks for the tip, [Stephen Walters]! | 24 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692699",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2023-10-20T11:41:49",
"content": "Impressive. Reading this I realize there was something positive about the cold war era, also, I think. People were worried about an uncertain future, worried about a n*clear war and tried to enjoy their pr... | 1,760,372,129.845906 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/20/commodore-datassette-does-barbershop-quartet/ | Commodore Datassette Does Barbershop Quartet | Kristina Panos | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"barbershop",
"Commodore Datassette",
"Datassette",
"rubber band",
"servo"
] | Okay, now this is just plain fun.
[Linus Åkesson] modified a Commodore Datassette player
to move its “mouth” and, when quadrupled, sing a clever barbershop tune called “
Sweet End of Line
” that’s a play on “
Sweet Adeline
“,
a top hit from the summer of 1903
.
What? Let us explain. Those with Commodore 64s who lacked disk drives often had the Datassette — a magnetic storage tape device, or cassette player used to load and save files. But they couldn’t open the doors themselves with a keypress, and they certainly couldn’t sing barbershop.
First off, [Linus] redirected the current that drives the magnetizing tape head through a speaker coil instead. Then he replaced the motor with a servo that opens the lid from the inside. A simple rubber band pulls the lid back shut. Software-wise, [Linus] is using a timer interrupt to run code that toggles the output signal, the rate of which determines the pitch.
Don’t worry — all of these modifications are reversible, so no Datassettes were truly harmed in the making. Don’t forget to check out the brief build/demo video after the break.
We’ve seen our share of tape players, but
we’d never seen one with a crank until recently
. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692679",
"author": "Kanton Anton",
"timestamp": "2023-10-20T09:06:15",
"content": "Finally i’ve Seen one of These Datasettes. First i’ve Heard of them in the Comedy Programm of Kaya Yanar a German Comedian with Migration Background now living in Switzerland.",
"parent_id": null... | 1,760,372,129.772261 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/19/you-can-now-order-a-brand-new-amiga-pcb/ | You Can Now Order A Brand-New Amiga PCB | Lewin Day | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"amiga",
"Amiga 500",
"amiga 500 plus"
] | The Commodore 64 has been pulled apart, reverse engineered, replicated, and improved upon to no end over the last four decades or so. The Amiga 500 has had less attention, in part due to its greater level of sophistication. However, you can now order
a brand-new Amiga-compatible PCB
if you’re looking to put together a machine from surplus parts.
The design is known as Denise, and is apparently the work of an anonymous Swedish designer according to the Tindie listing. It’s not a direct replica of any one Amiga machine. Instead, it’s best described as “a compact A500+ compatible motherboard with two Zorro2 slots and a few additional features.”
Denise is
just
a PCB, though. No emulated chips or other components are included. To use the PCB, you’ll need a full set of Amiga custom chips and a suitable Motorola 68000-series CPU to suit. It can be used with either OCS or ECS chipsets. At this stage, it’s only verified to work with the 2MB version of the Agnus chip, though the creators believe it should work with a 1MB “Diet Agnus.” Some modern conveniences are on hand, too. A pair of microcontrollers will allow the use of Amiga or PC keyboards, along with Amiga or PS/2 style mice, including support for scroll wheels.
Given the number of damaged, battered, and corroded Amiga PCBs out there, it’s great that there is a source of
fresh, new PCBs for restoration purposes.
Video after the break. | 30 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692608",
"author": "Joe Tom Collins",
"timestamp": "2023-10-20T05:14:40",
"content": "“You Can Now Order A Brand-New Amiga PCB”Uhmm…. NO! YOU CAN’T!!!!This has been “Out of Stock” for months, to a year now!!!!Here’s some “news”. “Commodore goes bankrupt.”I’ have been waiting for wh... | 1,760,372,130.084057 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/19/new-type-of-ferroelectric-memory-constructed-using-%ce%b1-in2se3-material/ | New Type Of Ferroelectric Memory Constructed Using α-In2Se3 Material | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"FeFET",
"FeRAM",
"ferroelectric"
] | The ferroelectrical properties of materials have found a variety of uses over the years, including in semiconductor applications. Ferroelectric memory is among the most interesting and possibly world-changing as it could replace today’s fragile and (relatively) slow NAND Flash with something that’s more robust and scalable. Yet as with any good idea, finding the right materials and process to implement it is half the battle. Here is where a
recently released paper
in
Advanced Science
by Shurong Miao and colleagues demonstrates a
FeFET
-based memory cell design using α-In
2
Se
3
material on platinum-based source-drain electrodes.
Schematic and SEM image of α-In2Se3-based FeFET. (Credit: Miao et al., 2023)
Important to note here is that FeFET (ferroelectric field-effect transistor) is distinct from
FeRAM
, with the latter having a DRAM-like structure whereby ferroelectric material takes the place of the capacitor in traditional DRAM. Such FeRAM has been commercially available since the mid-1990s, with applications including the storing of save states in Sega game console cartridges. FeRAM has benefits over NAND Flash in that it has far higher endurance, but it does not scale to smaller sizes that well, which keeps capacity of FeRAM chips low and thus relatively expensive.
Compared to DRAM, FeRAM is far more power efficient as it retains stored information even when left unpowered, yet it shares the same issue of destructive reads, which necessitates complex write cycles following each read. This is where FeFET-based storage offers many advantages, as the ferroelectric gate material allows a non-destructive read, since what is being read is the effective resistance which depends on whether the gate material is in-plane (IP) or out-of-plane (OOP). Switching the plane orientation is performed in this specific demonstration using +5 V and -5 V, with the read voltage being 0.5 V, well below the coercive voltage that would make it destructive.
What’s interesting here is that the insulator is standard SiO
2
/Si material, making it compatible with existing semiconductor manufacturing technique. The demonstrated FeFET cell featured a sliver of gate material from an externally grown crystal. Since FeFETs can be expected to scale as well as MOSFETs, the only significant limitation would then appear to be the ferroelectric limit, i.e. the size where a material ceases to be ferroelectric.
Naturally, for such FeFETs to be viable long-term storage and/or DRAM replacements, they need to demonstrate the necessary qualities. In the demonstration by Miao et al., they found that the device lasted for 1200 read/write cycles and retaining data for 17 hours without noticeable degradation. This suggests that the IP/OOP state is quite stable in this gate material and clears the used manufacturing method for further testing. Although FeFET-based memory is probably a while off from large-scale commercialization, these advances give hope that this day won’t be far off now. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692598",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2023-10-20T04:10:09",
"content": "We already have Ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM, F-RAM, or FRAM) which is a different technology.[1] F-RAM density is on par with conventional DRAM. Unlike DRAM, F-RAM only consumes power during read/write cycles.... | 1,760,372,129.894166 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/19/humble-arduino-as-plc/ | Humble Arduino As PLC | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"IEC",
"IEC 61131-3",
"industrial",
"ladder logic",
"plc",
"programmable logic controller",
"programming"
] | On the surface, a programmable logic controller (PLC) might seem like nothing more than a generic microcontroller, perhaps outfitted to operate in industrial settings with things like high temperatures or harsh vibrations. While this is true to some extent, PLCs also have an international standard for their architecture and programming languages. This standard is maintained by the International Electrotechnical Commission, making it so that any device built under these specifications will be recognizable to control engineers and maintenance personnel worldwide. And, if you use this standard when working with certain Arduinos,
this common platform can become a standard-compliant PLC as well
.
The IDE itself supports programming ladder diagrams, functional block diagrams, and other programming systems covered under the IEC 61131-3 standard. Not only that, it allows the combination of these types of PLC programming with Arduino sketches. The system offers many of the perks of PLC programming alongside the familiar Arduino platform, and supports a number of protocols as well including CANOpen, Modbus RTU, and Modbus TCP. It can also be used for monitoring a PLC system, essentially adding IoT capabilities to existing systems, enabling continuous monitoring, debugging, and program updates.
While not every Arduino is a great platform to build a PLC around, there are a few available for those looking for a system a little less proprietary and a little more user-friendly than typical PLC systems tend to be. There’s a reason that PLCs are built around an international standard and generally have certain hardware in mind to run it, though, and
this comparison of a Raspberry Pi with an off-the-shelf PLC
goes into detail about why certain components aren’t good choices for PLCs. | 35 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692563",
"author": "Cyna",
"timestamp": "2023-10-19T23:02:42",
"content": "“While not every Arduino is a great platform”. So true since I cannot think of a single one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6692576",
"author... | 1,760,372,129.970031 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/10/19/tank-boots-are-a-dangerous-way-to-get-around-town/ | Tank Boots Are A Dangerous Way To Get Around Town | Lewin Day | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"boots",
"rollerblades",
"tank",
"tank treads"
] | Rollerskates are all well and good, but they’re even more fun when they’re powered. Then again, why stick with wheels, when you can have the off-road benefits of tracked propulsion? That’s precisely what [Joel] was thinking
when he built this impressive set of Tank Boots.
The build uses a set of tracks from a tracked snowblower, sourced for $50. The tracks are a simple design sans suspension, consisting of a pair of plastic wheels inside the tracks and run via a chain drive. Each snowblower track was given a metal frame with a ski boot and a motor, gearbox, and controller straight out of a power drill. Power was courtesy of a lithium-polymer battery pack.
Riding the boots isn’t easy, with falls and tumbles rather common. Regardless, they get around great offroad in a way that regular rollerblades never could. Bolted together, they make a great tank chair, too. We’ve actually looked at the benefits of
tracks versus wheels before, too
. Video after the break. | 12 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6692541",
"author": "jbx",
"timestamp": "2023-10-19T20:35:31",
"content": "I find “infinite free energy” videos on YT more funny…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6692544",
"author": "tripodboy",
"timestamp": "2023-10-19T... | 1,760,372,130.016903 |
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