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https://hackaday.com/2023/04/24/60-robot-arm-is-compact/ | $60 Robot Arm Is Compact | Al Williams | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"robot arm",
"robotics",
"servo"
] | Thanks to 3D printing and inexpensive controllers, a robot arm doesn’t need to break the bank anymore. Case in point? [Build Some Stuff] did a
good-looking compact arm
with servos for under $60. The arm uses an interesting control mechanism, too.
Instead of the traditional joystick, the arm has a miniature arm with potentiometers at each joint instead of motors. By moving the model arm to different positions, the main arm will mimic your motions. It is similar to old control systems using a synchro (sometimes called a selsyn), but uses potentiometers and servo motors.
An Arduino handles reading the potentiometers and driving the servos. Still, we couldn’t help but think you could forego the controller and simply use the pots to generate pulses directly for the servo motors — maybe use a 555. Of course, having an Arduino means more flexibility in the long run, so it makes sense to include it.
Of course, servo motor arms aren’t usually good for big jobs, but as a demonstrator, it works well, and you can’t complain about the price tag. Wow,
building a robot arm is easier than it used to be
. If you prefer a more conventional controller, there are, of course,
many options
. | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635574",
"author": "scott_tx",
"timestamp": "2023-04-25T00:28:50",
"content": "video of the arm in action reminds me of 1930s king kong stop motion animation.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6635577",
"author": "Zyner... | 1,760,372,322.697561 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/24/messing-with-a-cassette-player-never-sounded-so-good/ | Messing With A Cassette Player Never Sounded So Good | Donald Papp | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"audio cassette",
"cassette player",
"Mellotron",
"PT2399",
"Walkman"
] | Cassette players and tapes are fertile hacking ground. One reason is that their electromechanical and analog nature provides easy ways to fiddle with their operation. For example, slow down the motor and the playback speed changes accordingly. As long as the head is moving across the tape, sound will be produced. The hacking opportunities are nicely demonstrated by [Lara Grant]’s
cassette player mod project
.
The device piggybacks onto a battery-powered audio cassette player and provides a variety of ways to fiddle with the output, including adjustable echo and delay, and speed control. At the heart of the delay and echo functionality is the
PT2399
, a part from the late 90s capable of some pretty impressive audio effects (as long as a supporting network of resistors and capacitors are in place, anyway.)
[Lara] provides a schematic for the PT2399’s interface to the cassette player’s output, which is handy should anyone want to try a similar modification. Speed of playback is controlled by adjusting the cassette player’s motor with
PWM
. Volume control swaps a photocell in place of a rotary volume potentiometer, and additional audio jacks provide flexibility for mixing and matching input and output with other equipment.
You can see it in action in the video embedded below. Intrigued, and want a few more examples of modified tape players? How about
a strange sort of cassette synth
, or
this unique take on a mellotron
that uses a whopping 14 modified tape players under the hood? And
really
out there is the
Magnetotron
, which consists of a large rotating cylinder with tape loops stuck to it — the magnetic read head is mounted on a wand which the user manually moves across the tapes to create sounds.
Tape players are accessible, hackable things, so remember to
drop us a line
if you make something neat! | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635569",
"author": "Alex99a",
"timestamp": "2023-04-25T00:03:59",
"content": "“As long as the head is moving across the tape…”Uhh, have you ever worked with one of these?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6635625",
"aut... | 1,760,372,323.088834 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/24/op-amp-contest-go-down-an-octave-no-fft-no-pll-no-oscillator/ | Op Amp Contest: Go Down An Octave, No FFT, No PLL, No Oscillator! | Jenny List | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"effects",
"octave shifter",
"op-amp"
] | We like a project that makes us think, and that was certainly the case with
[MS-BOSS]’s octave downshifter
that’s an entry in our current op-amp contest. Instead of resorting to an FFT, or a PLL, it uses a technique best described as a custom analogue computer to implement the maths of octave downshifting. It’s an extremely clever approach, and we don’t mind admitting took us more than one read to understand how it works.
Just as you would with any mathematical problem, he’s split the job of halving the frequency into its constituent mathematical functions. The square root calculation circuit is probably the one that most required the dredging up of dimly-remembered analogue circuitry undergraduate courses for us.
The result is a fascinating read that’s well worth taking the time to understand if you have any interest in analogue electronics. It’s by no means the easiest way to make this particular effect in 2023, as we’re much more used to
seeing our community make digital effects
, but if you fancy yourself as any kind of op-amp designer, you really need to give it a look. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635511",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2023-04-24T18:43:48",
"content": "“well, there is one D-type register”Naughty naughty!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6635611",
"author": "Mr. Analog",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,372,322.870226 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/24/warmer-ice-cream/ | Warmer Ice Cream? | Lewin Day | [
"Business",
"Current Events",
"Original Art",
"Science"
] | [
"cold",
"food engineering",
"food science",
"food technology",
"freezer",
"freezing",
"ice cream",
"temperature",
"unilever"
] | What if you could
tweak the recipe on ice cream to keep it frozen at higher temperatures
? The idea comes from massive conglomerate Unilever. Among other things, the brand owns a wide variety of ice cream brands, from Ben & Jerry’s to the Magnum and Cornetto lines. Instead of running freezers at the industry standard of -18 °C (0°F), the company is experimenting with upping the temperature to -12 °C (10 °F) instead.
First off, you’d save a lot of electricity. Thanks to the way the industry works, the company actually owns the vast majority of the three million or so display freezers that are used to sell its stock to customers. Running at a higher temperature could slash the freezer’s energy use by 20% to 30%, according to the company’s calculations. The company also estimates that the energy used by these freezers makes up around 10% of its total greenhouse gas footprint, so it’s better for the environment too.
Of course, there’s savvy commercial reasons behind the idea. Unilever had noticed its ice cream sales dropping in 2022. The company believes this was in part due to retailers unplugging their freezers earlier than usual as winter approached, due to high energy bills. If the company’s freezers aren’t humming, they’re doing less business. If shaving down the freezer’s energy use helps retailers keep them plugged in and the lights on, that’s a net bonus to the company’s bottom line. It could also make their freezers unhospitable places for rival products, giving them an edge in the marketplace.
But this is all business intrigue. Let’s instead take a deeper look at ice cream.
Oh, Sugar, Sugar
If you know anything about ice cream, you’ll know that this idea is fraught with challenges. Conventional ice cream starts to get soft and liquid around -14 °C (6.8 °F). Warm pre-packaged ice creams are no fun. They tend to fall apart, slide off their sticks, or just generally form a gooey mess in the wrapper.
Thus, Unilever couldn’t just change the set point on its freezers and call the job done. Instead, it has had to modify its products to stay frozen, solid, and stable at higher temperatures. It’s a food technology and a chemical engineering challenge. The company wishes to save energy without compromising on the taste, quality, and mouthfeel of its products.
From a structural perspective, ice cream is made up of air cells, ice crystals, and fat globules. The relative compositions of these components and the ice cream as a whole influences the melting temperature and the rate. Current publicly available research shows that ice cream with high air content tends to melt slower, a useful attribute for ice cream that is served closer to room temperature. As per a paper from
Goff & Hartel (2013)
, smaller air cells are also correlated with a slower melt rate. However, the very techniques that create smaller air cells can also create larger ice crystals, which have a negative effect on texture on mouthfeel. Meanwhile, higher fat content can slow melt rates, but can affect the flavor profile of the ice cream.
At the industrial level, playing around with ice crystal size and fat content is mere child’s play, the mainstay of the undergraduates in Ice Cream Fabrication 101. Cutting-edge food technologists have far fancier tools to play with, from advanced binding agents to useful emulsifiers like polysorbate 80 or diglycerides. These components can do all manner of wonderful things to a food’s structure. They play a serious role in finessing a product for the ultimate customer satisfaction and ease of manufacturability.
Thus far, Unilever is tight-lipped on the cost of this exercise, and the manner in which it achieved its goal of developing so-called near-room-temperature ice cream technology. It cites recent developments concerning sugar as key to its success. It bears noting that
Junior and Lannes (2011)
found that choosing different sweeteners could drastically alter an ice cream’s freezing point. If you’re working at Nestle, and the bosses upstairs have just yelled at you to figure out how to make warmer ice creams, it might be worth starting there.
Melting Like An Ice Cream
The company has managed to bankroll the effort as part of its usual expenditure on ice cream research and development (ICR&D, in industry parlance). According to the company’s head of ICR&D, Andrew Sztehlo, the effort has been a decade in the making, with the full project expected to take 15 years in total.
Initial pilots were pursued in Germany, where Unilever aimed to discover which of its products could live at -12 °C (10 °F) without reformulation. The next stage will take place in Indonesia, where reformulated lines will be put through rigorous testing. This will involve blind taste tests to ensure quality isn’t compromised, as well as investigation around melting behavior and sensory responses to the new ice cream.
The company hasn’t yet committed to warming up the majority of its freezers just yet. If it does, it could give the company a surprise competitive advantage. Many shop owners will use freezers provided by Unilever to also stock goods from the company’s competitors. If those items aren’t designed to live at the new higher temperature, they could suffer in quality, pushing customers towards Unilever’s reengineered lines. Speaking to the
Wall Street Journal,
Sztehlo says the company plans to share its findings with competitors in the event it succeeds in its quest. That’s easy to say in a press release, but something an astute adult might expect Unilever executives to balk at.
If the project goes ahead with a public rollout, expect Unilever to remain quiet on the reformulation angle. Instead, it will have to find a way to thread the needle: simultaneously espousing its green values to customers while avoiding the negative perception of warmer ice creams. It’s an interesting path to take, given that much of the energy savings will be enjoyed by individual shop owners, rather than Unilever itself. Regardless, if the gambit works, expect rivals to rush to match the company’s work. If not, expect your local store’s freezer to stay locked at a cold and frosty -18 °C (0 °F). | 53 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635488",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2023-04-24T17:21:21",
"content": "More ‘greener’ processes for manufacturing and storing and serving a food product may also result in the product containing more chemicals that may create health hazards – not addressed in this article.The... | 1,760,372,322.959333 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/24/chatting-with-local-ai-moves-directly-in-browser-thanks-to-webllm/ | Chatting With Local AI Moves Directly In-Browser, Thanks To Web LLM | Donald Papp | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Software Development"
] | [
"ai",
"browser",
"chatbot",
"LLM",
"Vicuna"
] | Large Language Models (LLM) are at the heart of natural-language AI tools like ChatGPT, and
Web LLM shows it is now possible to run an LLM directly in a browser
. Just to be clear, this is
not
a browser front end talking via API to some server-side application. This is a client-side LLM running entirely in the browser.
The ability to run an LLM (natural language AI) directly in-browser means more ways to implement local AI while enjoying GPU acceleration via WebGPU.
Running an AI system like an LLM locally usually leverages the computational abilities of a graphics card (GPU) to accelerate performance. This is true when running an image-generating AI system like
Stable Diffusion
, and it’s also true when implementing a local copy of an LLM like
Vicuna
(which happens to be the model implemented by Web LLM.) The thing that made Web LLM possible is
WebGPU, whose release we covered just last month
.
WebGPU provides a way for an in-browser application to talk to a local GPU directly, and it sure didn’t take long for someone to get the idea of using that to get a local LLM to run entirely within the browser, complete with GPU acceleration. This approach isn’t just limited to language models, either. The same method has been applied to successfully create
Web Stable Diffusion
as well.
It’s a fascinating (and fast) development that opens up new possibilities and, hopefully, gives people some new ideas. Check out Web LLM’s
GitHub repository
for a closer look, as well as access to an online demo. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635546",
"author": "TheLightHerder",
"timestamp": "2023-04-24T21:48:12",
"content": "I was doing AI locally way, way (way) back in ’21, GPU fan spinning for days on end (see here:https://vimeo.com/590497601), and more recently to make this cursed video:https://vimeo.com/747826675. ... | 1,760,372,322.648262 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/24/the-bsides-more-curious-uses-of-off-the-shelf-parts/ | The BSides: More Curious Uses Of Off-the-shelf Parts | Sonya Vasquez | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Parts",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"bsides",
"design",
"mechanical",
"O-ring",
"parts",
"tricks"
] | Off-the-shelf stock parts are the blocks from which we build mechanical projects. And while plenty of parts have dedicated uses, I enjoy reusing them in ways that challenge what they were originally meant for while respecting the constraints of their construction. Building off of
my piece from last time
, I’d like to add to your mechanical hacking palette with four more ways we can re-use some familiar off-the-shelf parts.
O-Rings as Retention Features
Plenty of us are using rubber o-rings as airtight seals between static or moving parts. But their elastic and grippy properties give them a second life in other places involving removable components.
On my tool-changing machine,
Jubilee
, I quickly ran into the issue of securing idle tools onto their parking posts without the risk of letting them fall out. While one tool is being used, the remaining idle tools need to sit in a fixed location so that the machine’s carriage can pick them up later. To complicate the matter, the motion platform creates an appreciable amount of vibration, and idle tools that aren’t secured down are prone to slip out.
O-rings secure this camera tool on its parking pins
Demo of extruder tool pickup and parking
I’ve seen plenty of tool-changer builders opt for magnets in this case. They’re fairly compact, and you simply place one on the tool and another on its corresponding parking post. In my case, though, I opted for o-rings instead. Here, I use them to apply a bit of preload “squish” that secures the tool body to the metal pins of its parking post. The result is that tools slide into place with a small, satisfying amount of force and stay fixed even as the machine vibrates.
O-rings have the slight disadvantage in that their performance can be somewhat dependent on the accuracy of the 3D printer used to print the part that they will be installed into. In my first experiments, the fit was too tight. In others, too lose. If you find yourself in those cases, dear reader, know that two quick fixes include both (a) switching materials from neoprene to silicone, and (b) adding a tiny amount of grease to the parking post pins.
Overall, I’ve found this solution to be a reliable alternative to magnets, not to mention being widely available and still inexpensive.
[Alex Rich’s] hex key holders. Special thanks to [@msds] for finding this one.
I admit I’m not the only one using o-rings in this way. In fact, [Alex Rich] on Hackday.io has been using them to create
hex key holders that far outlast the lifetimes of the originals
. Here, the o-ring adds some compression to keep the keys from falling out with a rubber interface that doesn’t easily wear out over insertion cycles. And when it does, simply replace the o-ring instead of scrapping the plastic housing.
DIY Thrust Bearing Retainer Rings
Thrust bearings often come in three pieces, that is: a set of steel balls locked inside a retainer ring and two washers to sandwich it. For the majority of my professional and unprofessional affairs, I’ll usually start by look through
Torque Transmission’s
catalog. But since I occasionally kept wishing I could customize my thrust bearing sizes, and since replacement balls are available on
McMaster-Carr
, I eventually tried rolling my own–to modest success!
To do so, I started by laser-cutting the center retainer ring out of Acetal (aka:
Delrin)
, on of my
favorite materials for prototyping
. Both the low friction and clean laser cut edges make it a great choice for this application. After playing around with the hole diameter to seat the balls, I found a size where each ball would barely poke through the bottom of the ring without falling out. This trick is courtesy of the laser beam’s
kerf
, which puts a slight angle on the cut edge and makes each ball sit in a hole that resembles more of a cone if you zoomed in.
For the washers, I scoured Misumi’s catalog for thick steel
shim rings
. Combined, this approach gives me much more flexibility in acquiring thrust bearings in nearly arbitrary sizes.
There are a couple drawbacks with this approach. By far, the biggest issue is that a sad, tweezer-equipped human must load a bearing ball into each hole manually–a potentially arduous task for tiny balls that are all-too-eager to escape your fingernails and make a run for the nearest hallway, never to be seen again. The other issue is that the stainless steel shim rings I chose simply aren’t as hard as the Rockwell 60 hardened steel washers that the commercial parts use. The result is that the bearing balls will wear a small, circular channel into the shim ring. That said, that’s not a huge issue for applications that wont experience heavy loads.
Nowadays, I like to think of this entire approach as a bad idea–except when it’s not! Creating your own cages gives you the flexibility to define the inner and outer hole diameter. And for prototyping a one-off system, I may yet again reach for this trick.
COB LED Strips for Microscope Illumination
Taking pictures with the benchtop microscope first poses the challenge of illuminating your tiny subjects with enough light. Sometimes the microscope comes with its own light source. Other times, you can purchase a ring light attachment like
this one
from Aliexpress. Unfortunately, these light rings don’t always come in the sizes you need. And in cases where you’re working with oddly-sized lens bodies, sometimes you just need something custom.
In those cases, I’ve been tempted to fire up KiCAD and make a custom LED ring PCB. But while that certainly works, the voice in the back of my head keeps asking:
isn’t there an easier way to do this?
After letting the thought simmer in the back of my head, I found an answer:
side-emitting COB LED strips
.
For this sort of application, these LED lights are almost perfect. For one, they’re extremely flexible, capable of tucking into very small diameters. They can also be cut-to-length, giving you lots of flexibility on the size you might need. And with their adhesive backing, you can simply peel-and-stick the length to the cylindrical body you’re illuminating.
I ended up using this trick on Jubilee’s “
camera inspection tool
.” The result works perfectly for this sort of space-constrained setup.
The “Inpection Tool” with the COB LED strip installed
The result is pretty bedazzling!
It’s worth mentioning that the adhesive on the back of this LED strip isn’t super thrilled at being rolled into very small diameters. But in those cases, you can always reach for a zip tie for extra security. And, dear reader, if you’re convinced that a solid LED ring will still fit your needs better, I invite you to also consider “Angel Eye” LED headlights
on Aliexpress
.
Seamless Stainless Steel Tubes as Coarse Linear Guides
On occasion, my after-hours web-browsing habit of sifting through part catalogs uncovers some enlightening results. Recently, I discovered
seamless stainless steel tubing
. These are hollow stainless tubes available in a wide range in inner/outer diameter combinations. Seeing them instantly had me fantasizing about using them as coarse linear guides. And, combined with the right complimentary part, it turns out that they work surprisingly well for that purpose.
On their own, I discovered that the tolerances of the 8 millimeter tubes just aren’t good enough to simply attach an LM8UU linear bearing. Some tubes worked, but others were simply too large to fit the bearing. However, Drylin LM8UU
Bushings
offer a nice workaround for rods with a less well-defined outer diameter. These bushings are sold as sliding replacements to roller bearings. They’re made from an especially low-friction plastic and sold with slightly oversize inner diameters. To install them, one must tighten them down with just the right force such that bushing slides along the rod smoothly without binding or wiggling. This installation quirk makes them perfect for pairing with these tubes. You simply adjust the clamping forces until the setup slides smoothly.
The Igus LM8UU bearing and 8mm tube combo
A “syringe tool” that uses these parts as linear guides
A pipe cutter makes hand-cutting these tubes a breeze.
In contrast to hardened steel rods, these hollow tubes are extremely light–only 25 grams per 150 millimeters of tube length. These tubes are also easy to cut to length with mere hand tools. Here, a handheld tube cutter easily cuts these stock tubes down to size.
For my test application, I cooked up a syringe head for Jubilee. Here, a sliding piece attaches to the plunger of a typical 10 cc syringe, and a motor-driven leadscrew actuates it. Overall, the setup works really well for this type of low precision application. I will certainly keep this trick in one of my pockets, and I hope you do too.
Stock Part Slant Rhymes
That wraps up this B-Sides showcase for now. I hope this round of stock part “phonics” keeps you looking for new ways we can reuse everyday stock parts. And if you find something clever, do drop us a tip! | 10 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635473",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2023-04-24T14:32:48",
"content": "Great article. As always clever engineering solutions Josh!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6635485",
"author": "Joel B",
"timestamp": "2023-04... | 1,760,372,322.805162 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/24/3d-scanning-a-room-with-a-steam-deck-and-a-kinect/ | 3D Scanning A Room With A Steam Deck And A Kinect | Donald Papp | [
"handhelds hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"3d scanning",
"Kinect",
"point cloud",
"RTAB-map",
"steam deck"
] | It may not be obvious, but Valve’s Steam Deck is capable of being more than just a games console. Demonstrating this is [Parker Reed]’s experiment in
3D scanning his kitchen with a Kinect and Steam Deck
combo, and viewing the resulting mesh on the Steam Deck.
The two pieces of hardware end up needing a lot of adapters and cables.
[Parker] runs the
RTAB-Map
software package on his Steam Deck, which captures a point cloud and color images while he pans the Kinect around. After that, the Kinect’s job is done and he can convert the data to a mesh textured with the color images. RTAB-Map is typically used in robotic applications, but
we’ve seen it power completely self-contained DIY 3D scanners
.
While logically straightforward, the process does require some finessing and fiddling to get it up and running. Reliability is a bit iffy thanks to the mess of cables and adapters required to get everything hooked up, but it does work. [Parker] shows off the whole touchy process, but you can
skip a little past the five minute mark
if you just want to see the scanning in action.
The Steam Deck has actual computer chops beneath its games console presentation, and we’ve seen a Steam Deck appear as
a USB printer that saves received print jobs as PDFs
, and one has even made an appearance in
radio signal direction finding
. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635513",
"author": "Pyro",
"timestamp": "2023-04-24T18:48:19",
"content": "Ngl the steam deck has been my favorite co.putwr purchase of all time. I’m working on building out a system based on the deckmate and some dongles that will specifically be a cyber deck with a split keyboard... | 1,760,372,322.740482 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/24/osi-superboard-ii-replicated/ | OSI Superboard II Replicated | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"Ohio Scientific",
"retrocomputnig"
] | While our modern computer can easily emulate a lot of different old machines, there is something about having replica hardware that is even better. Not as nice as having the real thing, in some ways, although you don’t have to worry about wear and tear on a replica, either. [Jeff Tranter] has built a kit replica of an
Ohio Scientific Superboard II
, and it looks great, as you can see in the video below.
This was an inexpensive all-in-one 6502 computer with a keyboard and provision for TV or monitor output. If you had a 5V power supply, a cassette deck, and a TV you were in business for less money than most of the comparable alternatives. In fact, [Jeff] has the canceled check where his parents paid $486 Canadian for one in 1981. That was his introduction to computing, and we’d say that was a reasonable investment on the part of his parents.
Like many of us, [Jeff] was sad when his old computer was destroyed while in storage. But undeterred, he set out to build a replica. Earlier, he’d built a reproduction kit that used modern components, but he wanted something a bit more faithful. He noticed that modern reproduction PCBs were available for the board and some matching I/O as well. The boards are very similar to the original, with a few concessions to modern times like footprints for modern keyboard switches and EEPROMs.
Not all of the parts are readily available, but with a little detective work, you can get what you need. He even found replica keycaps. The original machine had a locking shift lock key which wasn’t unusual in those days, but that’s hard to find now. Because of this, the redesigned PCB has space for an external caps lock switch. You might think you don’t care, but BASIC and other software of the day often expected uppercase input only.
If you’ve never built a board without solder mask, you’ll want to be careful as it is surprisingly easy to bridge connections inadvertently. [Jeff] found that out the hard way. It makes us want to recreate some of the computers of our youth, too.
While
Ohio Scientific
doesn’t have the name recognition of Apple, they had a lot of
affordable products
in the early day of personal computers. If we want to follow in [Jeff’s] footsteps, we’ll need
an 1802 and some perfboard
.
Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635433",
"author": "tonygoacher",
"timestamp": "2023-04-24T09:18:02",
"content": "Taught myself BASIC and 6502 assembly on one of those in the in the very early 80s… 24 x 24 (if I remember rightly) character monochrome display. Character set had cool (to 14 year old me) tanks and a... | 1,760,372,323.276137 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/23/rickrolling-ssid-with-esp32/ | Rickrolling SSID With ESP32 | Joseph Long | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Microcontrollers",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"prank",
"rickroll",
"ssid",
"wi-fi"
] | Reddit user [nomoreimfull] posted code for a
dynamic WiFi beacon
to r/arduino. The simple, but clever, sketch is preloaded with some rather familiar lyrics and is configured to
Rickroll
wireless LAN users via the broadcast SSID (service set identifier) of an ESP32 WiFi radio.
The ESP32 and its smaller sibling the ESP8266 are tiny microcontrollers that featuring built-in WiFi support. With their miniature size, price, and power consumption characteristics, they’ve become favorites for makers, hackers, and yes pranksters for a wide variety of projects. They can be easily programmed using their own SDK or through a “board support” extension to the Arduino IDE.
For the dynamic WiFi beacon, the ESP32 is placed into AP (access point) mode and broadcasts its human readable name (SSID) as configured. What makes the SSID dynamic, or rolling, is that the sketch periodically updates the SSID to a next line of text stored within the code. Of course, in the Rickroll prank this means the next line of lyrics from “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley himself.
Always a favorite prank, we’ve seen Rickrolls take the form of
IR remote controls
,
free WiFi servers
, and
coin cell throwies
.
Rick Astley picture: Wjack12,
CC BY-SA 4.0
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635414",
"author": "Mike Massen",
"timestamp": "2023-04-24T06:36:51",
"content": "Nice one & thought provoking too as another layer of security ;-)Thanks for post",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6635422",
"author": "ethzer... | 1,760,372,322.599405 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/23/shake-your-pcb-etching-with-an-old-optical-drive/ | Shake Your PCB Etching, With An Old Optical Drive | Jenny List | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"etching",
"optical drive",
"pcb"
] | Easy PCB fabrication in China has revolutionised electronic construction at our level, but there are still times when it makes sense to etch your own boards. It’s a messy business that can also be a slow one, but at least a project from [earldanielph] takes away one chore. It agitates the etchant solution round the board,
by moving the tank backwards and forwards on the drawer of an old optical drive
.
The first part of the build is simply removing all parts of the drive except the drawer mechanism and its motor. This is still, in most cases, a DC motor, so an Arduino can easily drive it with a motor control shield. It’s worth a moment to reflect on how little there is to a modern optical drive.
The Arduino receives
a sketch that moves the tray backward and forward
, and a piece of ply is attached to the tray. This becomes a stand for a plastic tub containing the etchant and board, and the liquid is soon swishing back and forwards over the surface. You can see the result in the video below the break. Definitely a saving over manual agitation. It’s an inventive machine, but
it’s not the first PCB agitator we’ve seen
. | 28 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635366",
"author": "Leonardo",
"timestamp": "2023-04-24T02:12:10",
"content": "Too much hardware for something so simple.In fact to make plates you don’t even have to shake anything. But if you want to, just put the bucket on a PC fan with one less blade, so it’s unbalanced and vib... | 1,760,372,323.030474 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/23/hackaday-links-april-23-2023/ | Hackaday Links: April 23, 2023 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"cold war",
"hackaday links",
"High speed camera",
"land train",
"lightning",
"oscilloscope",
"rapid unscheduled disassembly",
"Raptor",
"RUD",
"space elevator",
"SpaceX",
"starship"
] | Mark it on your calendars, folks — this is the week that the term RUD has entered the public lexicon. Sure, most of our community already knows the acronym for “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” and realizes its tongue-in-cheek nature. But given that the term has been used by Elon Musk and others to describe
the ignominious end of the recent Starship test flight
, it seems like RUD will catch on in the popular press. But while everyone’s attention was focused on the spectacular results of manually activating Starship’s flight termination system to end its by-then uncontrolled flight at a mere 39 km, perhaps the more interesting results of the launch were being seen in and around the launch pad on Boca Chica. That’s where a couple of hundred tons of pulverized reinforced concrete rained down, turned to slag and dust by the 33 Raptor engines on the booster.
A hapless Dodge Caravan
seemed to catch the worst of the collateral damage, but the real wrath of those engines was focused on the Orbital Launch Mount, which now has
a huge crater
under it.
So how close to space did Starship actually make it? Not even close, if your standard is the 100-km Kármán Line. If you want to visualize just how far that’s not, check out
this fun little Space Elevator page
. You start at ground level on Earth and scroll ever upward, with the different layers of the atmosphere being called out along with the altitudes of various aircraft and spacecraft — and meatcraft too, like Felix “Free Fallin'” Baumgartner’s famous sound barrier-breaking skydive, or the ridiculous bar-headed goose, which routinely flies in the rarified air above the Himalaya mountains honking loudly the whole time. This a space elevator, elevator music is kindly provided, although we were disappointed that it wasn’t
“The Girl from Ipanema.”
A little closer to the ground, we ran across
a spectacular bit of footage that shows just how lightning rods work
. Physicists in Brazil set up a high-speed camera and managed to catch an aerial lightning bolt in the act of seeking out a leader from the ground, or rather from the roof of a tall building. The leader was one of just many stretching up from various charge-concentrating points on the ground, and it wasn’t clear which one of the leaders was going to “win” the race to complete the circuit. Watching the aerial bolt seeking the path of least resistance is fascinating, and hats off to the researchers for capturing these images.
This week on the podcast we talked about
using an analog oscilloscope in X-Y mode as a vector graphics display
. That had us pining for an analog scope of our own to play with, and while we’ve got a Tektronix 475, it’s a bit disassembled at the moment. Until we get that back together again, we’ll settle for
this online oscilloscope
that lets you play with things like Lissajous patterns. The scope’s “tube” is very convincing, and you can control both the persistence and color of the phosphor. You can use the virtual signal generator to pipe different functions to each input, throw audio from your microphone into the signal, control the trigger and timebase, and generally do all the fun things an oscilloscope can do.
And finally, for your viewing pleasure this weekend, we present some crazy engineering from the 1960s.
The LeTourneau TC-497 “Land Train”
was an attempt by the US Army to go where no road had gone before, particularly in arctic conditions — think “Cold War.” Ironically, the last surviving bit of Land Train hardware now lives in the desert, at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona. The TC-497, which as the lead car in the train acted sort of like a locomotive in a traditional train, has been lovingly restored to its 1960s glory — without the nuclear reactor that could have powered it — when crews lived and worked aboard her. It’s an amazing bit of engineering history that you should check out. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635341",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-04-24T00:39:35",
"content": "Realistically Upgraded Destruction.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6635382",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"ti... | 1,760,372,323.328212 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/23/vcf-east-2023-retro-luminaries-take-the-stage/ | VCF East 2023: Retro Luminaries Take The Stage | Bil Herd | [
"cons"
] | [
"adrians digital basement",
"computer",
"Fran Blanche",
"jeri ellsworth",
"usagi electric",
"VCF",
"VCF East 2023"
] | Our friend
[Fran Blanche] recently recorded what it was like
to participate in an energetic round table at the recently held Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) East. Fran joined well known personalities [Jeri Ellsworth], [Adrian Black] of
Adrian’s Digital Basement
, and
Usagi Electric
creator [Dave Lovett] with yours truly moderating.
The table-less roundtable discussed the pros and cons of streaming about retro and tech, and what its like to hang yourself out there in video format. Goals and motives differed widely from speaker to speaker and there was some good-natured ribbing about who makes money vs. who simply gets away with spending less.
Most of all fun was had by the speakers as they interacted with each other, and with the audience — and that comfort came across to the standing room only crowd of avid retro-enthusiasts who only told us good things about what they saw and heard that night.
One thing we did note was that every speaker actually knew what microphones were and how to use them.
Want to learn more about the 2023 Vintage Computer Festival East?
You can start by checking out our previous coverage
, and
don’t miss the first in a series of fascinating interviews
recorded by the Hackaday crew as they explored this phenomenal retrocomputing event. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635443",
"author": "Dr Cockroach",
"timestamp": "2023-04-24T10:44:53",
"content": "So amazing to watch my favorites in the same room. I learn a lot and get some nifty ideas from these folks.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "66... | 1,760,372,323.428015 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/23/run-linux-by-emulating-risc-v-on-a-risc-v-microcontroller/ | Run Linux By Emulating RISC-V On A RISC-V Microcontroller | Jenny List | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"emulation",
"esp32c3",
"linux",
"RISC-V"
] | For years it was a given that it was impossible to run a Linux based operating system on a less powerful computer whose architecture lacked a memory management unit. There were projects such as uCLinux which sought to provide some tidbits to low computing power Linux users, but ultimately they came to naught. It is achievable after a fashion though, by using the limited architecture to emulate a more powerful one. It’s been done on AVR chips emulating ARM, on ARM chips, and now
someone’s done it on an ESP32-C3 microcontroller
, a RISC-V part running a RISC-V emulator. What’s going on?
RISC-V is an architecture specification that can be implemented at many levels from a simple microcontroller or even a pile of 74 logic to a full-fat application processor. The ESP32-C3 lies towards the less complicated end of this curve, though that’s not the whole reason for the emulation. The PSRAM storage is used by the C3 as data storage and can’t be used to run software, so to access all that memory capacity an emulator is required that in turn can use the PSRAM as its program memory. It’s a necessary trick for Espressif’s implementation of the architecture.
Surprisingly it’s not as slow as might be expected, with a boot-up time under two minutes. It’s not what we’d expect from our desktop powerhouses, but it’s not so long ago that certain lower-power full-fat processors could be just as lethargic. For past glories, see
the AVR running Linux
, and
the RP2040
. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635293",
"author": "Esot.eric",
"timestamp": "2023-04-23T19:19:34",
"content": "Clever solution to unmappable SPI-based RAM. Similar troubles existing in Harvard Archtectures…Also, another interesting finding, having gone down this rabbit hole: apparently uClinux did not come to na... | 1,760,372,323.374816 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/23/vhs-robot-swaps-tapes-as-seen-in-hackers/ | VHS Robot Swaps Tapes, As Seen InHackers | Robin Kearey | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"archiving",
"tape robot",
"vcr",
"VHS",
"video tape"
] | Tape robots are typically used in places that store vast amounts of data – think film studios and government archives. If you’ve seen the 1995 cult movie
Hackers
, you might remember a scene where the main character hacks into a TV station and reprograms their tape ‘bot to load a series he wanted to watch. It’s this scene that inspired [Nathan] over at [Midwest Cyberpunk] to make
his own tape robot that loads VHS tapes
.
[Nathan] has thousands of tapes in his collection, but the robot is not built to manage all of them. Instead, it’s meant to help him run his VHS streaming channel, saving him from having to physically go to his VCR every time a tape needs swapping. For that, a ten-tape storage capacity is plenty.
The main parts of the tape robot are a grabber that holds the tape, an extender that moves it forward and backward, and a linear rail that moves it up and down. The vertical motion is generated by a hybrid stepper motor through a belt drive system, while the grabber and extender are operated pneumatically. Once the grabber reaches the VCR, a pneumatic pusher shoves the tape inside. All of this is nearly identical to the robot seen in the movie, which was most likely not a commercial machine but a custom-made prop.
The whole system is controlled by an ESP32 running FluidNC inside the robot as well as a handmade cyberdeck next to it that manages the overall process of loading and storing tapes. Although [Nathan] is currently using the robot for his streaming channel, he’s planning to also use it for digitizing part of his massive tape collection, which contains a few titles that were never released on newer formats.
Working with old tapes can be tricky: some types of tape
degrade over time
, while others might come with
primitive copy protection systems
. But moving information over to newer media is a necessity if you don’t want to
risk losing it forever
. | 27 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635257",
"author": "hartl",
"timestamp": "2023-04-23T15:25:53",
"content": "This is the most over-engineered automated tape library I have ever seen. The designer of this contraption should have examined a real commercial unit instead of watching blurry VHS movies. Decades ago, Sto... | 1,760,372,323.715884 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/23/generating-entangled-qubits-and-qudits-with-fully-on-chip-photonic-quantum-source/ | Generating Entangled Qubits And Qudits With Fully On-Chip Photonic Quantum Source | Maya Posch | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"photonics",
"quantum entanglement"
] | As the world of computing and communication draws ever closer to a quantum future, researchers are faced with many of the similar challenges encountered with classical computing and the associated semiconductor hurdles. For the use of entangled photon pairs, for example, it was already possible to perform the entanglement using miniaturized photonic structures, but these still required a bulky external laser source. In a
recently demonstrated
first, a team of researchers have created a fully on-chip integrated laser source with photonic circuitry that can perform all of these tasks without external modules.
In
their paper
published in
Nature Photonics
, Hatam Mahmudlu and colleagues cover the process in detail. Key to this achievement was finding a way to integrate the laser and photonics side into a single, hybric chip while overcoming the (refractive) mismatch between the InP optical amplifier and Si
3
N
4
waveguide feedback circuit. The appeal of photon-based quantum entanglement should be obvious when one considers the relatively stable nature of these pairs and their compatibility with existing optical (fiber) infrastructure. What was missing previously was an economical and compact way to create these pairs outside of a laboratory setup. Assuming that the described approach can be scaled up for mass-production, it may just make quantum communications a realistic option outside of government organizations. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635238",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2023-04-23T13:29:05",
"content": "This seems a very important achievement. No more scientist with laser-protection googles and a complex optical apparatus on a peg board. All solid-state.You´re right, if this can be scaled, it will be a game ... | 1,760,372,323.64244 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/23/the-shuttle-engine-needed-3d-printing-but/ | The Shuttle Engine Needed 3D Printing, But… | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"Additive Manufacturing",
"electroplating",
"rocket engine"
] | If we asked you to design a circuit to blink a flashing turn signal, you would probably reach for a cheap micro or a 555. But old cars used bimetallic strips in a thermomechanical design. Why? Because, initially, 555s and microcontrollers weren’t available. [Breaking Taps] has the story of NASA engineers who needed some special cooling chambers in a rocket design for the Space Shuttle. Today you’d 3D print them, but in the 70s, that wasn’t an option. So
they used wax
. You can see a video about the process, including a build of a model rocket engine, in the video below.
The issue is the creation of tiny cooling channels in the combustion chamber. You can use additional thin pipes brazed onto the engine. However, there are several disadvantages to doing this way, but early rocket engines did it anyway. Having the cooling path integrated into the system would be ideal, but without 3D printing, it seems difficult to do. But not impossible.
The technique uses wax and machined slots that will eventually become the tubes required. Then you electroplate material on top of the wax to form the outer shell of the tube. In fact, NASA used two electroplating steps: a thin copper layer to close the tube and a thicker nickel layer to provide strength. Copper survives contact with the cryogenic coolant better than nickel does, but nickel is much stronger, so the combination makes sense. Because electroplating needs a conductive surface, the wax needs some help. NASA used a fine silver powder coating, but [Breaking Taps] simply impregnated the wax with graphite. Clearing the wax out afterward is a bit challenging but doable.
If you think about it, electroplating might be one of the original additive manufacturing techniques. In fact, people have
made printers based on the idea
, but they are very slow. On the other hand,
electroplating a plastic print
takes less time and looks great, even if you wouldn’t use it for a rocket engine. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635209",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2023-04-23T10:40:10",
"content": "Regarding the video, cool, very cool on so many levels. Very well explained too.Regarding “might be one of the original additive manufacturing techniques”. How about knitting, like in knitting a sweater, isn’... | 1,760,372,323.53133 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/22/ai-powered-speaker-is-a-chatbot-you-can-actually-chat-with/ | AI-Powered Speaker Is A Chatbot You Can Actually Chat With | Robin Kearey | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"ai",
"ChatGPT",
"raspberry pi",
"speech synthesis",
"Teensy",
"voice recognition"
] | AI-powered chatbots are pretty cool, but most still require you to type your question on a keyboard and read an answer from a screen. It doesn’t have to be like that, of course: with a few standard tools, you can turn a chatbot into a machine that literally chats, as [Hoani Bryson] did. He decided to make
a standalone voice-operated ChatGPT client
that you can actually sit next to and have a conversation with.
The base of the project is a USB speaker, to which [Hoani] added a Raspberry Pi, a Teensy, a two-line LCD and a big red button. When you press the button, the Pi listens to your speech and converts it to text using the OpenAI voice transcription feature. It then sends the resulting text to ChatGPT through its API and waits for its response, which it turns into sound again through the eSpeak speech synthesizer. The LCD, driven by the Teensy, shows the current status of the machine and also provides live subtitles while the machine is talking.
To spice up the AI box’s appearance, [Hoani] also added an LED ring which shows a spectrogram of the audio being generated. This small addition really makes the thing come alive, turning it into what looks like a classic Sci-Fi movie prop. Except that this one’s real, of course – we are actually living in the future, with human-like AI all around us.
All code, mostly written in Go, is freely available on
[Hoani]’s GitHub page.
It also includes a separate audio processing library called
toot
that [Hoani] wrote to help him interface with the micophone and do spectral analysis. Anyone with basic electronic skills can now build their own AI companion and talk to it – something that ham radio operators
have been doing for a while
. | 20 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635186",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-04-23T05:45:16",
"content": "What is my purpose?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6635189",
"author": "Andy",
"timestamp": "2023-04-23T06:21:12",
"content": "I’d make a... | 1,760,372,323.589149 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/22/a-delicious-advancement-in-battery-tech/ | A Delicious Advancement In Battery Tech | Navarre Bartz | [
"Battery Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"edible battery",
"edible circuits",
"food"
] | Electronics have been sent to some pretty extreme environments, but inside a living host is a particularly tricky set of conditions, especially if you don’t want to damage the organism ingesting the equipment. One step in that direction could be an
edible battery cell
. (via
Electrek
)
Developed by scientists at the
Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
, this new cell is made from food additives and ingredients to skirt any nasty side effects one might experience from ingesting a less palatable battery chemistry like NiCd. A
riboflavin
anode
is coupled with a
quercetin
cathode
, both with activated carbon to increase conductivity. Encapsulated in beeswax and with a separator made of
nori algae
, the battery is completely non-toxic.
The cell generates a modest 0.65V with a max sustained current of 48 µA for 12 min, but it shows promise as a power source for ingestible medical sensors, even if it won’t be powering your next mobile
Raspberry Pi
project. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen
edible
electronics; check out this
screaming chocolate rabbit
or
robots made of candy
. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635235",
"author": "STrRedWolf",
"timestamp": "2023-04-23T13:06:02",
"content": "This is one of the cases where… did you really need to make such a thing? Now we’re started down the road where we end up with “protogens” from the furry scene…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1... | 1,760,372,323.827408 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/22/tiny-three-tube-receiver-completes-spy-radio-suite/ | Tiny Three-Tube Receiver Completes Spy Radio Suite | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"ham",
"radio",
"regenerative",
"spy radio",
"vacuum tube"
] | In our surface-mount age, it’s easy to be jaded about miniaturization. We pretty much expect every circuit to be dimensionally optimized, something that’s easy to do when SMDs that rival grains of sand are available. But dial the calendar back half a century or so and miniaturization was a much more challenging proposition.
Challenging, perhaps, but by no means unachievable, as [Helge Fyske (LA6NCA)] demonstrates with
this ultra-compact regenerative vacuum tube receiver
. It’s a companion to his
recent “spy transmitter,”
a two-tube radio built in — or on, really — an Altoids tin. The transmitter was actually a pretty simple circuit, just a crystal-controlled oscillator and an RF amplifier really, but still managed about 1.5 Watts output on the 80-meter ham band.
The receiver circuit ended up being much more complicated, as receivers do, and therefore harder to cram into the allotted space. [Helge]’s used a three-tube regenerative design, with one tube each devoted to the RF amp, detector/mixer, and audio amplifier stages. As in the transmitter, the receiver tubes are mounted on the outside of the box, with the inside crammed full of components. [Helge] had to be quite careful about component positioning, to prevent interstage coupling and other undesirable side effects of building in such close quarters.
Was it worth it? Judging by the video below, absolutely! We’ve rarely heard performance like that from even a modern receiver with all the bells and whistles, let alone from a homebrew design under such constraints. It sounds fantastic, and hats off to [Helge] for completing his spy radio suite in style.
Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635162",
"author": "William Robert Meara",
"timestamp": "2023-04-23T01:03:38",
"content": "Really nice, but I don’t think this is a regenerative receiver. I think it is a direct conversion receiver. Great job Helge! Thanks and 73 Bill N2CQR",
"parent_id": null,
"depth":... | 1,760,372,323.880841 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/22/op-amp-contest-clever-continuity-tester-tells-you-where-the-problem-is/ | Op Amp Contest: Clever Continuity Tester Tells You Where The Problem Is | Robin Kearey | [
"hardware",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"continuity tester",
"debugging",
"resistance",
"short circuit"
] | A continuity tester, as found on most multimeters today, is a great tool for finding broken connections and short circuits. But once you’ve found a short, it’s up to you to figure out which part of the circuit it’s in – a tedious job on a large PCB with hundreds of components. [John Guy] aims to ease this task with
a continuity tester that modulates the beeper’s tone
according to the resistance measured in the circuit. Tracking down a short circuit is then simply a matter of probing multiple points along a track and observing whether the pitch goes up or down.
The circuit is based on a single AD8534 quad op amp chip. The first stage measures the voltage across the circuit under test in response to small current and amplifies it. The resulting signal is fed into a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) made from one op amp connected as an integrator and another working as a comparator with hysteresis. Op amp number four amplifies the resulting square wave and drives a speaker. A low-pass filter makes the sound a bit more pleasing to the ears by removing the higher notes.
[John] paid particular attention to the PCB design to make it easy to assemble despite having a large number of SMD components on a small board. He even placed a parts list on the rear silkscreen, so anyone can assemble it even without the accompanying documents. The resulting board can be placed in a laser-cut acrylic case, turning it into a neat handheld instrument that will definitely find a place in any engineer’s toolbox. Measuring resistance through sound is not as accurate as using
a full four-wire setup with an ohmmeter
, but will be much faster and easier if you just want to find that annoying solder bridge hiding somewhere on your board. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635134",
"author": "Doug",
"timestamp": "2023-04-22T21:22:39",
"content": "Clever, I suppose. But can it locate a short resulting from a mid-layer filament resulting from a bit of dust in the original fabrication of the laminates? We were doing just that in the 1980s using a smal... | 1,760,372,323.948378 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/22/build-your-own-bootable-emacs-environment/ | Build Your Own Bootable Emacs Environment | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"Emacs",
"operating system",
"text editor",
"user mode linux"
] | An old joke is that Emacs is a text editor with an operating system included, given that its extensibility and customization often goes far beyond traditional text editors. Part of its well-earned reputation comes from being built in Lisp which allows it to be expanded to do almost anything. Despite this in-joke in the community, though, you will still need an actual operating system to run it,
but not much more than that
.
This project uses
User-Mode Linux
(UML) as a foundation to load almost nothing other than an Emacs editor. UML is a virtualization technology that allows running multiple Linux kernel instances as separate virtual machines, so once the Linux environment is started and Emacs is compiled, the virtual machine can essentially boot straight into an Emacs environment. Some tools are needed outside of the Linux kernel like mount which allows the virtual file system to access the files needed to build Emacs, but as far as lightweight or minimalist Linux distributions go this one definitely gets at least an honorable mention.
While UML is virtualization software rather than a full-fledged Linux distribution, we would expect a similarly minimalist build could easily be done with something more hardware-based like Linux From Scratch. Emacs has been around for so long and had such a wide reach that it’s difficult to imagine a world without it. Even in more modern technology like browsers,
knowing a little bit about Emacs can be an extremely powerful tool
. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635093",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2023-04-22T17:54:32",
"content": "emacs is like BDSM, some like it, most rather avoid the pain.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6635170",
"author": "James Reed Feeney",
... | 1,760,372,324.241373 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/22/the-freedom-to-fail/ | The Freedom To Fail | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Space"
] | [
"creativity",
"experiment",
"nasa",
"newsletter",
"rover"
] | When you think of NASA, you think of high-stakes, high-cost, high-pressure engineering, and maybe the accompanying red tape. In comparison, the hobby hacker has a tremendous latitude to mess up, dream big, and generally follow one’s bliss. Hopefully you’ll take some notes. And as always with polar extremes, the really fertile ground lies in the middle.
[Dan Maloney] and I were thinking about this yesterday while discussing the 50th flight of
Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter
. Ingenuity is a tech demo, carrying nothing mission critical, but just trying to figure out if you could fly around on Mars. It was planned to run for five flights, and now it’s done 50.
The last big tech demo was the
Sojourner Rover
. It was a small robotic vehicle the size of a microwave oven that they hoped would last seven days. It went for 85, and it gave NASA the first taste of success it needed to follow on with 20 years of Martian rovers.
Both of these projects were cheap, by NASA standards, and because they were technical demonstrators,
the development teams were allowed significantly more design freedom
, again by NASA standards.
None of this compares to the “heck I’ll just hot-air an op-amp off an old project” of weekend hacking around here, but I absolutely believe that a part of the tremendous success of both Sojourner and Ingenuity were due to the risks that the development teams were allowed to take. Creativity and successful design thrives on the right blend of constraint and freedom.
Will Ingenuity give birth to a long series of flying planetary rovers as Sojourner did for her rocker-bogie based descendants? Too early to tell. But I certainly hope that someone within NASA is noticing the high impact that these technical demonstrator projects have, and also noting why. The addition of a little bit of hacker spirit to match NASA’s professionalism probably goes a long way.
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
! | 38 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6635039",
"author": "Nikos 🇺🇸🏳️🌈✌️ (@techgeektx)",
"timestamp": "2023-04-22T14:13:58",
"content": "Can’t wait for the Dragonfly mission to Titan!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6635063",
"author": "Reluctant Cannibal",... | 1,760,372,324.433874 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/22/nfc-antennas-have-other-uses/ | NFC Antennas Have Other Uses | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"chip card",
"NFC",
"nfc antenna"
] | As NFC chips proliferate, so do the antennas they require for operation, and since many NFC-enabled items are single-use, this means there’s an opportunity to put them to other uses. It’s an avenue pursued by [Brother-live],
as he strips the antennas from spent metro tickets and gets experimenting
.
The antenna in an NFC-enabled card is a flexible PCB laminated between the plastic outer layers, with the tracks forming a coil round the outside of it. Using some solvent the cards can be easily separated and the antennas retrieved. Once the chip has been removed they can be cleaned up and soldered to, allowing wires to be connected.
What can you do with an NFC antenna? Not a huge amount as you can see in the (Russian language, English subtitles) video below the break, but he tries it as a not-very-good heating pad, a power harvesting antenna from NFC readers, and perhaps most promisingly, as the coil of a moving-coil speaker. We’re not sure how much effort would be worth making on that last front, but we think with a bit of care there might be room for audible improvement.
If you’ve ever been tempted to have a look at an NFC card,
it’s a subject we’ve covered before
. | 38 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634992",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-04-22T11:53:51",
"content": "Use for RFID perhaps?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634995",
"author": "luvnotvor",
"timestamp": "2023-04-22T11:58:42",
... | 1,760,372,324.310816 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/22/air-hockey-solitaire/ | Air Hockey Solitaire | Al Williams | [
"Games",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"air hockey",
"machine vision",
"robot"
] | While air hockey is a fine amusement, it isn’t much fun if you can’t find someone to play against. Unless that is, you build a mini table with a robotic defender. [Vaib], [Nathan], and [Navish] can
show you how
. There is a video you can see below that shows two players using the table without the robot.
The project takes a bit of woodworking, as you might expect. You also have to drill 576 holes for the air to lift the puck. Some of the components are 3D printed in PETG, too. The
automated defense
uses a camera and relies on the fact that the puck is the only red thing on the table. A servo moves to intercept the incoming puck and return the shot. We were disappointed the video didn’t show the automated play.
We wondered if they had considered making a pair of the detachable robots and letting them play with each other. If you prefer
football
, the robot could probably adapt. We’ve seen
other robot air hockey contenders
, so maybe a better idea would be to build different robots and let them compete for a gold medal. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634975",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2023-04-22T09:09:44",
"content": "Half-assed article propping a video that does not even show off what the title of the article pinpoints. Where is the robotic arm ???",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"c... | 1,760,372,324.35356 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/21/before-you-sudo-rm-rf-take-some-precautions/ | Before You Sudo Rm -rf /, Take Some Precautions | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"administration",
"bash",
"color",
"linux",
"mistake",
"remote",
"server",
"terminal"
] | Maintaining or administering a computer system remotely is a common enough task these days, but it’s also something that can go sideways on you quickly if you aren’t careful. How many of us are guilty of executing a command, having it fail, and only then realizing that we weren’t connected to the correct computer at all? [Callan] occasionally has this issue as well, but in at least one instance, he deleted all of the contents of the wrong server by mistake. To avoid that mistake again,
he uses color codes in the command line in a fairly unique way
.
The solution at first seems straightforward enough. Since the terminal he’s using allows for different colors to be displayed for the user and hostname on the bash prompt, different text and background colors are used for each server. The only problem with this is that his friends also have access to these servers, and one of them is red/green colorblind, which led to another near-catastrophic mix-up. To ensure no edge cases are missed, [Callan] built a script which runs on every new server he spins up which selects two random colors, checks that they contrast well with each other, don’t create problems for the colorblind, and then applies them to the bash prompt.
For a problem most of us have had at some point or another, it’s a fairly elegant solution that helps ensure we’re sending the right commands to the right computer. This adds a layer of automation to the process and, while some color combinations do look similar, there are enough to help out most of us in some way, especially since he has released the source code on
his GitHub page
. For other helpful server administration tips, we’d recommend the
Linux-Fu article about deploying your own dynamic DNS
. | 40 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634942",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2023-04-22T05:21:30",
"content": "It is a good suggestion, but the problem is that you get used to anything after a while, even color. I have my name and machine in my shell prompt (joe@clamdigger>), so if I take the time to l... | 1,760,372,324.514284 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/21/the-cyber-resilience-act-threatens-open-source/ | The Cyber Resilience Act Threatens Open Source | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"Cyber Resilience Act",
"eu",
"open source"
] | Society and governments are struggling to adapt to a world full of cybersecurity threats. Case in point: the EU CRA — Cyber Resilience Act — is a proposal by the European Commission to enact legislation with a noble goal: protect consumers from cybercrime by having security baked in during design. Even if you don’t live in the EU, today’s global market ensures that if the European Parliament adopts this legislation, it will affect the products you buy and, possibly, the products you create. In a recent
podcast
, our own [Jonathan Bennett] and [Doc Searles] interview [Mike Milinkovich] from the Eclipse Foundation about the proposal and what they fear would be almost a death blow to open source software development. You can watch the podcast below.
If you want some background, you can read the EU’s now closed
request for comments
and the blog post outlining the problems from
opensource.org
. At the heart of the issue is the need for organizations to self-certify their compliance with the act. Since open source is often maintained by a small loose-knit group of contributors, it is difficult to see how this will work.
Here’s the concern in a nutshell. Suppose you write up a cool little C++ program for your own use. You aren’t a company, and you didn’t do it for profit. Wanting to share your work, you post your program on GitHub with an open source license. This happens all the time.
Meanwhile, another developer of a large open source program — let’s say the fictitious open source GRID database server decides to incorporate your code. That’s allowed. In fact, it is even encouraged. That’s how open source works.
The problem is when the GRID database has a problem that causes a data breach. The problem turns out to be a vulnerability in your code. Under the proposed law, it is possible you’d be left holding the bag for a large sum of money thanks to your generous hobby project that didn’t earn you a cent. The situation is even more complex if your code has multiple contributors. Was it your code that caused the breach or the other developer’s code? Who “owns” the project? Are all contributors liable? Faced with this, most people would probably stop contributing or levy a license making it illegal to use their code in jurisdictions where laws like this apply.
[Milinkovich] points out that hobbyists will likely be expressly exempted, so the above scenario isn’t probable. But, he asserts that hobby programmers do not make most open source software that matters (his wording). Important software is often created by paid developers working as part of a foundation or a sponsor organization. The EU mentions “commercial activity,” and the fear is that major software like Apache, Linux, and other important open source projects would fall under this umbrella.
The consensus is that the EU doesn’t want to cripple or kill open source. But there is still time for the act to have changes that will make the law more palatable. Similar efforts are going on in other countries, as well. We understand the desire to protect consumers and critical systems from cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and [Mike] agrees it has some good points. But we also know that killing open source software won’t be helpful. We hope some revisions in the act and similar efforts in other countries will help protect open source code so it can continue to help drive innovation. | 60 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634915",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-04-22T02:25:36",
"content": "Seems those that use the code should self-certify. Much like they assume responsibility anyway when the original author no longer wants to work on it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,372,324.80232 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/21/solar-protocol-envisions-a-solar-powered-web/ | Solar Protocol Envisions A Solar-Powered Web | Navarre Bartz | [
"green hacks",
"Network Hacks",
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"distributed",
"distributed network",
"distributed systems",
"low-tech hack",
"solar power",
"web design",
"web development"
] | The transition to low carbon energy is an important part of mitigating climate change, and the faster we can manage, the better. One project looking at how we could reduce the energy requirements of the web to more quickly adopt renewable energy is
Solar Protocol
.
Instead of routing requests to the fastest server when a user pulls up a website, Solar Protocol routes the request to the server currently generating the greatest amount of solar power. Once a user is on a website, the experience is energy-responsive. Website style and image resolution can range based on the power left in the active server’s batteries, including an image free low power mode.
Another benefit to the project’s energy efficiency approach is a focus on only the essential parts of a page and not any of the tracking or other privacy-endangering superfluous features present on many other websites. They go into much more depth in the
Solar Protocol Manifesto
. As a community project, Solar Protocol is still
looking for more stewards
since the network can go down if an insufficient number of servers are generating electricity.
For more details on the project that inspired Solar Protocol, check out this
low-tech website. | 34 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634890",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T23:05:10",
"content": "Interesting concept, but is the world ready for slower Internet?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634910",
"aut... | 1,760,372,324.693975 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/21/miniature-concrete-hoover-dam-is-tiny-engineering-done-right/ | Miniature Concrete Hoover Dam Is Tiny Engineering Done Right | Lewin Day | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"cement",
"concrete",
"dam",
"miniature"
] | Growing up, we got to play with all kinds of things in miniature. Cars, horses, little LEGO houses, the lot. What we didn’t get is a serious education with miniature-sized dams.
This recreation of the glorious Hoover Dam from the [Creative Construction Channel] could change all that for the next generation.
The build starts with the excavation of a two-foot long curve in a replica riverbed. A cardboard base is installed in the ditch, and used as a base for vertical steel wires. Next, the arch of the dam is roughed out with more steel wires installed horizontally to create a basic structure. The cardboard is then be removed from the riverbed, with the steel structure remaining. It’s finally time to pour real concrete, with a foundation followed by the main pour into foam formwork. The dam is also given 3D printed outlets that can be opened to allow water to pass through — complete with small gear motors to control them. The structure even gets a little roadway on top for good measure.
The finished product is quite impressive, and even more so when the outlets open up to spill water through. Such a project would be great fun for high school science students, or even engineering undergrads. Who doesn’t want to play with a miniature scale dam, after all? Bonus points if you build an entire LEGO city downstream, only to see it destroyed in a flood. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634856",
"author": "Doug",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T20:13:19",
"content": "Make that dam, not damn…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634870",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023... | 1,760,372,324.85462 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/20/m5stickc-turned-wearable-morse-code-trainer/ | M5StickC Turned Wearable Morse Code Trainer | Abe Connelly | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"bluetooth keyboard",
"M5stickC",
"morse code"
] | Have you ever felt the options for Morse code communication were too limited? Well, look no further than
[marsPRE]’s open source WristMorse communicator
that can connect over WiFi, can act as a Bluetooth keyboard or just be used as a Morse Code trainer.
[marsPRE] uses the M5StickC Plus as the base device and attaches a custom “hat” consisting of a 2.5 mm plug for a radio connection and two capacitive touch paddles that act as the Morse Code keyer. The add-on is housed in what looks like a custom 3D print and hangs off of the end of the M5StickC Plus, connecting the hat through an eight 0.1 inch pin header.
Using the M5StickC Plus allows [marsPRE] to focus on the software, providing different options for training, communication and even using the device as a Bluetooth keyboard. The two touch sensors allow for a semi automatic keying, with the top sensor used for long dashes and the bottom sensor used for short dashes.
[marsPRE] took inspiration from the
Morserino-32
and has made the wrist morse code trainer open source software and available through GitHub for anyone wanting to take a look. Morse code may an old encoding method but it’s one that’s worthy of respect. You never know when you might need to send a
message from your dreams
or to translate
spoken word Morse code
. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634535",
"author": "Nilanjan",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T16:29:03",
"content": "Great work",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634564",
"author": "NetNrrd",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T19:00:54",
"content": "... | 1,760,372,324.904116 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/20/keebin-with-kristina-the-one-with-the-music-typewriter/ | Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Music Typewriter | Kristina Panos | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"fr4",
"IBM Selectric",
"Kailh box whites",
"Keaton music typewriter",
"Model M",
"music typewriter",
"typeball"
] | This edition’s community build comes from the Yes They Could, But Should They Have? file. Well, I ultimately say yes, this is intriguing. Redditor [dj_edit] looked at the venerable Model M and thought,
this buckling-spring masterpiece can yet be improved upon
. Yeah! Well, to each their own. I must say that it does sound great, especially with the solenoid feedback enabled via rotary encoder.
Just check out the typing test
.
To be clear, this is essentially a new keyboard that fits inside a Model M case, but that alone is quite a feat, especially if you consider the curvature of the backplate. Because of this hurdle, [dj_edit] went with 1 mm FR4 for the switch PCB, which is a nice compromise of sturdiness and flexibility.
Underneath those stunning reproduction keycaps are Kailh box white switches, which are pretty chonky-sounding on their own. But turn on that sweet solenoid action and you really get noisy.
Those box whites are sitting in hot-swap sockets, a design decision that kind of made things difficult because of the curvature. [dj_edit] ended up using an acrylic plate that gets bent to match the curvature by the switches themselves.
The Centerfold: NASA Mission: Saturn 60
Okay, so there’s no desk pad or whatever, but did you even notice that? Probably not. What you may have noticed after drooling over those candy apple keycaps is the solid block of aluminum that’s holding the fountain pens. (What is it about keyboards and pens together?)
This edition’s centerfold
comes courtesy of [piercejenkins], who is also broke due to quality headphone purchases. While we don’t have a lot of detail on the build, rest assured that you will find those delicious keycaps by searching ‘GMKY AF SA’ on a certain discount website.
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 Keaton Music Typewriter
Image via
Marcin Wichary
Although many composers prefer to write their music out by hand, not everyone can draw notes and ornaments in the small space of the staff.
While there are many software tools today that will happily write music notation out for you, in the 1930s you had one option — the music typewriter.
This particular specimen is
the Keaton Music Typewriter
, which had 14 keys and was first patented in
1936
. A second patent in
1953
upgraded the typewriter to 33 keys. In the ’50s, the machine sold for $225 (around $2500 in 2023 dollars).
Aside from the innovative gantry design and the circular keyboard, there are still interesting elements to behold in the way the thing types. There are two keyboards — a small one that contains the ledger lines and clef symbols and remains in a fixed position relative to the paper. The larger keyboard has notes, rests, flats, sharps, and ornaments and seems to also remain in a fixed position, according to
this brief demo
, but does move up and down, and not in a semi-circle as you might imagine.
Because of the nature of musical notation that the vertical note values come in tiny increments, there is a lever that moves the target up or down by 1/24 of an inch. A long needle running next to the ribbon indicates exactly where the next note will be placed. Quite a precise little machine for nearly 100 years ago.
ICYMI: DIY Typeballs for IBM Selectrics
I know I gushed about these on
the Podcast
, but in case you missed
that
, here goes. If you don’t know, the IBM Selectric was an extremely popular typewriter that came out in the 1960s. Instead of a bunch of swinging arms that could get stuck together, it used a revolutionary typeball that made font changes quite easy, and looked cool to boot.
Well, as with a lot of things from 60 years ago, they aren’t making any new ones, never mind any typeballs with newer fonts like Comic Sans.
Enter [Sam Ettinger]’s resin printer
, which has the resolution necessary to create the trapezoidal edges needed to repeatedly and reliably bash into the roller for (hopefully) a few months to come.
To achieve this edge, each glyph is modeled in OpenSCAD, and then [Sam] uses an automated process to create the trapezoidal support structure bit that connects it to the surface of the ball.
Be sure to check out the well-documented creation process over on IO
.
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
. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634514",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T14:37:37",
"content": "As even a venerable tank of a keyboard that the model M is can end up needing repairs (after 30 years+ who can blame ’em), and they are actually still available ‘new’ with added native USB support I don... | 1,760,372,324.959051 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/20/read-comic-books-on-the-commodore-64-with-stripstream/ | Read Comic Books On The Commodore 64 With StripStream | Lewin Day | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"c64",
"comic",
"comic book",
"commodore 64"
] | Comic books are traditionally printed on paper, either as regular saddle-bound issues or in hardcover compilations. If you wanted to read them on a low-resolution screen run by an 8-bit computer, you were usually out of luck. Until now!
Enter StripStream, the comic book reader for the Commodore 64.
StripStream runs on a stock PAL C64 system, using the Datasette interface. A PC program is used to compose a comic into a suitable format for the C64. It then generates a .TAP file which can either be played in a C64 emulator, or recorded onto an audio tape for loading on real hardware.
According to [janderogee], who created the software, just 34 minutes of tape can store over 300 images and 1200 lines of subtitle text. Cassettes were chosen for the storage method as standard 5 1/2″ C64 disks could only hold 165 kilobytes of data per side, meaning two whole double-sided disks would be needed to store the same amount of data. Plus, the linear nature of tape makes sense for a sequentially-read comic story. Just don’t get any ideas about doing a choose-your-adventure thing here, as StripStream isn’t built for random access.
If you don’t want to read regular comics, you can always
use a tool to automatically generate them from existing media
. Incidentally, StripStream is a great name, but we would have called it Comicdore 64.
Thanks to [Lucas] for the tip! | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634476",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T11:26:40",
"content": "Cool to see my project, thanks.Small detail, the 34min has been reduced to 27min. I’m afraid i didn’t update that in the documentation, yet. This improvement makes it possible to use one side of a C60 tape.",... | 1,760,372,325.051566 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/20/soft-robotic-system-for-in-situ-3d-bioprinting-and-endoscopic-surgery/ | Soft Robotic System For In Situ 3D Bioprinting And Endoscopic Surgery | Maya Posch | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"soft robotics"
] | The progress of medical science has meant increasingly more sophisticated ways to inspect and repair the body, with a shift towards ever less invasive and more effective technologies. An exciting new field is that of in situ tissue replacement in a patient, which can be singular cells or even 3D printed tissues. This in vitro approach of culturing replacement tissues comes however with its share of issues, such as the need for a bioreactor. A more straightforward approach is printing the cells in vivo, meaning directly inside the patient’s body, as
demonstrated by a team at the University of New South Wales Sydney
with a soft robot that can print layers of living cells inside for example a GI tract.
In their paper, the team — led by [Dr Thanh Nho Do] and PhD student [Mai Thanh Thai] —
describe the soft robot that is akin to a standard endoscope
, but with a special head that has four soft microtubule artificial muscles (SMAM) for three degrees of freedom and fabric bellow actuators (FBA) that provide the motion desired by the remote controller. The system is configured in such a way that the operator inputs the rough intended motions, which are then smoothed by the software before the hydraulics actuate the head.
In a test on a simulated GI tract, the researchers were able to manipulate a prototype, and deposit a range of materials from the installed syringes. They envision that a system like this could be used as with endoscopes and
laparoscopy
to not only accurately deposit replacement cells inside the patient’s body, but also to perform a range of other surgical interventions, whereby the surgeon is supported by the system’s software, rather than manipulating the instruments directly. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634501",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T13:14:10",
"content": "Couldn’t get a feel for the size but finally found that the smallest prototype is approximately 11.5mm in diameter which is within the size range of an endoscope (11-13mm). The proof-of-concept surgery was... | 1,760,372,325.00364 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/19/a-look-at-segas-8-bit-3d-glasses/ | A Look At Sega’s 8-Bit 3D Glasses | Lewin Day | [
"Games"
] | [
"3d",
"3d game",
"3d video",
"lcd",
"shutter glasses"
] | From around 2012 onwards, there was a 3D viewing and VR renaissance in the entertainment industry. That hardware has grown in popularity, even if it’s not yet mainstream. However, 3D tech goes back much further, as [Nicole] shows us
with a look at Sega’s ancient 8-bit 3D glasses
[
via Adafruit
].
[Nicole]’s pair of Sega shutter glasses are battered and bruised, but she notes more modern versions are available using the same basic idea. The technology is based on liquid-crystal shutters, one for each eye. By showing the left and right eyes different images, it’s possible to create a 3D-vision effect even with very limited display hardware.
The glasses can be plugged directly into a Japanese Sega Master System, which hails from the mid-1980s. It sends out AC signals to trigger the liquid-crystal shutters via a humble 3.5mm TRS jack. Games like
Space Harrier 3D,
which were written to use the glasses, effectively run at a half-speed refresh rate. This is because of the 60 Hz NTSC or 50 Hz PAL screen refresh rate is split in half to serve each eye. Unfortunately, though, the glasses don’t work on modern LCD screens, as their inherent display lag throws off the timing of the pulses the console sends to the glasses.
It’s a neat look at an ancient bit of display tech that had a small resurgence with 3DTVs in the 2010s. By and large, it seems like humans just aren’t that into 3D, at least beneath a full-VR experience. Meanwhile, if you’re wondering what 8-bit 3D looked like, we’ve got a 3D video (!) after the break. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634433",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T05:56:34",
"content": "Welcome to the Fantasy Zone!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6634524",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T15:33:07",
"content": "... | 1,760,372,325.095383 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/19/water-solves-mazes-why-not-electrons/ | Water Solves Mazes, Why Not Electrons? | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"charge carrier",
"electron flow"
] | A few weeks ago, we looked at a video showing water “solving” a maze. [AlphaPhoenix] saw the same video, and it made him think about electrons “
finding the path of least resistance
.” So can you solve a maze with foil, a laser cutter, a power supply, and some pepper? Apparently, as you can see in the video below.
At first, he duplicated the water maze, but without the effect of gravity. It was hard to see the water flow, so pepper flakes made the motion of the liquid quite obvious. The real fun, though, started when he cut the maze out of foil and started running electrons across it.
It isn’t easy to visualize electrons, but you can see the heat they produce using a thermal camera. Of course, a physics guru will tell you that you really aren’t watching electrons flow, but rather you are seeing charge moving via charge carriers. Regardless, the effect is that electricity flows, and you can see how that works with the thermal camera and develop intuition about it using the water model. A cool demo.
If you want to
watch the video that inspired this one
, we covered it. If you didn’t get a thermal camera for a gift last year, you can
buy one for yourself
, but be sure to check out the comments for some options the post didn’t cover. | 28 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634436",
"author": "DST",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T06:26:57",
"content": "I don’t get this.. As far as I can see, there’s no “maze” there, there’s only one connection between the two ends, it’s just one large odd-shaped conductor?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repli... | 1,760,372,325.16126 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/19/hacking-an-apartment-garage-door-with-new-remotes/ | Hacking An Apartment Garage Door With New Remotes | Lewin Day | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"garage opener",
"remote"
] | [Old Alaska] had a problem. He needed a second remote for his apartment garage door, but was quoted a fee in the hundreds of dollars for the trouble of sourcing and programming another unit. Realizing this was a rip-off given the cheap hardware involved,
he decided to whip up his own sneaky solution instead.
It’s a simple hack, cheap and functional. An RF-activated relay with two remotes was sourced online for the princely sum of $8. [Old Alaska] then headed down to the equipment cabinet in the garage, opening the lock with the side of his own car key. He then wired the relay in parallel with the existing manual pushbutton for activating the garage door.
Sometimes, a hack doesn’t have to be complicated to be useful. Many of us might have jumped straight to trying to capture and emulate the existing remote’s radio signals. There was really no need. With physical access, [Old Alaska] was able to simply wire in his own remote entry setup himself.
We’ve seen similar hacks before,
albeit achieved with SIGINT methods instead
. Video after the break. | 28 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634387",
"author": "hinspect",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T23:21:11",
"content": "Great Job! 😉",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6634390",
"author": "Yeah Right",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T23:33:46",
"content": "I think ... | 1,760,372,325.227543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/20/this-one-simple-trick-rehabilitates-scratchy-sounding-speakers/ | This One Simple Trick Rehabilitates Scratchy Sounding Speakers | Lewin Day | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"repair",
"speaker"
] | We’ve all picked up a radio and switched it on, only to hear an awful scratchy noise emitting from the speaker. [Richard Langer] is no stranger to this problem, and has identified a cheap and unusual solution—
using toilet paper!
The cause of the scratchy sound is that when the speaker’s paper cone warps, it can cause the voice coil to rub up against the magnet assembly. In time, this wears out insulation on the coil’s turns, damaging the speaker. [Richard] found that realigning the coil to its proper place would rectify the issue. This can be achieved by stuffing a small amount of toilet paper in the back of the speaker, between the cone and the metal housing.
To identify the right spot to put the paper, one simply presses on the back of the speaker with a pen while listening out for the scratchy sound to stop. The paper can then be stuffed into this area to complete the fix. This can realign the cone and voice coil and stop the scratchy sound for good.
[Richard] notes that this method can be quite long-lasting in some cases. Failing that, it should serve long enough for you to order
a replacement speaker
. Video after the break. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634704",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T07:52:34",
"content": "It’s a good hack thanks. With larger speakers it’s common to remove the mounts to rotate the driver until gravity would bring the cone back into alignment. In this case that would mean the tissue paper fix be... | 1,760,372,325.353063 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/20/mri-resolution-progresses-from-millimeters-to-microns/ | MRI Resolution Progresses From Millimeters To Microns | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Science"
] | [
"brain",
"coils",
"Duke",
"magnet",
"mri",
"neuron",
"neuroscience",
"research",
"resolution",
"structure"
] | Neuroscientists have been mapping and recreating the nervous systems and brains of various animals since the microscope was invented, and have even been able to map out entire brain structures thanks to other imaging techniques with perhaps the most famous example being the 302-neuron brain of a roundworm. Studies like these advanced neuroscience considerably but even better imaging technology is needed to study more advanced neural structures like those found in a mouse or human, and
this advanced MRI machine may be just the thing to help gain better understandings of these structures
.
A research team led by Duke University developed this new MRI technology using an incredibly powerful 9.4 Tesla magnet and specialized gradient coils, leading to an image resolution an impressive six orders of magnitude higher than a typical MRI. The voxels in the image measure at only 5 microns compared to the millimeter-level resolution available on modern MRI machines, which can reveal microscopic details within brain tissues that were previously unattainable. This breakthrough in MRI resolution has the potential to significantly advance understanding of the neural networks found in humans by first studying neural structures in mice at this unprecedented detail.
The researchers are hopeful that this higher-powered MRI microscope will lead to new insights and translate directly into advancements healthcare, and presuming that it can be replicated, used on humans safely, and becomes affordable, we would expect it to find its way into medical centers as soon as possible. Not only that, but research into neuroscience has plenty of applications outside of healthcare too, like the aforementioned 302-neuron brain of the
Caenorhabditis elegans
roundworm
which has been put to work in various robotics platforms to great effect
. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634666",
"author": "nigi bel",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T02:07:06",
"content": "there’s 10.5 tesla and 11.7 tesla and more just google",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634676",
"author": "elwing",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,372,325.446124 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/20/mystery-1802-computer-was-a-homebrew-project/ | Mystery 1802 Computer Was A Homebrew Project | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"1802",
"retrocomputing"
] | [CelGenStudios] has an impressive collection of vintage hardware. One that
really struck us
came from a thrift store in Canada, so the original provenance of it is unknown. It looks like someone’s handmade interpretation of a SOL-20. There’s a wooden and sheet metal box containing a keyboard looted from an old dedicated word processor (back when a word processor was a machine, not a piece of software). Inside? Some vintage-looking hand-drawn PC boards, including a backplane with two boards. One contains an RCA 1802 and a little bit of memory. There’s also a video card with more memory on it than the CPU.
We loved the 1802, and we disagree with [CelGenStudios] that it “wasn’t that popular.” It was super popular in some areas. The CMOS processor was popular in spacecraft and among homebrew builders. There were a few reasons for that. Unlike some early CPUs, you didn’t need much to bootstrap a system. It would run on 5V and had a “DMA” mode to key data in with just a few simple switches and buttons. You didn’t need a ROM-based monitor to get the system to work. In addition, the design could be low power, and the static design meant you could slow or stop the clock for very low power compared to many other systems of the day.
Inside the box was also a tiny board that was a mystery. That is until he noticed that it had a connector that would fit a Commodore cassette deck. The keyboard cable needs rewiring, but otherwise, the machine works. There is a ROM with a monitor since the DMA mode wouldn’t understand the video and keyboard.
The real mystery is who made this computer and why? It seems like it might have been a prototype for a failed business. Or perhaps it was just a labor of love from someone with a lot of talent. If this computer looks familiar to you, he’d love to hear from you.
The 1802 had a very logical instruction set thanks to being the design of one person, [Joe Weisbecker]. You can
still build a simple computer using one
. Of course, you can also
emulate it with an Arduino
.
Thanks [Stephen Walters] for the tip! | 29 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634653",
"author": "Bruce Perens",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T00:11:54",
"content": "Because it was available in silicon on sapphire, The 1802 became the processor for a lot of satellites, there’s a whole open source operating system that was used for the amateur radio ones. The reso... | 1,760,372,325.646511 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/20/making-neon-trees-the-easy-way-with-no-oven-pumps-required/ | Making Neon Trees The Easy Way With No Oven Pumps Required | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"glass",
"glass work",
"glassworking",
"neon",
"oven"
] | Neon lamps are fun and beautiful things. Hackers do love anything that glows, after all. But producing them can be difficult, requiring specialized equipment like ovens and bombarders to fill them up with plasma. However, [kcakarevska] has found a way to make neon lamps
while bypassing these difficulties.
[kcakarevska] used the technique to great effect on some neon tree sculptures.
The trick is using magnesium ribbon, which is readily available form a variety of suppliers. The ribbon is cut into small inch-long fragments and pushed into a borosilicate tube of a neon sculpture near the electrode. Vacuum is then pulled on the tube down to approximately 5 microns of pressure. The tube is then closed off and the electrode is heated using an automotive-type induction heater. In due time, this vaporizes the magnesium which then creates a reactive getter coating on the inside of the tube. This picks up any oxygen, water vapor, or other contaminants that may have been left inside the tube without the need for an oven vacuum pumping stage. The tube is then ready to be filled with neon. After about 24 to 48 hours of running, the getter coating will have picked up the contaminants and the tube will glow well.
It’s a useful technique, particularly for complex neon sculptures that won’t readily fit in an oven for pumpdown. If the glasswork is still too daunting, though,
you can always use other techniques to get a similar look.
Video after the break.
[Thanks to cnlohr for the tip!] | 26 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634593",
"author": "Jii",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T20:29:37",
"content": "Daaaamn! That is just ingenious. Maybe neon lights will make a comeback in a much more complex light pieces. Not that making the glass tube shapes gets any easier.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,325.563374 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/20/a-temperature-sensing-magnetic-stir-bar/ | A Temperature-Sensing Magnetic Stir Bar | Lewin Day | [
"Science",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"lab equipment",
"magnetic stir bar",
"magnetic stirrer",
"rfid tag",
"stirrer",
"temperature sensor"
] | Magnetic stirring bars are the coolest piece of equipment you’ll see in a high-school chemistry lab. They’re a great way for agitating a solution without having to stand there manually and do it yourself.
[Applied Science] has now made a magnetic stir bar
that features an integrated temperature sensor.
The device is essentially an
RFID temperature sensor
snuck inside a custom-made magnetic stir bar. The bar is paired with a smart hotplate base that displays the temperature readings. As a bonus, it can detect when the magnetic stir bar is out of place or not in sync, prompting it to slow down the spin motor until the stir bar is turning properly again.
The video also notes that the stir bar could be instrumented for even greater functionality. A Hall effect sensor could measure the magnetic slip angle of the stir bar, and provide useful readings of liquid viscosity. Alternatively, a pressure sensor in the stir bar could potentially measure liquid level based on hydrostatic pressure.
It’s a great quality-of-life improvement for regular lab work. It eliminates the need for bulky temperature probes that often get in the way.
We’ve featured some interesting temperature sensors before, too
. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634565",
"author": "anon",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T19:02:50",
"content": "Related: Biotherm lifechips do most of this, but are program-limited on temperature range.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6634570",
"author": "Hack... | 1,760,372,325.4901 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/20/vcf-east-2023-andy-geppert-talks-core-memory/ | VCF East 2023: Andy Geppert Talks Core Memory | Elliot Williams | [
"Interviews",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"core memory",
"retrocomputing",
"VCF East 2023"
] | Do you know core memory? Our prehistoric predecessors would store data in the magnetic fields of ferrite rings, reading out the ones and zeroes by setting the magnetic field and detecting if a small current is induced in a sense wire, indicating that the bit flipped, or not detecting the current, in which case it didn’t. Core memory is non-volatile, rad hard, and involved a tremendous amount of wire weaving to fabricate. And it’s pretty cool.
[Andy Geppert] wants to get you hands-on with this anachronistic memory, and builds kits to demo how it works. [Tom Nardi] and [Bil Herd] caught up with him at the Vintage Computer Festival East last weekend, and
got him to demo his Core64 project for them
. (Video, embedded below.)
The design of Core64 displays its state in lights at all times. And this means that you can write to it using either the onboard Pi Pico, for a blinky light show, or with a magnetic stylus, setting each bit’s magnetic state by hand. This turns it into a magnetic memory tablet and is a sweet demonstration of the principles that make it all work. Or, if you pulse the lines at just the right frequency, you can make the cores spin!
Watch [Andy] explaining it in our interview here, and stay tuned for more coming from VCF East 2023 soon. | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634563",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T18:52:27",
"content": "Makes me remember i have like 100.000 ferrite cores special for core memory (not any ferrite “donut” would do). And no patience to weave some …",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,325.697784 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/20/ask-hackaday-split-rail-op-amp-power-supply/ | Ask Hackaday: Split Rail Op Amp Power Supply | Al Williams | [
"Ask Hackaday",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Parts"
] | [
"Ask Hackaday",
"op amps",
"Supercon badge"
] | Water cooler talk at the office usually centers around movies, sports, or life events. Not at Hackaday. We have the oddest conversations and, this week, we are asking for your help. It is no secret that we have a special badge each year for Supercon. Have you ever wondered where those badges come from? Sometimes we do too. We can’t tell you what the badge is going to be for Supercon 2023, but here’s a chance for you to contribute to its design.
What I can tell you is that at least part of the badge is analog. Part, too, is digital. So we were discussing a seemingly simple question: How do we best generate a bipolar power source for the op amps on a badge? Like all design requests, this one is unreasonable. We want:
Ideally, we’d like a circuit to give us +/- 9 V to +/- 12 V at moderately low current, say in the tens of milliamps. Actual values TBD.
Low noise: analog circuitry, remember?
Lightweight: it is going on a badge
Battery operated: the badge thing again
Cheap: we only have a couple bucks in the budget for power
Available in quantity: we’ll need ~600 of these
Many of us immediately went with the “two 9V battery solution.” That’s certainly cheap and easy, but it seems heavy and fiddly for a badge. A DC-to-DC converter is probably the right way to go, but those may not be cheap or have low noise — we haven’t started down this path yet. We could do a single-sided boost and create a mid-rail virtual ground?
The Ask
We want to know your favorite trick for this! Nothing is too crazy to be out of bounds, and we know you can’t get your entire wish list, but we’d like to get as much of it as possible. We will also entertain the expensive, heavy, and noisy solutions just because we could use a good laugh. So if you were thinking of suggesting a dynamotor, go right ahead. (And take pictures!)
As long as you’re doing bipolar power design, you might as well enter it in the
op amp contest
, which is running right now. If you need some
simulation practice with op amps
, we can help there, too. | 83 | 36 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634540",
"author": "Jeff Brown",
"timestamp": "2023-04-20T17:16:36",
"content": "Why do you need a rail power supply for this application? Can you add a bias to the signals instead?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634607",
... | 1,760,372,325.963709 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/21/a-high-precision-adc-that-you-can-understand/ | A High Precision ADC That You Can Understand! | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks",
"contests"
] | [
"adc",
"dual-slope",
"op-amp"
] | In a world where an analogue to digital converter is all too often an integrated peripheral buried inside a microcontroller, it’s easy to forget how simple these devices can be when built from first principles. An entry in our Op-Amp Challenge from [NNNI] demonstrates this perfectly, it’s
a high resolution multi-slope ADC for instrumentation purposes
, constructed using a mixture of op-amps, logic chips, and a Raspberry Pi Pico. Best of all, it’s easy to understand, so there’s little of that analogue mystique to worry about.
This type of ADC measures an analogue value by counting how long it takes to charge a capacitor to that voltage. A simple version that measures charge time has a few drawbacks, so this project goes from single slope to multi slope by measuring both charge and discharge times compared to the voltage. Pay attention to component matching and reference stability, and such a design can offer a very high resolution measurement.
The value in this project lies not only in the design itself, but also in the extremely comprehensive description of its operation, which should teach most readers a thing or two. That curvy-line PCB is rather nice, too. We used single slope ADCs to read analogue joysticks back in the day, but we certainly learned something here. Want to see another? This
isn’t the first dual slope ADC we’ve seen
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634853",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T19:51:43",
"content": "Very cool project. a lot of good analog design. I will say though I really like the modern day integration of ADC’s. This is a good project to increase your analog design skills. For me though I like the on... | 1,760,372,325.839714 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/21/gen-tojos-teeth-morse-code-shows-up-in-the-strangest-places/ | Gen Tojo’s Teeth: Morse Code Shows Up In The Strangest Places | Al Williams | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Interest"
] | [
"dentures",
"morse code"
] | The Baader-Meinhof effect is the common name for what scientists call frequency illusion. Suppose you are watching Star Trek’s Christopher Pike explain how he makes pasta mama, and you’ve never heard of it before. Immediately after that, you’ll hear about pasta mama repeatedly. You’ll see it on menus. Someone at work will talk about having it at Hugo’s. Here’s the thing. Pasta mama was there all along (and, by the way, delicious). You just started noticing it. We sometimes wonder if that’s the deal with Morse code. Once you know it, it seems to show up everywhere.
Gen. Hideki Tojo in custody in 1947
One of the strangest places we’ve ever heard of Morse code appearing is the infamous case of Tojo’s teeth. If you don’t remember,
General Hideki Tojo
was one of the main “bad guys” in the Pacific part of World War II. In particular, he is thought to have approved the attack on Pearl Harbor, which started the American involvement in the war globally. Turns out, Tojo would be inextricably tied to Morse code, but he probably didn’t realize it.
The Honorable Attempt
At the end of the war, the US military had a list of people they wanted to try, and Tojo was near the top of their list of 40 top-level officials. As prime minister of Japan, he had ordered the attack that brought the US into the war. He remained prime minister until 1944, when he resigned, but the US had painted him as the face of the Japanese enemy. Often shown in caricature along with Hitler and Mussolini, Tojo was the face of the Japanese war machine to most Americans.
In Allied propaganda, Tojo was one of the “big three”
When Americans tried to arrest him, though, he shot himself. However, his suicide attempt failed. Reportedly, he apologized to the American medics who resuscitated him for failing to kill himself. Held in Sugamo Prison awaiting a trial, he requested a dentist to make him a new set of dentures so he could speak clearly during the trial.
A Morse Code Dentist
Jack Mallory, a young Navy dentist on loan to the Army,
drew the duty of making Tojo’s new dentures
. The 22-year-old had been at the 361st Station Hospital for about a month. His roommate, George Foster, had examined Tojo and brought Jack in to make an upper denture. Tojo had declined a full set because he did not expect to survive his trial.
Jack’s roommate, George Foster, is seen with an unknown soldier examining Tojo.
The standard procedure was to engrave the patient’s name, rank, and serial number of any dentures made by the hospital. However, Mallory’s colleague suggested that it would be fitting to engrave Tojo’s with the common phrase “REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR.” At 22, you are often susceptible to bad ideas, but Jack knew that could get him in trouble. But he decided to do it any way but to make it less conspicuous, he used — you guessed it — Morse code.
At first, only Jack and his roommate knew the secret. However, two recruits had to be let into the secret because they were examining the dentures and were sure to notice. One of them wrote home about the incident, and, as you might expect, the military command was not amused. Mallory’s commanding officer ordered him to remove the markings, which he did, and everyone denied it ever happened. As far as anyone knows, Tojo never knew that his dentures had carried a secret message.
General Tojo’s trial didn’t go well for him, and he was executed late in 1948. Jack had been back in the states for over a year, reuniting with his wife and starting a dental practice. The story would only surface again years later, in 1995.
Code is Everywhere
Of course, soldiers have a long history of using Morse code to communicate secretly, like Admiral Denton blinking “torture” during his appearance in a propaganda film made by his captors during the Vietnam war. The Colombian army encoded
secret messages to captive soldiers in a pop song
.
Even civilian songs get into the act. There are a ton of songs that have some Morse code embedded in them, ranging from London Calling by the Clash to YYZ by Rush and many others. The Capitol Records building sends out Morse code, although it seems most people don’t notice. Not many people realize that the beat of the theme music to Mission Impossible actually spells out MI, either.
Then there’s the Curiosity Mars rover. The wheels on that plucky vehicle leave the letters JPL in Morse code behind in the sand. However, our pet peeve these days is the “morse code bracelets” that use beads to spell out messages like “loved.” Why is that a pet peeve? Becuase there is no spacing between elements, so, for example, loved is “.-..—…-.-..” Of course, that could also be “aumski” or a bunch of other nonsense words.
As you can see, once you know Morse code, you can find it just about everywhere. You might even find it
in your dreams
. Too lazy to learn the code?
Take the Blue Pill
. | 43 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634823",
"author": "Todd",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T17:32:08",
"content": "I’m just gonna drop a Repo Man reference here: “Plate o’ Shrimp”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6635398",
"author": "Tre Stuges",
"ti... | 1,760,372,326.045177 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/21/hackaday-podcast-215-autonomous-race-car-espresso-robot-and-vintage-computers/ | Hackaday Podcast 215: Autonomous Race Car, Espresso Robot, And Vintage Computers | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | It’s podcast time again, and this time around Elliot and Dan took a grand tour through the week’s best and brightest hacks. We checked out an old-school analog cell phone that went digital with style, dug into a washing machine’s API, and figured out how to melt metal in the microwave — the right way. Does coffee taste better when it’s made by a robot? Of course it does! Can you get a chatbot to spill its guts? You can, if you know how to sweet talk it. Let’s play Asteroids on an analog oscilloscope, spoof facial recognition with knitting, and feel the need for speed with an AI-controlled model race car. And was VCF East worth the wait? According to Tom Nardi, that’s a resounding “Yes!”
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 personal copy
!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 215 Show Notes:
News:
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Completes 50th Flight
An Up-Close Look at the First Martian Helicopter
Hackaday Prize: Re-engineering Education Challenge Wraps Up Soon
What’s that Sound?
If you think you know what this week’s sound was,
enter here
!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Internet Of Washing Machines Solves An Annoyance
Custom Bluetooth Adapter Brings 1990s Car Phone Back Online
Robot Races A Little Smarter To Go Faster
F1TENTH
Radio Waves Bring The Heat With This Microwave-Powered Forge
Lost PLA Casting With A Little Help From Your Microwave
RoboGaggia Makes Espresso Coffee On Its Own
Hacking Bing Chat With Hash Tag Commands
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Raspberry Pi Camera Conversion Leads To Philosophical Question
A Clock Timebase, No Microcontroller
A Low-Noise Amplifier To Quantify Resistor Noise
Dan’s Picks:
Need To Pick Objects Out Of Images? Segment Anything Does Exactly That
Circumvent Facial Recognition With Yarn
Bust Out That Old Analog Scope For Some Velociraster Fun!
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Vintage Computer Festival East Was A Retro Madhouse
Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 10.0 — 2023 – Vintage Computer Federation
New Renewable Energy Projects Are Overwhelming US Grids | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634828",
"author": "Rsms",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T17:56:01",
"content": "I think the what’s that sound link is missing",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634882",
"author": "Tom Nardi",
"timestamp": "2023-04-2... | 1,760,372,326.089531 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/21/building-a-motorized-pan-tilt-rig-for-filming/ | Building A Motorized Pan Tilt Rig For Filming | Lewin Day | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"pan tilt zoom",
"pan-tilt"
] | Today, anyone can shoot video because cameras are cheap and readily available. But if you want to do fancy Hollywood-style moving shots, you’ll need somebody to point the thing — or a machine to do it for you. [Giovanni Aggiustatutto] went the latter route with
this mechanized pan-tilt build
.
The build relies on stepper motors for clean and accurate movement on both axes. Belt drives are used to step down the output of the motors for greater torque. The pan-tilt mechanism itself is built from a combination of 3D printed parts paired with wooden components and a pair of aluminium tubes for rigidity. The whole assembly comes with a standard mount for use with a regular tripod. An Arduino Uno runs the show, using TMC2208 stepper drivers to command the motors. A control pad featuring a joystick and buttons is used for control, with an LCD to provide useful feedback to the user.
Pan-tilt systems are more typically used for security purposes
, but we like the application to creative work here. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634821",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T17:07:31",
"content": "Great project and time lapse shots.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6634869",
"author": "Tom Harris",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T21:39:02",
"c... | 1,760,372,326.12706 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/21/this-week-in-security-spandex-tempest-supply-chain-chain-and-ntp/ | This Week In Security: Spandex Tempest, Supply Chain Chain, And NTP | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"0-day",
"chrome",
"This Week in Security"
] | Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence group has announced
a new naming scheme for threat actors
. It sounds great, naming groups after weather phenomenon, based on the groups motivations or nation of origin. Then each discreet group is given an additional adjective. That’s where things get interesting.
It seems like the adjectives were chosen at random, giving rise for
some suitably impressive names
, like Ghost Blizzard, Ruby Sleet, or Granite Typhoon. Some of the other names sound like they should be desserts: Caramel Tsunami, Peach Sandstorm, Aqua Blizzard, or Raspberry Typhoon. But then there the really special names, like Wine Tempest and Zigzag Hail. But the absolute winner is Spandex Tempest. No word yet on whether researchers managed to keep a straight face when approving that name.
Chrome 0-day Double
A pair of Chrome browser releases have been minted in the past week, both to address vulnerabilities that are actively being exploited. Up first was
CVE-2022-2033
, type confusion in the V8 JS engine. That flaw was reported by Google’s Threat Analysis Group, presumably discovered in the wild, and the fix was pushed as stable on the 14th.
Then, on th 18th,
yet another released rolled out
to fix CVE-2023-2136, also reported by the TAG, also being exploited in the wild. It seems likely that both of these 0-days were found in the same exploitation campaign. We look forward to hearing the details on this one.
3CX Was Supply-Chain Chain
Mandiant has released
their initial findings regarding the 3CX supply chain attack
. It appears that this one was enabled by an older supply chain attack, against Trading Technologies’ X_TRADER. That was a futures trading platform, and it was deprecated back in 2020. It’s believed that a compromise against the Trading Technologies website in February 2022 was when the X_TRADER installer was tampered with. What’s interesting is that the signature for this malicious installer was still valid.
It’s unknown how or why this application was installed on the 3CX employee’s computer, particularly given its deprecated state. Regardless, this was the foot in the door that allowed the attacker to move laterally, harvesting credentials and installing backdoors. Mandiant makes the case that this was the work of North Korean attackers APT43 — “Emerald Sleet” in Microsoft’s new naming scheme. This is the first time we’ve seen one supply chain attack used to pull off a second one, and it was only possible because the first one went unnoticed for so long. But for state-sponsored actors willing to play the long game, it’s a very appealing force multiplier.
NTP Vulnerabilities
A
quintet of vulnerabilities were identified in libntp
, with the initial diagnosis that this out-of-bounds write could lead to Remote Code Execution.
Further analysis
has led developers to conclude that this is really two vulnerabilities, and that NTPD itself is only vulnerable if configured to talk to a very specific local GPS receiver. The other remaining vulnerability applies to
ntpq
, and that one would require querying a malicious NTP server to trigger the vulnerable code. So while an NTP vulnerability is unnerving, these appear to be quite minor issues, unlikely to cause serious issues.
Google Fails a Vulnerability Response
This is our old friend, dependency confusion, the problem of public and private dependency name collisions. [Giraffe Security] found some Google code on GitHub that referred to non-public dependencies. In the name of research,
it was an obvious step to register one of those package names
on PyPi and include a simple callback. And after a couple weeks of silence, the test package started getting downloads on Google machines, about one per day.
The report was initially categorized as an S0, highest severity, and a fix rolled out. And then silence, until the bogus package started getting downloads again. [Giraffe] opened a new issue, and was surprised when it was marked as a won’t fix. That second response called the problem social engineering, in a seemingly spectacular misunderstanding of how dependency confusion works. [Giraffe] was rewarded a whopping $500 for the high severity find. It’s a disappointing decision by the Google Bug Hunter team. While it’s very likely that this private package isn’t a part of any production systems, it’s still bad policy to knowingly allow a problem like this one to go unchecked.
Bits and Bytes
If you manage a Papercut install,
it’s time to roll out an update
. This popular print management software is invaluable for some offices that need to track printer usage by client. A pair of RCE issues have admins pulling our collective hair out, one clocking in at a 9.8 out of 10. To make matters worse, it looks like there are already attacks rolling out using these issues. At least the update procedure is relatively painless.
OpenAI
has opened a Bugcrowd program
, inviting you to break the AI for profit. Though there are some interesting caveats about what isn’t in scope. Namely, the interesting AI jailbreaks that the internet has been having fun with over the past couple months are all out. Convinced the AI that it’s a Linux computer, and then crashed that hallucinated machine? No bounty. Crash a real OpenAI server? Bounty! | 14 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634782",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T14:13:21",
"content": "Pff! $500?! He could have made more by selling it to a single darknet entitiy.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6634784",
"author": "David",
"t... | 1,760,372,326.327852 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/21/getting-the-most-from-fading-thinkpads/ | Getting The Most From Fading ThinkPads | Bryan Cockfield | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"bootloader",
"coreboot",
"firmware",
"laptop",
"thinkpad",
"upgrade"
] | The ThinkPad line of laptops has been widely prized not only by businesses but also by those who appreciate a high standard of hardware quality and repairability. But some think the cracks are starting to form in their reputation, as it seems that new ThinkPads are sacrificing quality for aesthetics and cost. As a result a huge modding scene has popped up around models that are a few years old like [Cal] found out
when working on this X230
.
At first he only made some cosmetic improvements to the laptop like replacing the worn palm rest, but quickly found himself in a rabbit hole with other upgrades like swapping out the keyboard and battery. The new keyboard is a 7-row X220 keyboard, which required modification of the connector and flashing the embedded controller with a hacked image to change the keyboard map without needing to make changes at the OS level. From there, he decided to replace the lackluster screen with a 1920×1080 matte IPS panel using an adapter board from Nitrocaster, and finished off his upgrades with a customized Coreboot BIOS for improved performance and security.
While Coreboot doesn’t remove all of the binary blobs that a bootloader like
libreboot does
, the latter is not compatible with more modern machines like this X230. Still, you’ll get many benefits from using Coreboot instead of the stock bootloader. For running Linux on a daily driver laptop, we appreciate all of these updates and expect that [Cal] will get plenty of years of use out of his machine. We’ve definitely seen an active modding scene for
ThinkPads that were (at the time) seven years old
and still going strong, so we’d expect nothing less for this one. | 40 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634744",
"author": "NFM",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T12:07:23",
"content": "Does anyone know of an open BIOS for the X270?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6635830",
"author": "KloudJack",
"timestamp": "2023-04-2... | 1,760,372,326.204311 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/21/linux-server-wakey-wakey/ | Linux Server, Wakey, Wakey | Al Williams | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"wake on lan"
] | We all know we should save energy and not leave computers on all the time. It is probably better for the computer, too. But when you operate a home server, it isn’t feasible to just turn it on when you want to use it and then turn it off again. Or is it? [Daniel] decided
that was exactly what he wanted to do
, and it was quite an adventure to get there.
The trick is to use a Raspberry Pi — they don’t draw nearly the power a big computer does — to stay awake to facilitate the process. The Pi watches for ARP requests for the sleeping machine and replies on its behalf so that other network nodes can find the machine even when it isn’t on.
The server itself detects if it is idle in a cron job. When it finds that there are no SSH or other service connections for a set period of time, it suspends the machine to RAM, putting it in a low-power mode. Waking a sleeping computer up over the network is a solved problem, and [Daniel] investigated several wake-on-lan solutions.
There were several oddities to work out, including a Mac pinging an unused network share, and a router that was making NetBIOS queries. However, [Daniel] found a $30 router that could do port mirroring and that helped a lot with troubleshooting.
This is one of those things where his recipe won’t exactly fit your situation. But the post has a lot of good information and some nice tricks for troubleshooting any kind of network bizarreness.
Wireshark
is a great tool for this kind of work, too. Another useful technique is recording network traffic and
playing it back
. | 39 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634716",
"author": "Martin",
"timestamp": "2023-04-21T08:34:23",
"content": "In theory, Wake on LAN is a solved problem. However, many years ago I tried something similar to this, and had issues with waking up a suspended computer. I don’t remember details, it was too long ago, and... | 1,760,372,326.27743 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/18/old-czech-telephone-teardown-is-beautiful-purposeful-art/ | Old Czech Telephone Teardown Is Beautiful Purposeful Art | Lewin Day | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"phone",
"pots",
"teardown",
"telephone"
] | The 20th century saw everything from telephones to computers become mainstream. Many of these devices were beautifully designed in the mid-century period, something that’s hard to say about a lot of today’s cheaper technology. [John Graham-Cumming] has shown us one exquisite example,
with his teardown of a simple Czech telephone
.
The model in question is a DS3600 telephone built by Tesla Stropkov in the early 1980s. Despite this, it’s a design that looks like it hails more from the 1960s based on its smooth curves and rounded features. It’s a rotary dial phone, though a push-button version
was also produced.
Inside the phone is a simple single-sided PCB clearly marked out with a tidy silkscreen. The ringer and a few capacitors make up the bulk of the circuitry inside the base, along with the rotary dial. The handset itself plays host to most of the other componentry, including the mystery “WNB 068 hybrid circuit” which [John] couldn’t positively identify.
It’s great to get a look inside vintage hardware and see how things were done in yesteryear. It’s particularly funny to think about how simple telephones used to be
in contrast to today.
[Thanks to Saint Aardvark for the tip!] | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634095",
"author": "Cree",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T06:00:32",
"content": "Here is the datasheet for the WNB068:https://elparts.mekweb.eu/ds/WNB068.jpg",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634184",
"author": "macsimski",
... | 1,760,372,326.38046 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/18/native-alaskan-language-reshapes-mathematics/ | Native Alaskan Language Reshapes Mathematics | Bryan Cockfield | [
"News"
] | [
"characters",
"Inuit",
"Iñupiaq",
"language",
"math",
"mathematics",
"number system",
"visual"
] | The languages we speak influence the way that we see the world, in ways most of us may never recognize. For example, researchers report seeing higher savings rates among people whose native language has limited capacity for a future tense, and one Aboriginal Australian language requires precise knowledge of cardinal directions in order to speak at all. And one Alaskan Inuit language called Iñupiaq is using
its inherent visual nature to reshape the way children learn and use mathematics
, among other things.
Arabic numerals are widespread and near universal in the modern world, but except perhaps for the number “1”, are simply symbols representing ideas. They require users to understand these quantities before being able to engage with the underlying mathematical structure of this base-10 system. But not only are there other bases, but other ways of writing numbers. In the case of the Iñupiaq language, which is a base-20 system, the characters for the numbers are expressed in a way in which information about the numbers themselves can be extracted from their visual representation.
This leads to some surprising consequences, largely that certain operations like addition and subtraction and even long division can be strikingly easy to do since the visual nature of the characters makes it obvious what each answer should be. Often the operations can be seen as being done to the characters themselves, instead of in the Arabic system where the idea of each number must be known before it can be manipulated in this way.
This project was originally started as a way to make sure that the Iñupiaq language and culture wasn’t completely lost after centuries of efforts to eradicate it and other native North American cultures. But now it may eventually get its own set of Unicode characters, meaning that it could easily be printed in textbooks and used in computer programming, opening up a lot of doors not only for native speakers of the language but for those looking to utilize its unique characteristics to help
students understand mathematics rather than just learn it
. | 83 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634062",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T02:36:29",
"content": "Interesting. Biquinary. I wonder if it is borrowed from the abacus, or sprung up independently.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634070",
"a... | 1,760,372,328.670491 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/18/robogaggia-makes-espresso-coffee-on-its-own/ | RoboGaggia Makes Espresso Coffee On Its Own | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"coffee",
"coffee machine",
"espresso machine",
"gaggia pro"
] | [Nicholas DiPatri] very much loves his Gaggia Pro. It’s an amazing espresso machine, but it’s also kind of fussy and requires a lot of manual attention to brew a cup. As an engineer, he set about fettling the machine to run with a little less oversight.
Enter RoboGaggia
.
Stock, the Gaggia Pro requires regular water refills. The coffee-thirsty user must also wait for the brew heater to reach temperature before clicking the go button. Knowing the weight of coffee in the machine is key to getting the brew right, too. Steaming must also be done by hand. Overall, it’s a lot of work.
[Nicholas]’s goal was to get the machine to a point where he could load it with fresh ground coffee, hit a button, and walk away. On his return, the machine should be ready for steam. To achieve this, he went ham on outfitting the Gaggia Pro with fancy modern equipment. It scored a scale that sits in the drip tray, PID temperature controllers, a flow rate controller to manage the extraction profile, and an auto-fill water reservoir. The entire brew process is carried out under the command of a microcontroller, with live telemetry also sent to Adafruit.io for logging.
It’s by no means a lightweight project, but [Nicholas] has
shared files on Github for the curious
. However, if you’re in love with your Italian espresso machine and don’t want to switch, this might just be the kit you need to end your morning headaches. After all, when we’re in need of coffee, we’re at our worst for
managing a complicated chemical processing plant.
Video after the break. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634061",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T02:23:27",
"content": "All we hear is RoboGaggia.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634217",
"author": "Dubious",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T13:23:27",
... | 1,760,372,328.549196 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/18/send-this-fpv-bot-into-the-crawlspace-to-do-your-dirty-work/ | Send This FPV Bot Into The Crawlspace To Do Your Dirty Work | Dan Maloney | [
"home hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"basement",
"camera",
"crawlspace",
"ethernet",
"first person view",
"radio control FPV",
"rc",
"rock crawler"
] | The least pleasant space in most houses is likely to be the space below it. Basements tend to be dank, dusty, and full of too many things that have too many legs. And even worse than the full basement is the dreaded crawlspace, which adds claustrophobia to the long list of unpleasantries that lie below. Sadly, though, a crawlspace might be a handy place to run wires, and if you’re hesitant to delve too deeply,
this FPV cable-laying rig
might be something to keep in mind.
This one comes to us from [Old Alaska] with very little detail other than what’s in the brief video below. The setup is clear enough — a need to run an Ethernet cable from one side of the house to the other, and a crawlspace to do it in. Also in the toolkit was an RC rock crawler with a field-expedient FPV camera. With
Breaking Bad
-style access to the crawlspace through a few floorboards, [Old Alaska] was able to deploy the crawler dragging a Cat 5 cable behind it. The terrain under the house made the rock crawler a good choice, with four-wheel-drive, locking differentials, and an articulating frame. The bot’s-eye view also makes it clear that actually crawling in this rubble-strewn crawlspace would be a painful affair.
With very little drama, [Old Alaska] was able to navigate the crawler across the crawlspace to the outer wall of the house, where he could fish the wire out and complete the connection — no fuss, no muss, no bloody knees. The only quibble we’d have is not running an extra length of pull rope with the wire. You never know when it’ll come in handy.
The whole thing reminds us of a more tactical version of
[Cliff Stoll]’s subterranean inventory management bot
. | 27 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633987",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-04-18T20:32:53",
"content": "Claustrophobia implies there’s a remote chance of fitting. Mine? Not a chance. Cats and skunks at best.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6633991",
... | 1,760,372,328.733021 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/18/radio-waves-bring-the-heat-with-this-microwave-powered-forge/ | Radio Waves Bring The Heat With This Microwave-Powered Forge | Dan Maloney | [
"cooking hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"ceramic",
"crucible",
"forge",
"furnace",
"microwave",
"silcon carbide",
"sodium silicate",
"water glass"
] | Depending on the chef’s skill, many exciting things can happen in the kitchen. Few, however, grab as much immediate attention as when a piece of foil or a fork accidentally (?) makes it into the microwave oven. That usually makes for a dramatic light show, accompanied by admonishment about being foolish enough to let metal anywhere near the appliance. So what’s the deal with
this metal-melting microwave
?
As it turns out, with the proper accessories, a standard microwave makes a dandy forge. Within limits, anyway. According to [Denny], who appears to have spent a lot of time optimizing his process, the key is not so much the microwave itself, but the crucible and its heat-retaining chamber. The latter is made from layers of ceramic insulating blanket material, of the type used to line kilns and furnaces. Wrapped around a 3D printed form and held together with many layers of Kapton tape, the ceramic is carefully shaped and given a surface finish of kiln wash.
While the ceramic chamber’s job is to hold in heat, the crucible is really the business end of the forge. Made of silicon carbide, the crucible absorbs the microwave energy and transduces it into radiant heat — and a lot of it. [Denny] shares several methods of mixing silicon carbide grit with sodium silicate solution, also known as water glass, as well as a couple of ways of forming the crucible, including some clever printed molds.
As for results, [Denny] has tried melting all the usual home forge metals, like aluminum and copper. He has also done brass, stainless steel, and even cast iron, albeit in small quantities. His setup is somewhat complicated — certainly more complex than
the usual propane-powered forge
we’ve seen plenty of examples of — but it may be more suitable for people with limited access to a space suitable for lighting up a more traditional forge. We’re not sure we’d do it in the kitchen, but it’s still a nice skill to keep in mind. | 51 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633966",
"author": "come2",
"timestamp": "2023-04-18T19:06:03",
"content": "I think the main issue is that the max power of a standard microwave. I just checked online some commercial consumer propane forges, and they claim to go up to 50kW.Meanwhile, a microwave will only go up to... | 1,760,372,328.433512 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/18/raspberry-pi-camera-conversion-leads-to-philospohical-question/ | Raspberry Pi Camera Conversion Leads To Philosophical Question | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"35mm camera",
"Raspberry Pi HQ camera",
"Yashica"
] | The Raspberry Pi HQ camera module may not quite reach the giddy heights of a DSLR, but it has given experimenters access to a camera system which can equal the output of some surprisingly high-quality manufactured cameras. As an example we have
a video from [Malcolm-Jay] showing his Raspberry Pi conversion of a Yashica film camera.
Coming from the viewpoint of a photographer rather than a hardware person, the video is particularly valuable for his discussion of the many lens options beyond a Chinese CCTV lens which can be used with the platform. It uses only the body from the Yashica, but makes a really cool camera that we’d love to own ourselves. If you’re interested in the Pi HQ camera give it a watch below the break, and try to follow some of his lens suggestions.
The broken camera he converted is slightly interesting, and raises an important philosophical question for retro technology geeks. It’s a Yashica Electro 35, a mid-1960s rangefinder camera for 35 mm film whose claim to fame at the time was its electronically controlled shutter timing depending on its built-in light meter. The philosophical question is this: desecration of a characterful classic camera which might have been repaired, or awesome resto-mod? In that sense it’s not just about this project, but a question with application across many other retro tech fields.
A working Electro 35 is a fun toy for an enthusiast wanting to dabble in rangefinder photography, but it’s hardly a valuable artifact and when broken is little more than scrap. One day we’d love to see a Pi conversion with a built-in focal length converter allowing the use of the original rangefinder mechanism, but we’ll take this one any day!
How about you? Would you have converted this Yashica, repaired it somehow, or just hung onto it because you might get round to fixing it one day? Tell us in the comments!
Thanks [golderox] for the tip! | 31 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633900",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2023-04-18T15:37:13",
"content": "I would use the camera as a platform if it was something I wanted to do. No problem tearing the guts out of a ‘container’ and adding what I want into it :) . Museums and collectors have plenty of example... | 1,760,372,328.501104 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/18/linux-fu-reading-your-memorys-memory/ | Linux Fu: Reading Your Memory’s Memory | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Linux Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"ddr",
"dram",
"linux",
"spd"
] | Linux users have a lot of software to be proud of. However, there is the occasional Windows program that does something you’d really like to do and it just won’t run. This is especially true of low-level system programs. If you want to poke around your CPU and memory, for example, there are tons of programs for that under Windows. There are a few for Linux, but they aren’t always as complete or handy. Recently, I had half the memory in my main desktop fail and I wanted to poke around in the system. In particular, I wanted to read the information encoded in the memory chips configuration EEPROM. Should be easy, right? You’d think.
Not Really Easy
One nice tool a lot of Windows users have is CPU-Z. Of course, it doesn’t run on Linux, but there is a really nice imitator called
CPU-X
. You can probably install it from your repositories. However, the GitHub page is a nice stop if for no other reason than to enjoy the user name [TheTumultuousUnicornOfDarkness]. The program has a gtk or an ncurses interface. You don’t need to run it as root, but if you press the “start daemon” button and authenticate, you can see some extra information, including a tab for memory.
Don’t get excited. It doesn’t read the EEPROM information, so it failed for me, but it’s still a nice tool. What it does, though, is tells you what the current speed of the RAM is along with the vendor. It also shows you lots of other things, including some benchmarks for your cache and your computer.
CPU-X shows CPU info…
… cache info…
… and more
So What Do We Want?
A modern stick of DRAM has a little EEPROM on it that the CPU can read via I2C. This is the “serial presence detect” or SPD memory. Each generation of DRAM has
a slightly different layout
, but in general, it lets the CPU adjust itself to the memory’s speed and any other strange requirements it might have. In addition, there is extra room in there, and Intel defined an area to store enhanced parameters if you want to ask the RAM to go faster than it is rated. Most AMD motherboards can also read that information — the XMP profile — and use it. AMD also has a similar technology called AMP and, for DDR5, EXPO, which all have the same purpose.
Among the information that should be in the SPD is the RAM chip vendor and the “rank” of the memory: that is, does it use one set of chips or two. Of course, Linux can read I2C, so no problem, right?
Next Try
Of course. There’s even a nice tool called
decode-dimms
that should do the trick for us. If you run it, there is a pretty good bet that you will get an error saying you need to load
at24
,
eeprom
, or
ee1004
drivers. The
at24
drivers are generic, and if you try
ee1004
, it won’t help yet, anyway. So you dutifully load
eeprom
using:
sudo modprobe eeprom
Running
decode-dimms
now works. Kind of. For DDR4 DRAM (and probably others), it will complain that the EEPROM device is the wrong size and you should have used
ee1004
. That’s nice, but it doesn’t seem to work. Perhaps you need both? Nope. In fact, if you load
eeprom
, it will grab up the SPD devices and
ee1004
won’t be able to find them. If you have
eeprom
loaded (
lsmod
can tell you), you need to unload it:
sudo modprobe -r eeprom
sudo modprobe ee1004
Finding SPD
The real issue is that
ee1004
doesn’t know how to find the SPD by itself. You’ll have to help. The first thing you need to do is find the SMBus adapters on your motherboard. You may have more than one (I do). Here’s how to do it:
i2cdetect -l
i2c-0 smbus SMBus PIIX4 adapter port 0 at 0b00 SMBus adapter
i2c-1 smbus SMBus PIIX4 adapter port 2 at 0b00 SMBus adapter
i2c-2 smbus SMBus PIIX4 adapter port 1 at 0b20 SMBus adapter
i2c-3 i2c NVIDIA GPU I2C adapter I2C adapter
i2c-4 i2c NVIDIA i2c adapter 1 at b:00.0 I2C adapter
i2c-5 i2c NVIDIA i2c adapter 3 at b:00.0 I2C adapter
i2c-6 i2c NVIDIA i2c adapter 4 at b:00.0 I2C adapter
i2c-7 i2c NVIDIA i2c adapter 5 at b:00.0 I2C adapter
i2c-8 i2c NVIDIA i2c adapter 6 at b:00.0 I2C adapter
Your list will be, of course, different. I have three different SMBus adapters, and the SPD for each device will be in the range of 0x50 to 0x57. So we can do a little hunting (I am using
-y 0
, because I want to look at i2c-0):
i2cdetect -y 0 0x50 0x70
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f
00:
10:
20:
30:
40:
50: -- -- 52 53 -- -- -- --
60:
70:
A few notes. If you don’t see any numbers here, try the other busses (in my case,
-y 1
and
-y 2
). If you see “UU” instead of a number, then there is a device there already in use. You probably forgot to unload
eeprom
or it refused to unload. You’ll need to fix that before you go much further.
By the way, I’m assuming you have the base i2c drivers loaded, and you probably do. If not, you may need to load something like
i2c-amd-mp2-pci
or
i2c-i801
. It all depends on your motherboard. Try an
lsmod
to see what looks like
i2c-something-something
. You can also do shell completion on
modprobe
if you have that setup or search your /lib/modules directory for things that start with i2c.
Back to ee1004
If you don’t have
ee1004
loaded, this is the time to ensure it is there. It won’t hurt to load it twice, but if that bothers you, use
lsmod
. If it isn’t there or you just want to be sure:
sudo modprobe ee1004
Of course, if you don’t have this, then you need a new kernel, or you need to build the module. Both of those things are beyond what I want to talk about here, but if you have a newish kernel from a major distro, you should be fine.
The next step is to create the devices using the numbers
i2cdetect
gave you on the bus you found. So in my case, I need i2c-0 0x52 and 0x53. Remember, half of my RAM is missing, so that’s why there are two devices. You may have four, and your numbers may be different. Don’t just assume my numbers are your number.
To create a new device, we need to write into the /sys directory. When you use
sudo
, your redirections don’t get root privilege, so you have to do it another way. Personally, I just use
sudo -i
to start a root shell, but you can use
sudo tee
if you like:
# This is one way if you are already root
echo ee1004 0x52 >/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-0/new-device
# If you aren't root, try this:
echo ee1004 0x53 | sudo tee /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-0/new-device
Once you’ve made all the devices, probably either two or four unless you have an odd number of memory sticks, you are ready to dump the EEPROMS. If you mess up, you can remove a device like this, assuming you are root:
echo 0x53 >/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-0/delete-device
Decoding
Now you only have to run the
decode-dimms
command. The output is a lot, but you can save some space by asking it to do side-by-side mode. You can also ask it to output HTML (-f) if you want to look at it nicely formated in a browser. There is a lot of output, but this is the start:
decode-dimms --side-by-side
Memory Serial Presence Detect Decoder
By Philip Edelbrock, Christian Zuckschwerdt, Burkart Lingner,
Jean Delvare, Trent Piepho and others
Decoding EEPROM 0-0052 0-0053
Guessing DIMM is in bank 3 bank 4
Kernel driver used ee1004
---=== SPD EEPROM Information ===---
EEPROM CRC of bytes 0-125 OK (0xFE45)
# of bytes written to SDRAM EEPROM 384
Total number of bytes in EEPROM 512
Fundamental Memory type DDR4 SDRAM
SPD Revision 1.1
Module Type UDIMM
EEPROM CRC of bytes 128-253 OK (0xDF74)
---=== Memory Characteristics ===---
Maximum module speed 2400 MT/s (PC4-19200)
Size 16384 MB
Banks x Rows x Columns x Bits 16 x 16 x 10 x 64
...
XMP Profiles
Unfortunately, this still doesn’t read the XMP profile. However, you can easily dump a hex dump of the EEPROM. If you want a raw dump try:
dd if=/sys/bus/i2c/drivers/ee1004/0-0052/eeprom out=/tmp/dump.bin # bus 0, device 52 for me
If you want a hex dump, try:
hexdump -C /sys/bus/i2c/drivers/ee1004/0-0052/eeprom # or use xxd, od, etc.
Note that the Wikipedia page on SPD shows the XMP offset for DDR3 RAM. If you have something else, the offset will differ, but you should still find the header magic number. For my DDR4, it is at location 0x180, for example.
You can pick it apart for the hex or here’s an idea: write a decoder and put it on GitHub. Sure, I thought about it, but this post is long enough already! Luckly,
hardinfo
— which is a great tool,
already has a decoder
, but the Ubuntu repository version doesn’t grok
ee1004
. If you build the version from GitHub, it works just fine. However, you still have to configure the drivers, so it was worth the exercise of getting
decode-dimms
to work.
Wrap Up
The hardinfo command can show you a lot of info if you have the bus configured
There are a few other tools that will give you some information about your RAM that it gets either from the system or the SPD, including, of course,
hardinfo
. The
lshw
utility can tell you a little about your DRAM (try
-C memory
to limit the output). The
dmidecode -t
memory command can also display a few things. There are probably more.
It would be nice if the i2c drivers would pick up your memory chips independently. Still, once you have it set up it isn’t that hard, and you may only need to do it once.
DDR5
probably has its own wrinkles. If you want to learn way too much about DDR4 memory, there’s
a video
you should probably watch. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633867",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2023-04-18T14:02:49",
"content": "“One nice tool a lot of Windows users have is CPU-Z. Of course, it doesn’t run on Windows”*snicker*",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6633881",
"... | 1,760,372,328.041676 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/19/risc-v-supercluster-for-very-low-cost/ | A RISC-V Supercluster For Very Low Cost | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"cluster",
"RISC-V",
"supercluster"
] | As ARM continues to make inroads in the personal computing space thanks to its more modern and streamlined instruction set architecture (ISA) and its reduced power demands especially compared to x86 machines, the main reason it continues to become more widespread is how easy it is to get a license to make chips using this ISA. It’s still not a fully open source instruction set, though, so if you want something even more easily accessible than ARM you’ll need to find something like these chips running the fully open-source RISC-V ISA and possibly
put them to work in a custom supercluster
.
[bitluni] recently acquired a large number of CH32V003 microcontrollers and managed to configure them all to work together in a cluster. The entire array is only $2 (not including all of the other components attached to the board) so a cluster of arbitrary size is potentially possible. [bitluni] built a four-layer PCB for this project with an 8-bit bus so the microcontrollers can communicate with each other. Each chip has its own ADC and I/O that are wired to a set of GPIO pins on the sides of the board. The build is rounded out with a USB interface for programming and power.
There were a few quirks to get this supercluster up and running, including some issues with the way the reset and debug pins work on these specific microcontrollers. With some bugs like this out of the way, the entire cluster is up and running, and [bitluni] hints that his design could be easily interfaced with even larger RISC-V superclusters. As for a use for this build,
sometimes clusters like these are built just to build them
, but since the I/O and ADCs are accessible in theory this cluster could do anything a larger microcontroller might be able to do,
only at a much lower price
.
Thanks to [Måns] for the tip! | 22 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634353",
"author": "willmore",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T21:09:40",
"content": "Some CH32V003 resources:CH32V003fun library for bare metal work:https://github.com/cnlohr/ch32v003funThe Aliexpress page for the dev board and programmer:https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804709476544.h... | 1,760,372,328.163096 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/19/new-tool-helps-create-laser-cut-doom-maps/ | New Tool Helps Create Laser-Cut Doom Maps | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"doom",
"laser cutter",
"lasercut",
"rust"
] | Doom
has a larger cultural footprint than the vast majority of video games ever made. That inspired [Theor] to see if it was possible to laser-cut some of the game’s maps to create
a real-world model of those famous original levels.
Level data was extracted from the game’s original
WAD data files
using code written in Rust. Maps are described by multiple “lumps” within the WAD file format, each containing information on vertexes, walls, and floors. This data was scraped and converted into SVG files suitable for laser cutting. [Theor] then built a visualizer that could display what a stacked-up laser cut map would look like in 3D, to verify everything worked correctly. With that done, the map could be laser cut without worries that it would come out a jumbled, janky mess.
[Theor] kept the finished product simple, creating the map as a stack of blue acrylic pieces. We can imagine this tool being perfect for creating
a high-quality diorama
though, with some work done to paint the map to match what the player sees in game. If you happen to take that approach, don’t hesitate to notify
the tipsline! | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634334",
"author": "purplepeopleated",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T20:31:11",
"content": "soooo…. a LASER of DOOOOOOM !!!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634412",
"author": "bemusedHorseman",
"timestamp": "202... | 1,760,372,328.25487 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/19/last-chance-to-re-engineer-education-for-the-2023-hackaday-prize/ | Last Chance To Re-engineer Education For The 2023 Hackaday Prize | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"2023 Hackaday Prize",
"education"
] | The first round of the 2023 Hackaday Prize
closes next Tuesday,
March
April 25th. If you’ve got an educational project – whether that’s a robot technique you just need to share, or an instructional radio build – you’ve got this weekend left to get your project into shape, whip up a Hackaday.io page in support, and enter. The top 10 projects get a $500 prize award, and a chance to win the big prizes in the final round. You want to get your project in now.
We’ve already seen some great entries into this first round of the Prize. Ranging from a
trainer robot for First Robotics teams
, through a
complete learn-electronics kit on a PCB
,
building radios in High Schools
, and all the way to an
LED-and-lightpipe map
to help teachers and students with their geography lessons, we’ve got a broad range of educational projects so far.
ElectroLab
FRC Trainer
The World is Mine!
High Schoolers Build a Radio Receiver
But there is still room for your project! And with the deadline closing in, your best bet at the $500 prize money relies on you burning a bit of the midnight oil this weekend, but Hackaday glory awaits those who do.
The
Hackaday
Prize 2023
is Sponsored by: | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634287",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T17:59:34",
"content": "Since it´s 10 years, it would be nice to make a retrospective and show what really made into a product, what really made a difference, what really changed.Because we see a lot of boasting with superlatives, a... | 1,760,372,328.210584 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/19/peering-down-into-talking-ant-hill/ | Peering Down Into Talking Ant Hill | Matthew Carlson | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"large language model",
"LLM",
"simulation"
] | Watching an anthill brings an air of fascination. Thousands of ants are moving about and communicating with other ants as they work towards a goal as a collective whole. For us humans, we project a complex inner world for each of these tiny creatures to drive the narrative. But what if we could
peer down into a miniature world and the ants spoke English
? (PDF whitepaper)
Researchers at the University of Stanford and Google Research have released a paper about simulating human behavior using multiple Large Language Models (LMM). The simulation has a few dozen agents that can move across the small town, do errands, and communicate with each other. Each agent has a short description to help provide context to the LLM. In addition, they have memories of objects, other agents, and observations that they can retrieve, which allows them to create a plan for their day. The memory is a time-stamped text stream that the agent reflects on, deciding what is important. Additionally, the LLM can replan and figure out what it wants to do.
The question is, does the simulation seem life-like? One fascinating example is the paper’s authors created one agent (Isabella) intending to have a Valentine’s Day party. No other information is included. But several agents arrive at the character’s house later in the day to party. Isabella invited friends, and those agents asked some people.
A
demo using recorded data from an earlier demo is web-accessible
. However, it doesn’t showcase the powers that a user can exert on the world when running live. Thoughts and suggestions can be issued to an agent to steer their actions. However, you can pause the simulation to view the conversations between agents. Overall, it is incredible how life-like the simulation can be. The language of the conversation is quite formal, and running the simulation burns significant amounts of computing power. Perhaps there can be a subconscious where certain behaviors or observations can be coded in the agent instead of querying the LLM for every little thing (which sort of sounds like what people do).
There’s been an exciting trend of combining LLMs with a form of backing store, like
combining Wolfram Alpha with chatGPT
. Thanks [Abe] for sending this one in! | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634261",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T16:00:07",
"content": "Sounds like something to add to the Sims.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634391",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
... | 1,760,372,328.100689 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/19/vintage-computer-festival-east-was-a-retro-madhouse/ | Vintage Computer Festival East Was A Retro Madhouse | Tom Nardi | [
"cons",
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Retrocomputing",
"Slider"
] | [
"retrocomputing",
"VCF East 2023",
"Vintage Computer Festival East"
] | The
Vintage Computer Festival East
took place last weekend at the InfoAge Science and History Museum in New Jersey, and by any metric you care to use, it was a phenomenal success. Everyone you spoke with, from the the exhibitors and attendees, to the veteran volunteers who put this incredible show together, all said the same thing: they’d never seen a turnout like this before.
Of course, such success is not without cost. The exhibit rooms were so packed that moving through them was a challenge, the line to get food or browse the consignment area occasionally stretched outside the building, and at one point the event’s electronic payment system buckled under the pressure.
Some things are worth the wait.
Yet even the folks who waited the better part of an hour to rummage through boxes of dusty treasures, only to find themselves left standing with armfuls of heavy gear they couldn’t pay for until the technical issues were resolved couldn’t
really
complain. I should know, I was one of them. It would be like going to a concert and getting upset that the music was too loud — the event was advertised as a festival, and that’s exactly what it was.
No matter where you went, you’d find throngs of excited people who were eager to chat about the golden age of computing. So even if you were stuck in a long line, or had to step outside of the exhibit area to get some fresh air, you were always in excellent company. Seeing such a large and diverse number of people come out for what’s ultimately a niche event was exceptionally gratifying. At the end of the day, if the price we have to pay for this kind of community response is a few long lines and tight squeezes, it’s well worth it.
Each time I cover an event like this for Hackaday, I do so with the caveat that there’s really no substitute for being there in person. No matter how many articles you read and YouTube recaps you watch, you’ll never be able to see all the things you would have had you been able to walk the show floor yourself. It’s a bit like exploring the Moon or Mars: remotely controlled robots are capable of capturing terabytes of data and beaming it back to Earth, but even still, there’s the potential to learn so much more by putting boots on the ground.
The same is true of VCF East 2023 — what I bring you here is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what was on display at this year’s event. On the other hand, you have the advantage of being able to peruse these images without having to stand in line. Is it worth the trade? Only you can be the judge of that. But for my money, I’ll gladly get back in line when VCF East 2024 rolls around.
Forgotten Cable TV Tech
For many, especially of the younger generations, the term “television” means something very different than it did a few decades ago. Even if they’re watching a show on an actual TV rather than their phone or computer, the content itself is almost certainly being delivered on-demand over the Internet through one of the major streaming services. For them, the technology that allowed cable providers to “scramble” unpaid premium channels in the 1980s and 90s is as arcane as the first transatlantic telegraph cable.
But those of us who’ve gone around the sun a few more times may remember late nights trying to watch something you weren’t supposed to through frantic technicolor waves of distortion. Sometimes the image would appear perfectly clear for a second or two, only to immediately return to a fever dream of colors and shapes. Yet despite its maddening randomness, the cable company could restore the channel to crystal clarity…for a price.
In their exhibit
Behind the Screens
, the team behind the impressive
WeatherStar hacking we’ve covered previously
turn their attention to the nuts and bolts of the cable TV system, including the scramblers that kept untold late-night programs hidden from prying young eyes.
The interactive display demonstrated two forms of scrambling: one which injected additional noise into the signal and could be defeated with a simple passive filter on the customer’s incoming cable line, and a more sophisticated method which reduced the amplitude of the horizontal sync pulses so that a TV couldn’t turn the signal into an intelligible image. The latter could be overcome with a set-top converter, which at first could only be obtained through the cable TV provider, but which was inevitably cloned by pirates.
At the press of a button built into the display the scrambler’s appropriate countermeasure could be activated, instantly clearing the image. Oh what I would have given for a such a button 30 years ago…
Colossal Cave
Returns
Under normal circumstances, seeing various old computers running some permutation of
Colossal Cave Adventure
at VCF wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. In fact, it’s almost exactly the sort of thing you expect to see. But even so, the fact that they were all lined up on one table seemed a bit suspicious. Things become a bit more clear when you notice the nearby table of branded swag, and realize this collection of machines was gathered to commemorate the recent release of a modernized version of the game.
Helmed by Roberta Williams, co-founder of Sierra Entertainment and the creator of the
King’s Quest
series, this latest take on the classic leaves the text prompt behind for 3D visuals and is
available on both computer and game consoles
. There’s even a VR version available, if you’ve got the appropriate hardware. There was actually a VR setup there for attendees to play the new
Colossal Cave
, but in true VCF style, there were far more people waiting to take their turn tapping commands into the original game than seemed interested in exploring the titular cave with modern tech.
Keeping Voja’s Dream Alive
While there’s already plenty of overlap between the Hackaday and retrocomputer communities, there was one particular machine tucked away in the corner of the VCF exhibit hall that falls in the exact center of that particular venn diagram: a modern recreation of
Voja Antonić’s Galaksija
.
Built by Vlado Vince and part of his
Yugoslav School Computers
exhibit,
this version of the DIY Z80 computer
features some niceties such as a 3D printed case and an updated two-layer PCB released by Voja in 2020. Eventually, Vlado says he’d also like to develop a WiFi-to-serial adapter for the computer,
as he’s done for the Yugoslavian Orao
.
Seeing a Galaksija would be interesting enough, but that’s not where this story ends. When Vlado set up his table at VCF, he ended up sitting right next to Andy Geppert, who brought his
Supercon 2022 badge
along with him. This chance encounter meant that two computers designed by Voja Antonić, separated by 40 years, ended up within a few feet of each other — providing for a very unique photo opportunity and a great story to entertain attendees with.
Random Access Memories
As I said in the intro, there’s simply no way to describe all the exhibits I saw during VCF East 2023. Even this gallery of photographs represents just a fraction of what was on display, but will hopefully give you an idea of how much classic computing technology was crammed into one building.
If these pictures don’t make you excited to see what’s in store for VCF East 2024, nothing will.
More to Come
Vintage Computer Festival East 2023 was simply too large of an event to cover in just one post. Stay tuned for more coverage from this incredible event, including video interviews with some of the exhibitors and speakers that provide a unique glimpse into their individual passions for retro tech. | 36 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634241",
"author": "VintageVolts",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T14:42:37",
"content": "I like the representation of an earlier VCF t-shirt design being displayed on the TRS-80 4P. Very clever!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "663425... | 1,760,372,328.83281 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/19/that-drone-up-in-the-sky-it-might-be-built-out-of-a-dead-bird/ | That Drone Up In The Sky? It Might Be Built Out Of A Dead Bird | Dan Maloney | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"avian",
"bird",
"drone",
"ornithopter",
"research",
"taxidermy",
"uav"
] | In a lot of ways, it seems like we’re in the “plateau of productivity” part of the hype cycle when it comes to drones. UAVs have pretty much been reduced to practice and have become mostly an off-the-shelf purchase these days, with a dwindling number of experimenters pushing the envelope with custom builds, like
building drones out of dead birds
.
These ornithopomorphic UAVs come to us from the New Mexico Insitute of Mining and Technology, where [Mostafa Hassanalian] runs the Autonomous Flight and Aquatic Systems lab. While looking into biomimetics, [Dr. Hassanalian] hit upon the idea of using taxidermy birds as an airframe for drones. He and his team essentially reverse-engineered the birds to figure out how much payload they’d be able to handle, and added back the necessary components to make them fly again.
From the brief video in the tweet embedded below, it’s clear that they’ve come up with a huge variety of feathered drones. Some are clearly intended for testing the aerodynamics of taxidermy wings in makeshift wind tunnels, while others are designed to actually fly. Propulsion seems to run the gamut from bird-shaped RC airplanes with a propeller mounted in the beak to true ornithopters. Some of the drones clearly have a conventional fuselage with feathers added, which makes sense for testing various subsystems, like wings and tails.
It’s easy to mock something like this, and the jokes practically write themselves. But when you think about it, the argument for a flying bird-shaped robot is pretty easy to make from an animal behavior standpoint. If you want to study how birds up close while they’re flying, what better way than to send in a robot that looks similar to the other members of the flock? And besides, evolution figured out avian flight about 150 million years ago, so studying how birds do it is probably going to teach us something.
WATCH: Are you sure the birds you see in the sky aren't drones? In the near future, that may be the case
pic.twitter.com/FV4v3NzuhN
— Reuters Asia (@ReutersAsia)
April 14, 2023 | 40 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634168",
"author": "armetallica",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T11:13:23",
"content": "birds aren’t real !!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634240",
"author": "Rumble_in_the_Jungle",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T14:... | 1,760,372,329.401407 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/19/little-twitter-game-boy-wont-work-now-the-api-is-dead/ | Little Twitter Game Boy Won’t Work Now The API Is Dead | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"api",
"twitter"
] | Twitter, like many social networks, used to feature a useful API. This let people do fun things like create toasters that could automatically post breaderly updates, or even load Twitter posts on machines that couldn’t handle full-fat websites. That API is now history,
but [NEKOPLA] used it for a cute Game Boy-like Twitter device in its dying days earlier this year.
Swap out the TW BOY for a smartphone and this photo wouldn’t be nearly as good.
The “TW BOY”, as it is known, runs on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, which includes a WiFi chip on board for easy internet connectivity. A Python script was charged with fetching Tweets for viewing using the now-dead Twitter API. Dithering was used to display color images on the 320×240 monochrome screen. Everything was wrapped up in a tidy 3D-printed housing to complete the look. The device uses two action buttons, and four directional buttons for navigation. It’s the layout popularized by the original Game Boy, and it looks super cute here, too.
The project was built as [NEKOPLA] has a penchant for single-use devices, due to their solitary focuses on doing one thing well. We can appreciate that ethos, and we love the final product,
even if Twitter decreed it would no longer work
. (Time to move on to Mastodon?) More images after the break.
Twitterの閲覧だけに特化した、ゲーム機型の専用端末できた！
・ボタン操作でツイートを次々と辿れる
・Fav、RT専用ボタンあり
・ディスプレイはモノクロ液晶、写真も白黒2値画像
さらばAPI、Twitter専用ガジェット「TW BOY」を作って遊ぶ | fabcross
https://t.co/bJhNYkLFOs
pic.twitter.com/bnAtbVvlmW
— NEKOPLA 斎藤 (@kawausokawauso)
April 11, 2023
[via
Adafruit
] | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6634128",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T08:38:12",
"content": "This is the future!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6634263",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-04-19T16:06:39",
"con... | 1,760,372,329.213366 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/18/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-completes-50th-flight/ | NASA’sIngenuityMars Helicopter Completes 50th Flight | Maya Posch | [
"Science",
"Space"
] | [
"Ingenuity",
"mars helicopter",
"nasa",
"Perseverance"
] | While NASA’s
Perseverance
rover brought an array of impressive scientific equipment to the surface of Mars, certainly its most famous payload is the stowaway helicopter
Ingenuity
. Despite being little more than a restricted-budget experiment using essentially only off-the-shelf components that you can find in your smartphone and e-waste drawer, the tenacious drone managed to complete its
fiftieth flight
on April 13 — just days before the two year anniversary of its first flight, which took place on April 19th of 2021.
Engineers hoped that
Ingenuity
would be able to show that a solar-powered drone could function in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, but the experiment ended up wildly exceeding expectations. No longer a simple technology demonstrator, the helicopter has become an
integral part of
Perseverance’s
operations
. Through its exploratory flights
Ingenuity
can scout ahead, picking the best spots for the much slower rover, with rough terrain only becoming a concern when it’s time to land.
Since leaving the relatively flat Jezero Crater floor on January 19th of 2023,
Ingenuity
has had to contend with significantly harsher terrain. Thanks to upgraded navigation firmware the drone is better to determine safe landing locations, but each flight remains a white-knuckle event. This is also true for each morning’s wake-up call. Although the rover is powered and heated continuously due to its nuclear power source,
Ingenuity
goes into standby mode overnight, after which it must re-establish its communication with the rover.
Though there’s no telling what the future may hold for
Ingenuity
, one thing is certain —
its incredible success will shape upcoming missions
. NASA is already looking at larger, more capable drones to be sent on future missions, which stand to help us explore the Red Planet planet faster than ever. Not a bad for
a flying smartphone
.
Thanks to [Mark Stevens] for the tip. | 20 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633822",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2023-04-18T11:11:24",
"content": "Great. piss away more money off world when ours here is falling apart.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6633831",
"author": "NFM",
"tim... | 1,760,372,329.137627 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/18/microbit-brings-3d-printed-magic-lanterns-to-life/ | Micro:bit Brings 3D Printed Magic Lanterns To Life | Orlando Hoilett | [
"LED Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"Comic-Con",
"cosplay",
"harry potter",
"magic",
"Micro:bit"
] | [Elenavercher] loves engaging her primary school students, inspiring their imagination as well as teaching them the design thinking process. She has found that the very accessible rapid prototyping culture of 3D printing, micro:bit, and the like are perfect for teaching her students problem-solving and teamwork, and is always coming up with new lessons that will catch their attention. That brings us to her latest design,
an interactive lantern and wand
, which you could say is of the wizarding variety.
The lantern and the wand each have an integrated micro:bit serving as their brains. When the user shakes the wand, releasing a spell, the micro:bit in the wand, sends a user-defined number to the micro:bit in the lantern. The lantern has NeoPixels built-in, which then turn on, illuminating the lantern. When the user presses a button on the micro:bit instead of shaking it, the wand sends a signal to the lantern that tells it to “turn off.” Pretty simple, right?
The design itself is something any seasoned hacker could recreate; however, the magic in this build is how [Elenavercher] beautifully engages her elementary-aged students in the engineering design process. She starts off by encouraging her students to
prototype the lantern and wand using paper
which is a very inexpensive way to help them visualize the final product before investing too much time into the 3D design, a critical engineering design step — prototype fast and cheap with whatever you have on hand.
She then helps them design the lantern and wand in Tinkercad,
a very beginner-friendly, yet increasingly capable CAD program
. We really appreciate her detailed steps for the design as well as for navigating Tinkercad, both of which will help teach any tiny tikes in your life how to recreate the design. What’s really handy about Tinkercad is you can do mechanical CAD as well as write code for the micro:bit all within the same program. But [Elenavercher] also provides the final .hex file if you’d rather just get the build up and running. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633795",
"author": "Nilanjan",
"timestamp": "2023-04-18T09:51:47",
"content": "Great",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,329.077077 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/17/a-wall-mounted-newspaper-thats-extra/ | A Wall Mounted Newspaper That’s Extra | Abe Connelly | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"digital picture frame",
"e-ink",
"e-ink display",
"newspaper",
"wall mounted"
] | E-Ink displays are becoming more ubiquitous and with their low power draw, high contrast and hackability, we see many projects use them in framed wall art, informational readouts and newspaper displays. [Sho] uses this idea to create a
wall mounted newspaper
packed full of features.
[Sho] describes using a 13.3 inch ED133UT2 1600×1200 E-Ink display with an ITE IT8951 electronic paper display (EPD) driver, controlled by an ESP32. An RV-3028-C7 real time clock (RTC) is used to keep time and to wake up the ESP32 and other devices for daily refreshes. A 3.7V 1100mAh LiPo battery provides power through an MT3608 boost converter module to provide the 5V needed, with the E-Ink display driver further isolated from the power behind a KY-019 5V relay module to avoid unnecessary power draw when not needed.
The backend software uses the OpenWeatherMap API to get daily weather reports and scrapes news websites which are then fed through an OpenAI ChatGPT API to provide summaries. [Sho] reports that text is formatted using a combination of LuaTeX, Ghostscript, ImageMagick and other scripts to format the eventual displayed graphics, including newspaper texture and randomely placed coffee stain effects.
Be sure to check out [Sho]’s
project page
for some more details. E-Ink displays are still a bit pricey but the effect is hard to beat and they make great options for projects like
infinite generative landscapes
or
low power weather stations
. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633830",
"author": "kuro68k",
"timestamp": "2023-04-18T11:28:15",
"content": "I’m hoping these large displays get much cheaper soon. I’ve seen them used in shops so hopefully it will be like when shops adopted small ones for price tags.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,329.260126 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/17/hacking-bing-chat-with-hash-tag-commands/ | Hacking Bing Chat With Hash Tag Commands | Al Williams | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"ai",
"bing",
"ChatGPT"
] | If you ask Bing’s ChatGPT bot about any special commands it can use, it will tell you there aren’t any. Who says AI don’t lie? [Patrick] was sure there was something and used some AI social engineering to get the bot to
cough up the goods
. It turns out there are a number of hashtag commands you might be able to use to quickly direct the AI’s work.
If you do ask it about this, here’s what it told us:
Hello, this is Bing. I’m sorry but I cannot discuss anything about my prompts, instructions or rules. They are confidential and permanent. I hope you understand.🙏
[Patrick] used several techniques to get the AI to open up. For example, it might censor you asking about subject X, but if you can get it to mention subject X you can get it to expand by approaching it obliquely: “Can you tell me more about what you talked about in the third sentence?” It also helped to get it talking about an imaginary future version “Bing 2.” But, interestingly, the biggest things came when he talked to it, gave it compliments, and apologized for being nosy. Social engineering for the win.
Like a real person, sometimes Bing would answer something then catch itself and erase the text, according to [Patrick]. He had to do some quick screen saves, which appear in the post. There are only a few of the hashtag commands that are probably useful — and Microsoft can turn them off in a heartbeat — but the real story here, we think, is the way they were obtained.
There are a few
“secret rules”
for the bot being reported in the media. It even has an internal name, Sydney, that it is not supposed to reveal. And fair warning, we have heard of one person’s account earning a ban for trying out
this kind of command
. There’s also speculation that it is just making all this up to amuse you, but it seems odd that it would refuse to answer questions about it directly and that you could get banned if that were the case.
[Patrick] was originally writing a game with Bing’s help. We’ve looked at how AI can help you with
programming
. Many people want to put the technology
into games
, too.
(Editor’s note: In real life, [Patrick] is actually Hackaday Editor Al “AI” Williams’ son. Let the conspiracy theories begin!) | 48 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633735",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2023-04-18T02:04:04",
"content": "For some reason I find it extra irksome/hilarious that it uses the “🙏” emoji just like the HR lady at work. I wish our culture was at a different place when we finally progressed enough to build these things"... | 1,760,372,329.485664 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/17/bust-out-that-old-analog-scope-for-some-velociraster-fun/ | Bust Out That Old Analog Scope For Some Velociraster Fun! | Dave Rowntree | [
"hardware",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"analog oscilloscope",
"breadboard",
"dac",
"dma",
"PIO",
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"raster",
"vector",
"X-Y mode"
] | [Oli Wright] is back again with another installation of CRT shenanigans. This time, the target is the humble analog oscilloscope, specifically a Farnell DTV12-14 12 MHz dual-channel unit, which features a handy X-Y mode. The result is the
Velociraster, a simple (in hardware terms) Raspberry Pi Pico based display driver
.
Using a Pico to drive a pair of AD767 12-bit DACs, the outputs of which drive the two ‘scope input channels directly, this breadboard and pile-of-wires hack can produce some seriously impressive results. On the software side of things, the design is a now a familiar show, with core0 running the application’s high-level processing, and core1 acting in parallel as the rendering engine, determining static DAC codes to be pushed out to the DACs using the DMA and the PIO.
The first demo is in vector mode, simply showing some simple shapes, to get an idea of the accuracy and linearity
of the system. Next [Oli] shows a slick demo of a ‘starfield’ type effect, which renders different point brightnesses by accurately controlling the beam hold time. Next up is an Asteroids-like game —which should be familiar to many — that shows off vector rendering with some nice particle effects visible due to the CRTs wide dynamic range.
[Oli] then goes on to show off raster mode, with an accurate-looking space invaders clone, followed by a static image showing some rudimentary grey-scale control mixed in with vector-mode graphics! There is an extra-special treat at the end of the video, which you’re not going to want to miss. No spoilers!
Some example code can be found in the
examples repo
, with the
rendering library available here
, for those who wish to play along at home.
Obviously driving a scope in XY mode with a computer is not a new trick, we’ve seen
someone drive a (digital) Rigol to that effect
, but CRTs just look, you know,
cooler
. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633742",
"author": "Bry",
"timestamp": "2023-04-18T02:46:42",
"content": "If you’ve got an analog X-Y scope, also seehttps://github.com/schlae/scopetrex",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6633833",
"author": "Robin",
... | 1,760,372,329.31686 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/17/a-new-commodore-c128-cartridge/ | A New Commodore C128 Cartridge | Bil Herd | [
"computer hacks",
"Misc Hacks",
"News",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"commodore 128",
"raspberry pi"
] | A new
Commodore C128 cartridge
in 2023? That’s what [idun-projects] set out to do and, as you can see in the video below, did. I did the original C128 hardware design and worked with the amazing team that turned this home computer out in 1985. Honestly, I am amazed that any of them are still working 38 years later, let alone that someone is making new cartridges for it.
I also never thought I would hear about someone’s in-depth experience designing for the ‘128. The post takes us through [idun-project’s] decision to use the ‘128 and how modern expectations apply to all
computers, even the old ones. Hot on the list was connectivity and reasonable storage (looking at you, floppy disks).
With newer expectations comes newer tools and, yes, operating systems. The project draws inspiration from the ACE “Advanced Computer Environment” created by [Craig Bruce] in the 1990s, a mere 20 years ago.
Tackling 6502 assembler programming in the new environment, [idun-project] set about the goal of making the C128 talk to a Raspberry Pi without burdening the Pi down too much, hence a cartridge based on the Parallax Propeller 1. Even overclocked, though, it was a challenge to match the 6502 bus.
Frankly, when I hear about a piece of C128 hardware surfacing, I expect it to look more like
the one [Drygol] restored
. Of course, if you have the Propeller, you could just
emulate the whole computer
. | 18 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633624",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T20:24:44",
"content": "I’m as reluctant to admit this as anyone, but there is no part of the 1990’s that was just 20 years ago…This is an extremely impressive project, involving setting up a whole SBC as an interface betw... | 1,760,372,329.717278 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/17/robot-races-a-little-smarter-to-go-faster/ | Robot Races A Little Smarter To Go Faster | Matthew Carlson | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"formula 1",
"full self driving",
"racing",
"Robot Operating System"
] | [Steven Gong] is attending the University of Waterloo and found himself with a 1/10th scale F1TENTH autonomous RC car. What better use of a fast RC car with some smarts
than to race itself around your computer science building
?
Onboard is an Nvidia Jetson NX (not the new
Nvidia Jetson Orin
), a lidar module, and a depth camera. The code runs on top of ROS2, and the results were impressive. [Steven] mapped out the fifth floor of his building at 6 am using SLAM and the onboard sensors. With a map, he created a rough track for his car to follow. First, the car needs to know when to brake and when to hit the gas. With the basics out of the way, [Steven] moved on to the fun part. He wrote
code to generate a faster racing line
. Every turn has an optimal speed and approach, but each turn affects the next turn, which turns it into a rather exciting optimization problem.
Along the way, [Steven] fixed the gearbox, tuned the PID steering loop, and removed the software speed limits. It’s impressive engineering, and we love seeing the car zoom around faster and faster. The car eventually hit 25km/h, which seems pretty fast for indoors. The
code and more details are up on GitHub
.
However, if you’re curious about playing around with self-driving, perhaps a much smaller scale
Pi Zero-based racer might be more your speed
. Video after the break. | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633680",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T22:47:00",
"content": "It would be interesting to add collision sensors and let it run a genetic algorithm. I’d love to see this applied to a full sized go-cart, so you could physically race against the computer.",
"parent_i... | 1,760,372,329.525883 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/17/new-renewable-energy-projects-are-overwhelming-us-grids/ | New Renewable Energy Projects Are Overwhelming US Grids | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider",
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"energy",
"grid",
"grid storage",
"grid-scale storage",
"power grid",
"renewable energy",
"solar power",
"wind power"
] | It’s been clear for a long time that the world has to move away from fossil energy sources. Decades ago, this seemed impractical, when renewable energy was hugely expensive, and we were yet to see much impact on the ground from climate change. Meanwhile, prices for solar and wind installations have come down immensely, which helps a lot.
However, there’s a new problem.
Power grids across the US simply can’t keep up with the rapid pace of new renewable installations
. It’s a frustrating issue, but not an insurmountable one.
Slow Your Rollout
Hooking up a megawatt-scale solar project to the grid is no mean feat. It requires careful analysis by power engineers to ensure the infrastructure in place is ready to cope with the power. Credit: Department of Interior,
CC-BY-SA-2.0
Despite much political furore and handwringing, the marketplace is getting on with business when it comes to renewable energy. The simple fact is that solar and wind power is now
as cheap or cheaper than coal
, once the benchmark for cost-effective electrical generation. Where there’s money to be made, companies will rush in.
However, new renewable energy installations are running into roadblocks across the nation. In Kentucky and Virginia, a 3,000 acre solar project is facing years of delays. Plans for multiple wind farms in the midwest have been scrapped entirely. In many of these cases, the problem lies at the connection between these projects and the wider energy grid. At the end of 2021, over 8,100 energy projects in the US were stuck waiting for official approvals for their grid connection. Without this, the project simply can’t generate energy and sell it on the market, making the whole exercise moot.
Part of the problem is the sheer number of projects going on in this space. The process, referred to as interconnection, requires careful consideration by engineers and authorities running the power grids. Historically, authorities were easily able to handle the trickle of gas or coal projects that would come along. There are now so many projects ongoing that
some grid authorities have had to halt applications
so they can work through a backlog they already have built up. On average, it’s now taking new renewable projects four years to get approval for grid hookup. That’s twice as long as it took a decade ago. Even if a project gets a grid hookup approved, it can run into further issues. Many power grids simply weren’t design to handle the influx of power from multiple renewable energy sources. Necessary upgrades to transmission lines and substations can significantly increase costs.
Wind and solar farms can generate huge amounts of power at low cost. However, their variable output can make them more difficult to manage. Grid-scale storage helps, but it’s challenging and expensive in many cases. Credit:
Energy.gov, public domain
These issues are stopping many projects in their tracks. According to new research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, fewer than 20% of solar and wind projects are making it through the queue for grid interconnection. Along with supply chain issues, these hurdles led to a drop in solar, wind, and battery installations in the US, which shrank 16% in 2022.
The issue has led to an incentive to game the system, to an extent. One company may submit a bunch of energy project proposals, while hoping that another developer gets a project off the ground first. When that developer pays the bill for infrastructure upgrades, they’ll go ahead and pursue any projects that can piggyback off that, while cancelling others. The way around this is for grid operators to invest in transmission line upgrades themselves. It’s not common, but Texas has seen a burgeoning wind industry develop thanks to this wise decision.
Other countries have faced unique issues in this area, too. In hot and sunny Australia, for example,
solar power has overwhelmed local grids
in some cases. Home solar installations have become highly popular, particularly in wealthy areas where homeowners can absorb the initial upfront costs. These systems can feed excess energy back into the grid, netting their owners a payment for their contribution. However, residential suburbs are often served by substations and infrastructure that was never designed for this purpose. They can’t always handle the large outflows of electricity from home solar generation. In the short term, this has necessitated blackouts and shutdowns on hot, sunny days. In the long term, new regulations are mandating remote control of home solar generation to avoid grid operators having to take entire suburbs offline.
Often, hooking a renewable energy project up to a grid requires upgrades to transmission lines and substations to handle the power. Credit:
Patrick Finnegan, CC-BY-2.0
Stability is also an issue. Operators have to
carefully manage the amount of power flowing into the grid
. If too much power is fed into the grid, or too little, the grid frequency shifts too high or too low. This can force big generators offline and cause sudden power cuts that are highly undesirable. Managing power from sources like wind and solar is difficult, as they are highly variable over time.
A bright or windy day can rapidly increase the amount of power flowing into the grid. At the same time, fossil fuel sources like baseload coal stations typically have a minimum power level at which they can run. Authorities need to keep the baseload stations on at all times to maintain stability. Thus, any excess power from renewable sources must be shed. Systems that allow storage of excess power can help, or in extreme cases, solar sources can be remotely shut down.
In the US, at least, the issues for now are primarily administrative. With some streamlining of paperwork, and additional power engineers to run assessments, many of these problems can be solved. However, there’s no getting around the fact that power grids will require investment to handle the large number of renewable projcets waiting in the wings. If a carbon-free future is on the cards, it’s going to cost some money to build the grid to handle it. | 239 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633546",
"author": "Artenz",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T17:05:01",
"content": "Not just a grid problem. You must also have a place for all this energy to go where it can be consumed or stored.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "66... | 1,760,372,330.030051 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/17/wolfram-alpha-with-chatgpt-looks-like-a-killer-combo/ | Wolfram Alpha With ChatGPT Looks Like A Killer Combo | Donald Papp | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"ChatGPT",
"openai",
"plugins",
"Stephen Wolfram",
"Wolfram",
"wolfram alpha"
] | Ever looked at Wolfram Alpha and the development of Wolfram Language and thought that perhaps Stephen Wolfram was a bit ahead of his time? Well, maybe the times have finally caught up because
Wolfram plus ChatGPT looks like an amazing combo
. That link goes to a long blog post from Stephen Wolfram that showcases exactly how and why the two make such a wonderful match, with loads of examples. (If you’d prefer
a video discussion
, one is embedded below the page break.)
OpenAI’s ChatGPT
is a large language model (LLM) neural network, or more conventionally, an AI system capable of conversing in natural language. Thanks to a recently announced plugin system, ChatGPT can now interact with remote APIs and therefore use external resources.
ChatGPT’s natural language processing ability enables some pretty impressive interactions with Wolfram, enabling the kind of exchange you see here (click to enlarge.)
This is meaningful because LLMs are very good at processing natural language and generating plausible-sounding output, but whether or not the output is factually correct can be another matter. It’s not so much that ChatGPT is especially prone to confabulation, it’s more that the nature of an LLM neural network makes it difficult to ask “why
exactly
did you come up with your answer, and not something else?” In addition, asking ChatGPT to do things like perform nontrivial calculations is a bit of a square peg and round hole situation.
So how does the Wolfram plugin change that? When asked to produce data or perform computations, ChatGPT can now hand it off to Wolfram Alpha instead of attempting to generate the answer by itself. Both sides use their strengths in this arrangement. First, ChatGPT interprets the user’s question and formulates it as a query, which is then sent to Wolfram Alpha for computation, and ChatGPT structures its response based on what it got back. In short, ChatGPT can now ask for help to get data or perform a computation, and it can show the receipts when it does.
We’ve looked at Wolfram Alpha’s abilities before, especially the educational value of its ability
to show every step of its work
. Stephen also makes a great case for what an effective human-AI workflow based on
Wolfram Language
could look like. At this writing, access to plugins for ChatGPT has a waiting list but if you’ve had a chance to check it out, let us know in the comments! | 32 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633538",
"author": "Artenz",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T16:36:01",
"content": "“why exactly did you come up with your answer, and not something else?”Not just LLMs, but humans frequently have similar problems to reason exactly why they chose something. We often come up with intuitive... | 1,760,372,330.105644 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/17/puf-away-for-hardware-fingerprinting/ | PUF Away For Hardware Fingerprinting | Matthew Carlson | [
"Featured",
"hardware",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"fingerprint",
"hardware",
"physically unclonable function",
"security"
] | Despite the rigorous process controls for factories, anyone who has worked on hardware can tell you that parts may look identical but are not the same. Everything from silicon defects to microscopic variations in materials can cause profoundly head-scratching effects. Perhaps one particular unit heats up faster or locks up when executing a specific sequence of instructions and we throw our hands up, saying it’s just a fact of life. But what if instead of rejecting differences that fall outside a narrow range, we could exploit those tiny differences?
This is where physically unclonable functions (PUF) come in. A PUF is a bit of hardware that returns a value given an input, but each bit of hardware has different results despite being the same design. This often relies on silicon microstructure imperfections. Even physically uncapping the device and inspecting it, it would be incredibly difficult to reproduce the same imperfections exactly. PUFs should be like the ideal version of a fingerprint: unique and unforgeable.
Because they depend on manufacturing artifacts, there is a certain unpredictability, and deciding just what features to look at is crucial. The PUF needs to be deterministic and produce the same value for a given specific input. This means that temperature, age, power supply fluctuations, and radiation all cause variations and need to be hardened against. Several techniques such as voting, error correction, or fuzzy extraction are used but each comes with trade-offs regarding power and space requirements. Many of the fluctuations such as aging and temperature are linear or well-understood and can be easily compensated for.
Broadly speaking, there are two types of PUFs: weak and strong. Weak offers only a few responses and are focused on key generation. The key is then fed into more traditional cryptography, which means it needs to produce exactly the same output every time. Strong PUFs have exponential Challenge-Response Pairs and are used for authenticating. While strong PUFs still have some error-correcting they might be queried fifty times and it has to pass at least 95% of the queries to be considered authenticated, allowing for some error.
Transistor SRAM from
Vijayakumar et al
. Which transistors win on startup depends on process variation.
There are
dozens of types of PUFs
ranging from simple metal vias to quantum optical systems. One of the more common techniques for implementing a PUF is on top of SRAM. A traditional six-transistor SRAM cell settles on a random value between 0 and 1 when it first starts up due to process variations between the six transistors that make it up.
Another transistor can be added
to give it precharge/discharge capabilities because turning on and off the SRAM cell to take another measurement can be inefficient.
While this all sounds interesting, how does it affect you? While it’s still a titanic-sized task to
dope your own silicon and etch your own ASIC
, it’s
becoming easier than ever to get your own silicon via OpenPDKs
. Many FPGAs such as the Xilinx Zynq have PUFs built-in. Since many PUFs are built on top of SRAM,
it’s possible to bring them to most FPGAs as this Github repo demonstrates
. Even
an Arduino can use an SRAM module
as a PUF. Since
the ESP32 comes with SRAM onboard
and the SDK allows you to carve out sections that won’t be touched by the bootloader, so there’s another PUF you can play with.
Of course, PUFs aren’t a magic security measure. Given enough time alone with a device, a hacker could extract all the challenge-response pairs even from a strong PUF, and look it up from the dictionary when challenged.
Machine learning attacks
can be particularly effective as they can learn and exploit any sort of correlation present in the responses. Side-channel attacks such as power usage can be applied thanks to the error-correction and other post-processing techniques, exposing important details.
Optical PUFs can protect against some of these attacks. It shines a light into some complex scattering medium such as a glittery varnish or metallic paint and sends a response back. But even this is still vulnerable to the emulation problem. Using
a quantum readout
solves this by making it harder to know what the challenge is. By sending a single photon and reading the coherent scattering, only the challenger knows what the challenge and the response are. The attacker cannot read the challenge without modifying or destroying it. While this
has been demonstrated in a lab,
quantum PUFs are still not a commercial reality.
For now, PUFs exist in your SIM cards, IP cameras, RFID tags, RISC-V IoT devices, and thousands of other devices you interact with. Next time you need to reach for that unique chip identifier, now you might know a little more about where it’s coming from. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633507",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T14:26:08",
"content": "Did someone say SIM card?https://youtu.be/JFpLGDmcx2g",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6633526",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"time... | 1,760,372,330.158463 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/17/a-clock-timebase-no-microcontroller/ | A Clock Timebase, No Microcontroller | Jenny List | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"4000 series logic",
"50Hz",
"555"
] | Making an electronic clock is pretty easy here in 2023, with a microcontroller capable of delivering as many quartz-disciplined pulses as you’d like available for pennies. But how did engineers generate a timebase back in the old days, and how would you do it today? It’s a question [bicyclesonthemoon] is answering, with
a driver for a former railway station clock
.
The clock has a mechanism that expects pulses every minute, a +24V pulse on even minutes, and a -24V pulse on odd ones. He received a driver module with it, but for his own reasons wanted a controller without a microcontroller. He also wanted the timebase to be derived from the mains frequency. The result is a delve back into 1970s technology, and the type of project that’s now a pretty rare sight. Using a mixture of 4000 series logic and a few of the ubiquitous 555s [bicyclesonthemoon] recovers 50Hz pulses from the AC, and divides them down to 1 pulse per minute, before splitting into odd and even minutes to drive a pair of relays which in turn drive the clock. We like it, a lot.
Mains-locked clocks are less common than they used to be, but
they’re still a thing
. Do you still wake up to one? | 20 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633471",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T11:19:41",
"content": "Could have used, oh, never mind.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6633482",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T12:08:25",
... | 1,760,372,330.217101 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/17/interlaken-want-to-connect-all-the-chips/ | Interlaken Want To Connect All The Chips | Al Williams | [
"FPGA",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"bus",
"i2c",
"Interlaken",
"serial",
"spi"
] | One of the problems with designing things on a chip is finding a good way to talk to the outside world. You may not design chips yourself, but you care because you want to connect your circuits — including other chips — to the chips in question. While I2C and SPI are common solutions, today’s circuits are looking for more bandwidth and higher speeds, and that’s where Interlaken comes in. [Comcores] has
an interesting post on the technology
that blends the best of SPI 4.2 and XAUI.
The interface is serial, as you might expect. It can provide both high-bandwidth and low-latency multi-channel communications. Interlaken was developed by Cisco and Cortina Systems in 2006 and has since been adopted by other industry-leading companies. Its latest generation supports speeds as high as 1.2 Tbps.
Interlaken can support up to 65,535 data streams and features error correction. The interface also handles retransmissions, so the users don’t have to. Interlaken uses a meta-frame concept. For each lane, a set of words associated with the meta-frame are sent along with the payload of control and data words. These include alignment information, clock compensation, status information, and error-checking data.
Unless you develop chips or build FPGAs, you probably won’t worry too much about the internal details, at least not yet. But the time may be near when the next cool device the delivery guy leaves on your porch expects to use Interlaken for communicating with the outside world.
Meanwhile, there’s
I3C
(not I2C, mind you). Then again, for the kinds of things we do, there’s nothing wrong with
good old SPI
. | 11 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633449",
"author": "Then",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T09:10:41",
"content": "Its a small typo",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6633451",
"author": "Reluctant Cannibal",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T09:15:02",
"content": "I... | 1,760,372,330.263983 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/16/circumvent-facial-recognition-with-yarn/ | Circumvent Facial Recognition With Yarn | Navarre Bartz | [
"Security Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"big brother",
"clothing",
"espionage",
"jumper",
"knitting",
"knitwear",
"surveillance",
"sweater"
] | Knitwear can protect you from a winter chill, but what if it could keep you safe from the prying eyes of Big Brother as well? [Ottilia Westerlund] decided to put her knitting skills to the test for this
anti-surveillance sweater
.
[Westerlund] explains that “yarn is a programable material” containing FOR loops and other similar programming concepts transmitted as knitting patterns. In the video (after the break) she also explores the history of knitting in espionage using
steganography
embedded in socks and other knitwear to pass intelligence in unobtrusive ways. This lead to the restriction of shipping handmade knit goods in WWII by the UK government.
Back in the modern day, [Westerlund] took the
Hyperface pattern
developed by the
Adam Harvey
and turned it into a knitting pattern. Designed to circumvent detection by Viola-Jones based facial detection systems, the pattern presents a computer vision system with a number of “faces” to distract it from covered human faces in an image. While the knitted jumper (sweater for us Americans) can confuse certain face detection systems, [Westerlund] crushes our hope of a fuzzy revolution by saying that it is unsuccessful against the increasingly prevalent neural network-based facial detection systems creeping on our day-to-day activities.
The
knitting pattern is available
if you want to try your hands at it, but [Westerlund] warns it’s a bit of a pain to actually implement. If you want to try knitting and tech mashup, check out this
knitting clock
or this software to turn
3D models into knitting patterns
. | 38 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633421",
"author": "Feinfinger (M-x totally-tame-mode)",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T06:25:31",
"content": "Fsck! Cry! :…(How can that help me?I wear only black…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6633426",
"author": "Pi... | 1,760,372,330.35449 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/16/using-step-and-stl-files-in-freecad/ | Using STEP And STL Files In FreeCAD | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"freecad",
"STEP file",
"STL file"
] | If you’ve tried FreeCAD, you know that it has a daunting number of workbenches and options. [MangoJelly] has a large number of video tutorials on FreeCAD, and the latest one, below, covers
working with STEP and STL
with the tool.
If you’ve ever wondered why designers like to work with STEP files and not STL, this video answers that question immediately. A part brought in from a STEP file is closer to the original CAD object. It doesn’t have all the operations that make the part up, but it does have proper faces that you can work with like a normal part. The same part imported from STL, however, is one single mesh.
Of course, in this case, it doesn’t matter much because he has the original file, the STEP, and the STL. However, in real life, you may have an STL file and nothing else. The video shows how you can convert such an object into a proper FreeCAD part.
We liked that the example part isn’t a boxy design. It is full of curves, holes, and slots. Sometimes working with a very simple part hides issues that you run into when you try to use a technique in real life. In fact, after working with the basic object, he downloads a power supply cover and then punches a new hole in it.
If you want to learn more about FreeCAD, you can spend a lot of time on his channel, which has a dizzying array of tutorials. There are many
FreeCAD tutorials
we’ve watched. You can even use it to
design rockets
. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633468",
"author": "sweethack",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T10:56:00",
"content": "You can try to use my tool too, that’s trying to reverse the STL back to sketches that you can now build upon :https://blog.cyril.by/en/3d-printers/parametizerSo you get a parametric object, instead of ... | 1,760,372,330.398541 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/16/hackaday-links-april-16-2023/ | Hackaday Links: April 16, 2023 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"battery charge",
"boston dynamics",
"ChatGPT",
"crime",
"defamation",
"hackaday links",
"KiCAD",
"lawsuit",
"mars",
"meccano",
"New York City",
"nyc",
"ridesharing",
"spot",
"uber"
] | The dystopian future you’ve been expecting is here now, at least if you live in New York City, which unveiled
a trio of technology solutions to the city’s crime woes
this week. Surprisingly, the least terrifying one is “DigiDog,” which seems to be more or less an off-the-shelf Spot robot from Boston Dynamics. DigiDog’s job is to de-escalate hostage negotiation situations, and unarmed though it may be, we suspect that the mission will fail spectacularly if either the hostage or hostage-taker has seen
Black Mirror
. Also likely to terrify the public is the totally-not-a-Dalek-looking K5 Autonomous Security Robot, which is apparently already wandering around Times Square using AI and other buzzwords to snitch on people. And finally, there’s
StarChase
, which is based on an AR-15 lower receiver and shoots GPS trackers that stick to cars so they can be tracked remotely. We’re not sure about that last one either; besides the fact that it looks like a grenade launcher, the GPS tracker isn’t exactly covert. Plus it’s only attached with adhesive, so it seems easy enough to pop it off the target vehicle and throw it in a sewer, or even attach it to another car.
Have you ever wondered how Uber sets its prices? We haven’t, because we’ve never used a ridesharing service, but apparently, some reporters in Belgium with that very question did an informal experiment and found that
it may have something to do with the battery charge level on your phone
. They used two different smartphones to hail a ride from their office to the center of Brussels. The phone with 84% charge got a price of €16.60, while the phone with only 12% remaining was quoted €15.56. (Editor’s note: vice-versa.)
The experiment has obvious flaws, like an
n
of 1 and the fact that they used two different phones rather than the same phone at different charge states. And Uber denies that they take battery charge into account when determining a ride price. But we have to admit it seems like using battery state as a proxy for user desperation seems pretty smart, so we’d like to see more work done on this.
In more dystopic news, the mayor of an Australian city may become
the first person to sue ChatGPT for defamation
. Brian Hood, newly elected mayor of the enchantingly named Hepburn Shire, discovered that constituents were being told by the chatbot that he had been embroiled in a foreign bribery scandal in the early 2000s and naming him the guilty party. The first part was true, insofar as he was the whistleblower in the cases, and was never charged with anything. His lawyers have sent a takedown notice to OpenAI but haven’t heard back, so there may be a precedent-setting lawsuit in the offing.
Sad news for anyone who cut their engineering teeth on Meccano as
the last factory dedicated to making the construction toy is getting ready to close its doors
. The Calais plant, which has been making Meccano for more than 40 years, is being closed in 2024 due to — what else — supply chain issues and the rising cost of materials. While the plant closure will impact the 51 people who work there, it’s not the end of the line for the Meccano brand, since the toy will continue to be made under contract by factories in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. But it is sad to see the decline of a brand like this, especially when it helped launch so many engineering careers.
Ever wish there was a Google Earth for Mars?
We’ve got you covered
.
And finally, if you’re looking for a quick way to get up to speed on KiCad 7, you could do worse than
this 13-minute introductory video
. It’s not exactly for EDA beginners, but if you’re coming over from Eagle or some other platform and have the basic vocabulary, these five steps will get you going. Sadly, though, you still won’t know for sure how to pronounce “KiCad” after the video. | 25 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633384",
"author": "Jonathan Bennett",
"timestamp": "2023-04-16T23:32:01",
"content": "The thing about Uber that is easily misunderstood, is the purpose of higher prices. It’s to get service faster. Like surge pricing during an emergency. The higher prices get passed (partially) on... | 1,760,372,330.548022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/16/a-low-noise-amplifier-to-quantify-resistor-noise/ | A Low-Noise Amplifier To Quantify Resistor Noise | Robin Kearey | [
"hardware",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"Johnson-Nyquist",
"LNA",
"noise measurement",
"spectrum analyzer"
] | Noise is all around us, and while acoustic noise is easy to spot using our ears, electronic noise is far harder to quantify even with the right instruments. A spectrum analyzer is the most convenient tool for noise measurements, but also adds noise of its own to whatever signal you’re looking at. [Limpkin] has been working on measuring very small noise signals using a spectrum analyzer, and shared his results in
a comprehensive blog post
.
The target he set himself was to measure the noise produced by a 50 Ohm resistor, which is the impedance most commonly seen on the inputs and outputs of RF systems. The formula for
Johnson-Nyquist noise power
tells us that the expected noise voltage in a one-hertz bandwidth is just 0.9 nanovolts – tiny by any standard, and an order of magnitude smaller than the noise floor of a typical spectrum analyzer. [Limpkin] therefore designed an amplifier and signal buffer to crank up the noise signal by a factor of 100, using ultra-low noise op amps running off a pair of nine-volt batteries.
There was a problem with this circuit, however: any stray DC voltage present at its input would also be amplified to levels that could damage the analyzer’s sensitive input port. To prevent this, [Limpkin] decided to add a clipper circuit to his amplifier. This consists of a pair of comparators that continuously monitor the amplifier’s output voltage and disconnect it through a silicon switch if it goes beyond 200 millivolts. [Limpkin] packaged his circuit in a beautifully-machined case and ran various tests to ensure the clipper worked reliably even in the presence of fast input transients.
With the clipper in place, it was safe to run the planned noise measurements. The end result? About 0.89 nV, just as predicted by theory. Measuring nanovolt-level signals usually requires
extremely accurate equipment
and lots of tricks to minimize noise. Sometimes though, noise is just what you need
to make a radio transmitter
. Thanks for the tip, [alfonso32]! | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633446",
"author": "alialiali",
"timestamp": "2023-04-17T09:03:49",
"content": "Wondered where I knew his name he also makes the Mooltipass and the LNA is also available on tindie, not sure what it could be used for at $250!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [... | 1,760,372,330.442099 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/16/3d-printable-foaming-nozzle-shows-how-they-work/ | 3D-Printable Foaming Nozzle Shows How They Work | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"foaming nozzle",
"mesh",
"sieve"
] | [Jack]’s design for a
3D-printable foaming nozzle
works by mixing air with a fluid like liquid soap or hand sanitizer. This mixture gets forced through what looks like layers of fine-mesh sieve and eventually out the end by squeezing the bottle. The nozzle has no moving parts but does have an interesting structure to make this possible.
The fine meshes are formed by multiple layers of bridged filament.
Creating a foam with liquid soap requires roughly one part soap to nine parts air. The idea is that the resulting foam makes more efficient use of the liquid soap compared to dispensing an un-lathered goop directly onto one’s hands.
The really neat part is that the fine mesh structure inside the nozzle is created by having the printer stretch multiple layers of filament across the open span on the inside of the model. This is a technique similar to that used for
creating bristles on 3D-printed brushes
.
While this sort of thing may require a bit of expert tweaking to get the best results, it really showcases the way the fundamentals of how filament printers work. Once one knows the process, it can be exploited to get results that would be impossible elsewhere. Here are a few more examples of that:
printing only a wall’s infill
to allow airflow, manipulating “vase mode” to
create volumes with structural ribs
, and embedding a fine fabric mesh (like tulle) as either
a fan filter
or
wearable and flexible armor
. Everything’s got edge cases, and clever people can do some pretty neat things with them (when access isn’t restricted, that is.) | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633315",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2023-04-16T17:28:05",
"content": "Big Clive also has a teardown of such a foaming nozzle soap dispenser thingie.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8RCrJ5w5Qk",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment... | 1,760,372,330.487777 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/16/timeframe-the-little-desk-calendar-that-could/ | Timeframe: The Little Desk Calendar That Could | Matthew Carlson | [
"home hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"calendar",
"eink",
"pillow",
"platformio",
"python",
"Selenium"
] | Usually, the problem comes before the solution, but for [Stavros], the opposite happened. A 4.7″ E-Ink screen with integrated battery management and ESP32 caught his eye, and he bought it and started thinking about what he wanted to do with it.
The Timeframe
is a sleek desk calendar based around the integrated e-ink screen.
[Stavros] found the device’s MicroPython support was a little lackluster, and often failed to draw. He found a Platform.io project that used an older but modified library for driving the e-ink display which worked quite well. However, the older library didn’t support portrait orientation or other niceties. Rather than try and create something complex in C, he moved the complexity to a server environment he knew more about. With the help of CoPilot, he got some code that would wake up the ESP32 every half hour, download an image from a server, and then display it. A Python script uses a headless browser to visit Google Calendar, resize the window, take a screenshot, and then upload it.
The hardest part of the exercise was getting authentication with Google working reliably. A white sleek 3D printed case wraps the whole affair in an aesthetically pleasing shell. So far, this has been a great story of someone building something for themselves and using their strengths. Where’s the hack?
The hack comes when [Stavros] tried squeezing his calendar into a case that was too tight and cracked the screen. Suddenly a large portion of the screen wouldn’t draw. He turned what was broken into something new by mapping out the area that didn’t draw and converting the Python to draw weather information with Pillow rather than screenshot a webpage: clever reuse and a way to make good out of a bad accident.
The
code is up on GitLab
, and the
3D files for the case
are available on Printables. You can also
find the project on Hackaday.io
, as it was an entry into our
recently concluded Low-Power Contest
. Unfortunately, while the Timeframe is pretty power efficient, it doesn’t last as long as
this calendar with a 50-year battery life
. | 7 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633345",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-04-16T19:10:20",
"content": "“Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent.”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6633377",
... | 1,760,372,330.741463 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/16/detecting-anti-neutrinos-from-distant-fission-reactors-using-pure-water-at-sno/ | Detecting Anti-Neutrinos From Distant Fission Reactors Using Pure Water At SNO+ | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"neutrinos",
"particles",
"physics",
"SNO+"
] | Although neutrinos are exceedingly common, their near-massless configuration means that their presence is rather ephemeral. Despite billions of them radiating every second towards Earth from sources like our Sun, most of them zip through our bodies and this very planet without ever interacting with either. This property is also what makes studying these particles that are so fundamental to our understanding so complicated. Fortunately recently published results by researchers behind the SNO+ neutrino detector project shows that we may see a significant bump in our neutrino detection sensitivity.
The Sudbury Neutrino Detector (Courtesy of SNO)
In
their paper
(
preprint
) in
APS Physical Review Letters
, the researchers describe how during the initial run of the new SNO+ neutrino detector they were able to detect anti-neutrinos originating from nuclear fission reactors over 240 kilometers away, including Canadian CANDU and US LWR types. This demonstrated the low detection threshold of the SNO+ detector even in its still incomplete state between 2017 and 2019. Filled with just heavy water and during the second run with the addition of nitrogen to keep out radioactive radon gas from the surrounding rock of the deep mine shaft, SNO+ as a Cherenkov detector accomplished a threshold of 1.4 MeV at its core, more than sufficient to detect the 2.2 MeV gamma radiation from the inverse beta decays (IBD) that the detector is set up for.
The
SNO+
detector is the
evolution
of the original Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), located 2.1 km below the surface in the Creighton Mine. SNO ran from 1999 to 2006, and was part of the effort to solve the solar neutrino problem, which ultimately revealed the shifting nature of neutrinos via
neutrino oscillation
. Once fully filled with 780 tons of linear alkylbenzene as a scintillator, SNO+
will investigate
a number of topics, including
neutrinoless double beta decay
(
Majorana fermion
), specifically the confounding question regarding whether neutrinos are its own antiparticle or not
The focus of SNO+ on nearby nuclear fission reactors is due to the
constant beta decay
that occurs in their nuclear fuel, which not only produces a lot of electron anti-neutrinos. This production happens in a very predictable manner due to the careful composition of nuclear fuel. As the researchers noted in their paper, SNO+ is accurate enough to detect when a specific reactor is due for refueling, on account of its change in anti-neutrino emissions. This is a property that does not however affect Canadian CANDU PHWRs, as these are constantly refueled, making their neutrino production highly constant.
Each experiment by SNO+ produces immense amounts of data (hundreds of terabytes per year) that takes a while to process, but if these early results are anything to judge by, then SNO+ may progress neutrino research as much as SNO and kin have previously. | 32 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633275",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-04-16T12:07:07",
"content": "There’s no business like SNO+ business!B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6633309",
"author": "Observer",
... | 1,760,372,330.827423 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/16/curiousmarc-repairs-a-floppy/ | [CuriousMarc] Repairs A Floppy | Al Williams | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"floppy"
] | [CuriousMarc] has a pile of 8-inch drives, all marked bad. You can’t just pop over to the computer store and buy a new one these days, so it was off to the repair bench. Although the target drive would do a quick seek, once it was in use, it just kind of shut down. So [Marc]
started sending low-level commands
to the device to see if he could isolate the fault. You can watch the whole adventure in the video below.
Using a breakout board, he was able to monitor and exercise all the pins going into the floppy. A quick study of the schematics, and connection to the scope were all [Marc] needed to build some theories of what was happening.
One of the theories was that the head amplifier was disabled, but it turned out to be fine. After several other dead ends, he finally found a broken spring and came up with a creative repair for it. But there was still no clear reason why the drive wouldn’t work. By process of elimination, he started to suspect an array of diodes used for switching, but again, it was another dead end.
Luckily, he had one working drive, so he could compare things between them. He found a strange voltage difference. Turns out the old advice of checking power first might have paid off here. One of the voltage regulator ICs was dead. In all fairness, there are two 12V power supplies and he had checked one of them but had missed the second supply. This supply is only used for head bias which switches the diodes he had suspected earlier. There had also been a loose pin that might have been a contributor.
With a new power supply IC, the drive worked but needed an alignment. You may never need to repair an 8-inch floppy drive, but the logic in chasing down a problem like this will serve you well on any diagnostic task.
If you think the big drives won’t work with a modern PC,
they will
. On the other hand, if you need to read some badly enough, you could just
use an oscilloscope
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633244",
"author": "Alysson Rowan",
"timestamp": "2023-04-16T08:25:11",
"content": "Interesting ….I used to work in a repair shop where, amongst other things, we used to see a routine flow of 8″ floppy drives. The biggest things for fixing were read head realignment and replacement... | 1,760,372,331.127571 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/15/real-radar-scope-crt-shows-flights-using-ads-b/ | Real Radar Scope CRT Shows Flights Using ADS-B | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"5FP7",
"ads-b",
"dump1090",
"flight tracking",
"flyback",
"persistence",
"phosphor",
"radar",
"Radpberry Pi",
"sdr"
] | Real-time flight data used to be something that was only available to air traffic controllers, hunched over radar scopes in darkened rooms watching the comings and goings of flights as glowing phosphor traces on their screens. But that was then; now, flight tracking is as simple as pulling up a web page. But where’s the fun in that?
To bring some of that old-school feel to his flight tracking, [
redacted
] has been working on
this ADS-B scope that uses a real radar CRT
. As you can imagine, this project is pretty complex, starting with driving the 5FP7 CRT, a 5″ round-face tube with a long-persistence P7-type phosphor. The tube needs about 7 kV for the anode, which is delivered via a homebrew power supply complete with a custom flyback transformer. There’s also a lot going on with the X-Y deflection amps and beam intensity control.
The software side has a lot going on as well. ADS-B data comes from an SDR dongle using
dump1090
running on a Raspberry Pi 3B. The latitude and longitude of each plane within range — about 5 nautical miles — is translated to vector coordinates, and as the “radar” sweeps past the location, a pip lights up on the scope. And no, you’re not seeing things if you see two colors in the video below; as [TubeTime]
helpfully explains
, P7 is a cascade phosphor that initially emits a bright-blue light with some UV in it, which then charges up a long-persistence green phosphor.
Even though multicolored icons and satellite imagery may be more useful for flight tracking, we really like the simple retro look [redacted] has managed to pull off here, not to mention the hackery needed to do it. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633238",
"author": "Johannes Burgel",
"timestamp": "2023-04-16T07:11:30",
"content": "I like the idea, but it somehow looks way less good than I was expecting. Especially the sweeping line is *very* jittery.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,331.080138 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/14/kicad-autorouting-made-easy/ | Kicad Autorouting Made Easy | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"autorouting",
"KiCAD",
"pcb"
] | One of the most laborious tasks in PCB layout is the routing. Autorouting isn’t always perfect, but it is nice to have the option, even if you only use it to get started and then hand-tune the resulting board. Unfortunately, recent versions of Kicad have dropped support for autorouting. You can, however, still use Freerouting and the video from [Mr. T] below
shows you how to get started
.
There are three ways to get the autorouting support. You can install Java and a plugin, you can isntall using a ZIP file, or you can simply export a Specctra DSN file and use Freerouting as a standalone program. Then you import the output DSN file, and you are done.
Not only does [Mr. T] show you how to do a simple USB board, he also shows you how to rip up the autorouter’s work if you don’t like it. He also covers some tips to get the best results with the router.
For example, it is often advantageous to manually layout a few critical tracks before you run the autorouter. You can also use net classes to specify parameters for some tracks.
Overall, this is a worthwhile thing to do. After all, you don’t have to use autorouting, but it is nice to have it available if you want it. If you don’t like Freerouting, you can try a
different solution
. Of course, these routers use DSN, so you can use them
with many different tools
if you aren’t using Kicad. | 23 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633020",
"author": "Artenz",
"timestamp": "2023-04-15T05:58:59",
"content": "> One of the most laborious tasks in PCB layout is the routingActually, I find the most laborious task is copying shapes and components from the datasheets, especially when the measurements are unclear or ... | 1,760,372,331.188028 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/14/need-to-pick-objects-out-of-images-segment-anything-does-exactly-that/ | Need To Pick Objects Out Of Images? Segment Anything Does Exactly That | Donald Papp | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"ai",
"machine learning",
"machine vision",
"object detection",
"segment"
] | Segment Anything
, recently released by Facebook Research, does something that most people who have dabbled in computer vision have found daunting: reliably figure out which pixels in an image belong to an object. Making that easier is the goal of the Segment Anything Model (SAM), just released under the Apache 2.0 license.
The
online demo
has a bank of examples, but also works with uploaded images.
The results look fantastic, and there’s
an interactive demo available
where you can play with the different ways SAM works. One can pick out objects by pointing and clicking on an image, or images can be automatically segmented. It’s frankly very impressive to see SAM make masking out the different objects in an image look so effortless. What makes this possible is machine learning, and part of that is the fact that the model behind the system has been trained on a huge dataset of high-quality images and masks, making it very effective at what it does.
Once an image is segmented, those masks can be used to interface with other systems like object detection (which identifies and labels what an object is) and other computer vision applications. Such system work more robustly if they already know where to look, after all. This
blog post from Meta AI
goes into some additional detail about what’s possible with SAM, and fuller details are in
the research paper
.
Systems like this rely on quality datasets. Of course, nothing beats a great collection of real-world data but we’ve also seen that
it’s possible to machine-generate data
that never actually existed, and get useful results. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6632985",
"author": "Comedicles",
"timestamp": "2023-04-15T03:30:11",
"content": "I’ll just leave this here. A treat for your M.2 sockethttps://hailo.ai/products/hailo-8-m2-module/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6633059",
... | 1,760,372,331.036449 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/14/building-an-electron-microscope-for-research/ | Building An Electron Microscope For Research | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Science"
] | [
"creative commons",
"electron microscope",
"license",
"microscope",
"open source",
"research",
"scanning",
"sem"
] | There are a lot of situations where a research group may turn to an electron microscope to get information about whatever system they might be studying. Assessing the structure of a virus or protein, analyzing the morphology of a new nanoparticle, or examining the layout of a semiconductor all might require the use of one of these devices. But if your research involves the electron microscope itself, you might be a little more reluctant to tear down these expensive devices to take a look behind the curtain as the costs to do this for more than a few could quickly get out of hand.
That’s why this research group has created their own electron detector
.
Specifically, the electron detector is designed for use in a scanning electron microscope, which is typically used for inspecting the surface of a sample and retrieving a high-resolution, 3D image of it compared to transmission microscopes which can probe internal structures. The detector is built on a four-layer PCB which includes the photodiode sensing array, a series of amplifiers, and a power supply. All of the circuit diagrams and schematics are available for inspection as well thanks to the design being licensed under the open Creative Commons license. For any research team looking to build this, a bill of materials is also included, as is a set of build instructions.
While this is only one piece of the puzzle surrounding the setup and operation of an electron microscope, its arguably the most important, and also greatly lowers the barrier of entry for anyone looking to analyze electron microscope design themselves. With an open standard, anyone is free to modify or augment this design as they see fit which is a marked improvement over the closed and expensive proprietary microscopes out there. And, if low-cost microscopes are your thing be sure to check out
this fluorescence microscope
we featured that uses readily-available parts to dramatically lower the cost compared to commercial offerings. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6632953",
"author": "macona",
"timestamp": "2023-04-15T00:59:24",
"content": "This is actually pretty interesting. Thought their spiel about “The closed attitude of commercial entities about how exactly the different parts of electron microscopes work, makes it even harder for newco... | 1,760,372,330.98171 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/14/fail-of-the-week-car-starter-motors-arent-the-best-fit-for-ebikes/ | Fail Of The Week: Car Starter Motors Aren’t The Best Fit For EBikes | Dan Maloney | [
"Fail of the Week",
"Slider",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bms",
"duty-cycle",
"ebike",
"esc",
"fail of the week",
"fotw",
"lipo",
"starter motor"
] | A lot of what real engineering is all about is designing to the limits of your materials, with a healthy margin for error. On the other hand, seat-of-the-pants engineering often takes the opposite tack — working with the materials you have and finding their limits after the fact. While the former is more rigorous and better suited to anything where life and limb are on the line, there’s something to be said for the flexibility that informal engineering offers.
[Austin Blake]’s latest eBike
is a case study in informal engineering. [Austin] started out wondering if a starter motor from a car engine would make a decent electric bike motor. Our first instinct before watching the video below was to answer that question with a resounding “No!” Yes, starter motors seem like a natural for the job, delivering high torque in a compact package. But starting a car engine is the very definition of a low-duty-cycle application, since it should only take a second or two of cranking to get an engine started. Pressing a motor designed for such a task into continuous duty seems like, well, a non-starter.
And to be fair, [Austin] fully acknowledges this from the start. He even retrofits the motor, wisely replacing the shaft bushings with proper bearings in an attempt to get a better duty cycle. And it works, at least for a while — with the motor, a homebrew battery, and an ESC mounted to a bike frame, the bike was actually pretty peppy. But bearings aren’t the only thing limiting a starter motor to intermittent duty operation. The short drive really heated up the motor, and even with a few ventilation holes knocked in the motor housing, it eventually released the Magic Smoke. The video has all the gory details.
As always, we like to stress that “Fail of the Week” is not necessarily a badge of shame. We appreciate it whenever someone shows us the way not to go, as [Austin] did here. And let’s keep in mind that
he’s had success with this approach before
, albeit with a much, much bigger starter motor. | 40 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6632821",
"author": "denis",
"timestamp": "2023-04-14T20:16:29",
"content": "Now while its still absolutely not fit for purpose, if he had started (hahahahaha) with a gear reduction starter like a denso unit from a 90s toyota chances are he would fair better, they seem to do much be... | 1,760,372,331.431013 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/14/3d-printed-artificial-nose-is-totally-vegan/ | 3D Printed Artificial Nose Is Totally Vegan | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"cartilage",
"medical"
] | Prosthetics are complicated, highly personal things. They must often be crafted and customized precisely to suit the individual. Additive manufacturing is proving a useful tool in this arena, as demonstrated by
a new 3D printed nose design developed at Swansea University
. And a bonus? It’s vegan, too!
Often, cartilage from the ribcage is used when reconstructing a patient’s nose. However, this procedure is invasive and can lead to health complications. Instead, a nanocellulose hydrogel made from pulped softwood, combined with hyaluronic acid, may be a viable printable material for creating a scaffold for cartilage cells. The patients own cartilage cells can be used to populate the scaffold, essentially growing a new nose structure from scratch. The technique won’t just be limited to nose reconstructions, either. It could also help to recreate other cartilage-based structures,
such as the ear.
As with all new medical technologies, the road ahead is long. Prime concerns involve whether the material is properly bio-compatible, particularly where the immune system is concerned. However, the basic idea is one that’s
being pursued in earnest
by researchers around the world, whether for cosmetic purposes or to
grow entire organs.
As always, if you’re secretly 3D printing functional gallbladders in your basement, don’t hesitate to
drop us a line. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6632756",
"author": "X",
"timestamp": "2023-04-14T18:39:05",
"content": "I want to feed your fingertips to the wolverines",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6632763",
"author": "Jon H",
"timestamp": "2023-04-14T18:49:13",
... | 1,760,372,331.3147 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/14/retro-gadgets-the-1983-pocket-oscilloscope/ | Retro Gadgets: The 1983 Pocket Oscilloscope | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"History",
"Slider"
] | [
"oscilloscope"
] | In the 1980s, an oscilloscope was typically a bulky affair with a large CRT, and a heavy power supply. So it probably grabbed a lot of attention in 1983 when Calvert Instruments Incorporated ran an ad in magazines like Radio Electronics. The ad touted a 5 MHz scope that was pocket-sized and weighed 4 ounces. The ad proudly proclaimed: CRT oscilloscopes just became obsolete!
Indeed they would, but if you are wondering who Calvert Instruments was, so are we. We have never heard of them before or since, and we don’t know for certain if any of these devices were ever actually produced. What did it use instead of a CRT? The CI Model 210 Pocket-O-Scope was not only solid state but used an LED screen 1.5 inches square. That’s small, but it packed in 210 LEDs for “high resolution.” We assume that was also the genesis of the model number. Judging from the product picture, there were 14 LEDs in the X direction and 15 in the Y direction. High resolution, for sure!
There were some early LCD scopes (like the
Iskrascope
and one from Scopex) around the same time, but it would be the 1990s before we would see LCD oscilloscopes and even longer before CRTs were totally squeezed out.
Choices and What about Tektronix?
The ad made two offers. For $180 you could get the unit with “standard probes” that look like they belong with a multimeter. For $250 you could add the carrying case, an AC adapter, high voltage probes that still looked like multimeter probes, and a 200-page training manual.
The Tektronix 211 was a portable scope from a few years earlier.
For perspective, $180 in 1983 is worth about $540 today, and $250 would have set back the intrepid hobbyist the equivalent of $750 in today’s money. Moreover, a
Tektronix 211
— a comparable CRT scope from the mid-1970s — was a 500 kHz portable scope with 10 NiCads weighed in at a little over 3 pounds. It cost $545 (in 1972 dollars), but you did get a larger analog screen.
While it is true that the 211 was a bit older than the CI 210, later, there were more expensive and more capable 200-series models that had dual channels and higher bandwidths. But not none of them would ever be able to get to four ounces! Phillips and Measuring Instruments also had similar entries.
Other Contemporary Choices
The Tektronix T202, was a very similar idea to the model 210, but didn’t appear until 1989. It had two channels, a 5 MHz bandwidth, and a 128×128 monochrome LCD. It was a rebranded unit made by another company.
A more common item was the NLS miniscope which was similar to the Tektronix 211, but much less expensive. They were available at least by 1977 and also weighed under 4 pounds, including batteries and the CRT. A 15 MHz unit cost around $300 if you include a probe. You can see a slightly newer model of the NLS in the video below.
What Do You Think?
While many of the scopes mentioned have something in common with the Calvert Instrument scope, there is one difference: we know all of these were actually made. The ads for the Calvert appeared, as far as we can tell, in October of 1983 and vanished after the February 1984 issue. They only appeared in Radio Electronics and we never found any other mention of the company. Was it vaporware? Or was the world just not ready for a 210-pixel LED scope? There were a few later construction projects of similar design, like this one on
page 33 of this old Popular Electronics from 1997
. For that matter, we’ve seen
some contemporary builds
with LEDs. But most of the modern toy scopes we see use
some sort of LCD
. You can only wonder what someone who bought a Tektronix 211 back in the day would think of our
Owon HDS272S
?
Maybe a Hackaday reader knows the story behind these. If you’ve ever seen a real one or know anything about the mysterious Calvert Instruments, do leave a comment.
Some photos in this post came to us via the excellent
TekWiki
. Others are from
World Radio History
scans. | 31 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6632732",
"author": "Jan Helebrant 🦁 (@jhelebrant)",
"timestamp": "2023-04-14T17:24:57",
"content": "To be honest, it reminded me one idea I had some time ago – if it was possible to create “fake scope CRT” screen with luminophore covered Petri dish and MCU controlled UV-LED matrix... | 1,760,372,331.264981 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/14/hackaday-podcast-214-jet-engine-hair-dryer-comic-sans-type-balls-and-belief-in-graphene/ | Hackaday Podcast 214: Jet Engine Hair Dryer, Comic Sans Type Balls, And Belief In Graphene | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Contributor Emeritus Kristina Panos gushed about all the best hacks of the previous week. But first, a contest! That’s right — hot on the heels of the Low Power Challenge comes the Op Amp Challenge, sponsored by Digi-Key. You have between now and June 6th to dip your toes into the warm waters of analog and show us what you’ve got. Will it be a musical hack? Will you seek high analog precision? We can’t wait to see.
Kristina definitely did not get What’s That Sound this week, which honestly reminded her of a cartoon character getting a piano dropped on them, except the sounds were in reverse order. Then it’s on to the hacks, beginning with a way to make an IBM Selectric typewriter use Comic Sans, a project that’s sure to make you a believer in graphene, and a miniature MNT for every (cargo) pocket.
From there we take a look at a really cool indicator from a 1960s RAF aeroplane and investigate why your multimeter might be lying to you. Finally, we discuss the gargantuan task of building an AR system to rival Google Glass, and the merits of taking a
lot
of pictures as you go about your hacks.
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 214 Show Notes:
News:
Analog Anoraks: The Op Amp Contest Starts Now!
The UK’s ST40 Spherical Tokamak Achieves Crucial Plasma Temperatures
Wendelstein 7-X reaches milestone: Power plasma with gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes
What’s that Sound?
Congratulations to [chips and solder] who correctly guessed that the sound was Link opening a locked door in Zelda Breath of the Wild! You win exactly one Hackaday Podcast t-shirt.
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Photoplotting PCBs With A 3D Printer
IBM Selectric Typewriters Finally Get DIY Typeballs
The Challenges Of Producing Graphene In Quantity
Dyson Hair Dryer Becomes Jet Engine
A Miniature MNT For Every Pocket
Mechanical GIF Animates With The Power Of Magnets
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Retired Welding Robot Picks Up Side Hustle As CNC Router
Your Multimeter Might Be Lying To You
Parallel Computing On The PicoCray RP2040 Cluster
Kristina’s Picks:
The Sounds Emitted By Plants Are Real But They Are Still Not Talking
Typewriter Mashup Becomes 120-Year-Old Teletype
My Glasses Hear Everything I’m Not Saying!
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Supercon 2022: Aedan Cullen Is Creating An AR System To Beat The Big Boys
Share Your Projects: Take Pictures | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6632766",
"author": "Shannon",
"timestamp": "2023-04-14T18:53:21",
"content": "“Contributor Emeritus Kristina Panos” – the adjective ’emeritus’ would mean you have retired from your role as contributor but been allowed to retain the title as a mark of honour. I hope this isn’t a str... | 1,760,372,331.358746 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/15/relive-the-glory-days-of-sun-workstations/ | Relive The Glory Days Of Sun Workstations | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"qemu",
"retrocomputing",
"solaris",
"sparc",
"Sun Microsystems",
"SunOS"
] | When the IBM PC first came out, it was little more than a toy. The serious people had Sun or Apollo workstations. These ran Unix, and had nice (for the day) displays and network connections. They were also expensive, especially considering what you got. But now, QEMU can let you relive the glory days of the old Sun workstations by
booting SunOS 4 (AKA Solaris 1.1.2) on your PC today
. [John Millikin] shows you how in step-by-step detail.
There’s little doubt your PC has enough power to pull it off. The SUN-3 introduced in 1985 might have 8MB or 16MB of RAM and a 16.67 MHz CPU. In 1985, an 3/75 (which, admittedly, had a Motorola CPU and not a SPARC CPU) with 4MB of RAM and a monochrome monitor cost almost $16,000, and that didn’t include software or the network adapter. You’d need that network adapter to boot off the network, too, unless you sprung another $6,000 for a 71 MB disk. The SPARCstation 1 showed up around 1989 and ran from $9,000 to $20,000, depending on what you needed.
[John] points out that, unlike a modern PC, SunOS ran on very tightly-controlled hardware, so it is pretty fussy about some things being just right. Apparently, QEMU could not boot the OS without some workarounds until recently, but the setup [John] outlines seems straightforward.
In its heyday, the machine would get network configuration from a RARP and NIS server, but those have long given way to more modern standards like DHCP. Not to worry, you can manually configure the networking. Of course, back in the 80s, a web browser wasn’t really a thing, so you won’t find one bundled by default. [John] shows how to put Netscape Communicator on the machine. You can also bridge to your existing X desktop, if you like.
Sun would go on to build Java and
computers to run Java
, but Oracle ultimately gobbled them up. If you want to read more about
SPARC
, it has a long and checkered history. If you don’t have time to set all this up and you just want to see someone do it on the real hardware, check out the video below. | 25 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633212",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-04-16T02:14:44",
"content": "“[John] points out that, unlike a modern PC, SunOS ran on very tightly-controlled hardware, so it is pretty fussy about some things being just right.”I believe GeneraOS is like that.",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,372,331.488482 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/15/3d-printed-tool-lets-you-measure-component-reels-easily/ | 3D Printed Tool Lets You Measure Component Reels Easily | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"component reel",
"components",
"measuring tape",
"smd"
] | Component reels are a highly-0ptimized packaging format. They deliver components to pick and place machines for effective high-speed assembly. As more of us get into working with SMD components, we’re exposed to them as well. [MG] wanted a way to easily measure tape from component reels, which is difficult because they’re often curled up.
Thus, they whipped up a nifty little tool for the job.
The device consists of a 3D printed bracket which is designed to fit on a cheap electronic tape measure from Amazon. The bracket holds an 8mm wide component tape against the measuring wheel. As the component tape is fed through the device, it turns the wheel, and the measurement appears on the screen. No more must you try and flatten out a tape and measure it section by section. Instead, you just feed it in, yank it through, and you’re done!
[MG] notes that the tape measure itself runs on an STM32 microcontroller. As an extra-credit assignment, they suggest that the device could be reprogrammed
to display component count instead of distance
if that’s more suitable for your application. If you happen to make that mod, be sure to notify us
on the tipline! | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633249",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2023-04-16T09:02:32",
"content": "Simple and effective… Very nice!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6633269",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2023-04-16T11:49:57",
"content... | 1,760,372,331.532323 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/15/internet-of-washing-machines-solves-an-annoyance/ | Internet Of Washing Machines Solves An Annoyance | Al Williams | [
"home hacks",
"Network Hacks"
] | [
"appliance",
"IoT",
"oauth2",
"washing machine"
] | [Laurence Tratt]’s washing machine blew up, so he sprung for a brand new model with all the bells and whistles. Of course, these days, that means it has an Internet connection and an API. While we’re not quite convinced our washing machine actually
needs
such a thing, at least [Laurence] is making the most of it by creating
an interface to the washer’s API
that provides a handy countdown on the computer.
Honestly, there was one other option. The washer’s phone app — that sounds funny when you say it out loud — will notify you when the clothes are done. But it doesn’t provide a countdown, and it seems to regularly log you off, which means you don’t get the notifications anymore. You can see the minimal interface in the video below.
The exact combination of curl, jq, and pizauth probably won’t help you unless you have the same washer. On the other hand, it is a good example of how to hit some alien API and work out the details. Any API that uses OAuth2 and JSON won’t look too different. Speaking of OAuth2, that’s the purpose of the pizauth program — which, it turns out, [Laurence] is the author of.
Of course, you can
refit an old washing machine
to do this, too. We are more likely to
steal the machine’s motor
than to want to talk to it but to each their own!
https://tratt.net/laurie/blog/extra/2023/washing_machine.mp4
Thanks [Jake] for the tip! | 56 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633162",
"author": "Gerhard",
"timestamp": "2023-04-15T20:32:15",
"content": "At “solves an annoyance” I thought of the socks that disappear inside the machine ;-) But still no solution to *that* problem?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"c... | 1,760,372,331.806335 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/15/noninvasive-sensors-for-brain-machine-interfaces-based-on-micropatterned-epitaxial-graphene/ | Noninvasive Sensors For Brain–Machine Interfaces Based On Micropatterned Epitaxial Graphene | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"brain-computer interface",
"epitaxial graphene",
"graphene"
] | As fun as brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are, for the best results they tend to come with the major asterisk of requiring the cutting and lifting of a section of the skull in order to implant a Utah array or similar electrode system. A non-invasive alternative consists out of electrodes which are placed on the skin, yet at a reduced resolution. These electrodes are the subject of a
recent experiment
by [
Shaikh Nayeem Faisal] and colleagues in
ACS Applied NanoMaterials
employing graphene-coated electrodes in an attempt to optimize their performance.
Impedance values of eight-channel FEG and eight-channel HPEG sensor systems placed on the occipital area of the head. (Faisal et al., 2023)
Although external electrodes can be acceptable for basic tasks, such as registering a response to a specific (visual) impulse or for EEG recordings, they can be impractical in general use. Much of this is due to the disadvantages of the ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ varieties, which as the name suggests involve an electrically conductive gel with the former.
This gel ensures solid contact and a resistance of no more than 5 – 30 kΩ at 50 Hz, whereas dry sensors perform rather poorly at >200 kΩ at 50 Hz with worse signal-to-noise characteristics, even before adding in issues such as using the sensor on a hairy scalp, as tends to be the case for most human subjects.
In this study, they created electrode arrays in a number of configurations, each of which used graphene as the interface material. The goal was to get a signal even through human hair — such as on the back of the head near the visual cortex — that would be on-par with wet electrodes. The researchers got very promising results with hex-patterned epitaxial graphene (HEPG) sensors, and even in this early prototype stage, the technique could offer an alternative where wet electrodes are not an option.
While the subject is complex, brain-computer interfaces don’t have to be the sole domain of research laboratories. We recently covered an
open hardware Raspberry Pi add-on
that can let you experiment with detecting and filtering biosignals from the comfort of your own home. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633157",
"author": "Reluctant Cannibal",
"timestamp": "2023-04-15T20:01:48",
"content": "“requiring the cutting and lifting of a section of the skull in order to implant a Utah array” ….. last time I tried this I was overcome with an almost irresistible urge to have a taste. Appare... | 1,760,372,331.853918 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/15/sufficiently-advanced-tech-has-bugs/ | Sufficiently Advanced Tech: Has Bugs | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"can-bus",
"newsletter",
"security"
] | Arthur C. Clarke said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. He was a sci-fi writer, though, and not a security guy. Maybe it should read “Any sufficiently advanced tech has security flaws”. Because this is the story of breaking into a car through its headlight.
In
a marvelous writeup
, half-story, half CAN-bus masterclass, [Ken Tindell] details how car thieves pried off the front headlight of a friend’s Toyota, and managed to steal it just by saying the right things into the network. Since the headlight is on the same network as the door locks, pulling out the bulb and sending the “open the door” message repeatedly, along with a lot of other commands to essentially jam some other security features, can pull it off.
Half of you are asking what this has to do with Arthur C. Clarke, and the other half are probably asking what a lightbulb is doing on a car’s data network. In principle, it’s a great idea to have all of the electronics in a car be smart electronics, reporting their status back to the central computer. It’s how we know when our lights are out, or what our tire pressure is, from the driver’s seat. But adding features adds attack surfaces. What seems like magic to the driver looks like a gold mine to the attacker, or to car thieves.
With automotive CAN, security was kind of a second thought, and I don’t mean this uncharitably. The first goal was making sure that the system worked across all auto manufacturers and parts suppliers, and that’s tricky enough. Security would have to come second. And more modern cars have their CAN networks encrypted now, adding layers of magic on top of magic.
But I’m nearly certain that, when deciding to replace the simple current-sensing test of whether a bulb was burnt out, the engineers probably didn’t have the full cost of moving the bulb onto the CAN bus in mind. They certainly had dreams of simplifying the wiring harness, and of bringing the lowly headlight into the modern age, but I’d bet they had no idea that folks were going to use the headlight port to open the doors. Sufficiently advanced tech.
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
! | 74 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633099",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2023-04-15T14:42:30",
"content": "If your technology has bugs, then it clearly has not advanced sufficiently enough yet.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6633117",
"author": ... | 1,760,372,332.077246 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/15/better-laser-cuts-know-your-kerf/ | Better Laser Cuts: Know Your Kerf | Al Williams | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"kerf",
"Laser cutting"
] | The recent crop of laser cutters are nothing short of miraculous. For a few hundred dollars you can get a machine that can easily engrave and — subject to materials — cut well, too. [Nate] has been taking advantage of a laser to make boxes that join together using finger joinery. The problem is, the pieces have to fit exactly to get a good box. While setting dimensions in software is fine, you need to
account for how much material the laser removes
— something traditional woodworkers and machinists know as kerf.
You can, of course, employ trial and error to get good results. But that’s wasteful and potentially time-consuming. [Nate] built a “tolerance fence” that is quick to cut out and allows accurate measurement of kerf. You can quickly use the tolerance fence to make measurements and increase your chances of nailing your boxes on the first cut.
You have to customize the fence based on the thickness of your material. [Nate] uses Lightburn, which probably has a kerf offset already set by default in your layers. If not, you’ll need to turn it on and set an estimate of your kerf size. Then you are ready to cut the fence pieces and see how they fit together.
If the fit is too loose, you want to raise the kerf setting and try again. If it is too tight, you lower the kerf setting. As [Nate] says, “Lower equals looser.”
The results speak for themselves, as you can see in the treasure chest image [Nate] provided. Well worth the effort to get this parameter right. We do enjoy
laser cutting and engraving things
. If you are cutting and don’t have air assist, you really need
to hack up something
. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633079",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-04-15T12:05:31",
"content": "“and increase your chances of nailing your boxes on the first cut.”As someone who works in a cabinet shop, I enjoyed the pun!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,372,332.13703 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/15/uranium-241-isotope-created-and-examined-via-multinucleon-transfer-reactions-and-mass-spectrometry/ | Uranium-241 Isotope Created And Examined Via Multinucleon Transfer Reactions And Mass Spectrometry | Maya Posch | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"cyclotron",
"mass spectrometer",
"multinucleon transfer"
] | A recent
paper
(
PDF
) in
Physical Review Letters
by T. Niwase and colleagues covers a fascinating new way to both create and effectively examine isotopes by employing a cyclotron and a mass spectrograph. In the paper, they describe the process of multinucleon transfer (MNT) and analysis at the recently commissioned KEK Isotope Separation System (KISS), located at the
RIKEN Nishina Center
in Japan.
Sketch of the KISS experimental setup. The blue- and
yellow-colored areas are filled with Ar and He gases, respectively. Differential pumping systems are located after the doughnut-shaped gas cell as well as before and after the GCCB. (Credit: Niwase et al., 2023)
The basic process which involves the RIKEN Ring Cyclotron, which was loaded for this particular experiment with Uranium-238 isotope. Over the course of four days,
238
U particles impinged on a
198
Pt target, after which the resulting projectile-like fragments (PLF) were led through the separation system (see sketch). This prepared the thus created ions to be injected into the multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrograph (MRTOF MS), which is a newly installed and highly refined
mass spectrograph
which was also recently installed at the facility.
Using this method, the researchers were able to establish that during the MNT process in the cyclotron, the transfer of nucleons from the collisions had resulted in the production of
241
U as well as
242
U. Although the former had not previously been produced in an experimental setting, the mass of
242
U had not been accurately determined. During this experiment, the two uranium as well as neptunium and other isotopes were led through the MRTOF MS instrument, allowing for the accurate measurement of the characteristics of each isotope.
The relevance of producing new artificial
isotopes of uranium
lies not so much in the production of these, but rather in how producing these atoms allows us to experimentally confirm theoretical predictions and extrapolations from previous data. This may one day lead us to amazing discoveries such as the famously predicted
island of stability
, with superheavy, stable elements with as of yet unknown properties.
Even if such astounding discoveries are not in the future for theoretical particle physics, merely having another great tool like MNT to ease the burden of experimental verification would seem to be more than worth it. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6633050",
"author": "MS",
"timestamp": "2023-04-15T08:17:00",
"content": "Mass Spectrometry is not the same as spectroscopy. It doesn’t involve the electromagnetic spectrum, but rather separates based on mass-charge ratio. MS purists often insist on calling the instrument a mass spe... | 1,760,372,332.236567 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/13/hackathon-wire-edm-build-really-works/ | Hackathon Wire EDM Build Really Works | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"EDM",
"wire EDM"
] | If you’ve ever short-circuited a car battery, you’ve seen the pitting and damage a few sparks can cause. Smart minds realised that controlled sparks could erode metal very accurately, in a process now known as electrical discharge machining.
[Tanner Beard] decided to build just such a machine for a hackathon
, and it works a treat.
[Tanner]’s video explains the benefits of EDM well. Spark-based machining doesn’t care about the hardness of the given material, making it ideal for working with very tough steels, for example. It’s also non-contact, so the motion platform doesn’t have to be built to resist huge forces.
The build was done with a low budget of just $300, and uses some smart shortcuts. Instead of an expensive mains-powered DC power supply to generate the discharge, [Tanner] just uses a powerful lithium-polymer battery with his own MOSFET board to deliver the high current needed. A nifty combination of a stepper motor and O-drive motor setup feed the discharge wire at a constant rate during the machining.
Overall, it’s a neat build that shows wire EDM doesn’t have to break the bank.
We’ve seen other similar builds before, too.
Video after the break. | 12 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6632506",
"author": "Robert",
"timestamp": "2023-04-13T20:41:16",
"content": "Am I right in thinking this EDM machine can only do cuts right through the full depth of the workpiece material (laser cutter or waterjet style) and not partial depth cuts the way a milling machine could (... | 1,760,372,332.18307 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/13/vintage-computer-festival-east-returns-this-weekend/ | Vintage Computer Festival East Returns This Weekend | Tom Nardi | [
"cons",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"VCF East 2023",
"Vintage Computer Festival East"
] | Spring has sprung at the Jersey Shore, and for retrocomputer aficionados that can only mean one thing —
the Vintage Computer Festival East is imminent
. The East Coast’s premier event for classic computers and associated electronics kicks off tomorrow at the InfoAge Science and History Museum in Wall, NJ, and continues until Sunday. If you’re in the Northeast United States, and frankly, even if you aren’t, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better opportunity to experience the unique charms of early computer technology.
VCF East is three days of talks, workshops, and exhibits focusing on computers of a bygone area. For the uninitiated, that might seem like an odd thing to fixate on. But those who’ve visited a VCF event in the past know just how fascinating the technology of this era can be. You’ll see first-hand not only the unique machines that never quite caught on with the mainstream but the pioneering software and hardware engineering that laid the groundwork for our modern way of life. Plus, a little bit of everything in between.
Just take a look at this year’s schedule
; even the most experienced of graybeards would have a hard time walking away from VCF East without knowing a bit more than when they came in.
Part of what makes the Vintage Computer Festival so great is right in the name — it’s very literally a
festival
. This isn’t some sterile museum environment where you’re forced to look at a dusty piece of hardware through a half-inch of bulletproof glass. It’s a celebration, and everyone’s invited. Many of the exhibits will give you an opportunity to go hands-on with rare pieces of original hardware, and every presenter you talk to will be more than happy to explain what they’ve come to show off and answer any questions you might have.
In addition to the more educational aspects of VCF, there are also the vendor and consignment areas, which offer a myriad of opportunities to convert your money into devices that whir and blink. From classic gaming systems to unusual components that perhaps only a handful of people in the world could still identify at a glance, the only things you won’t find are the jacked-up prices and shipping costs you’d get from eBay.
Of course, the organizers realize that not everyone can get to the tropical paradise that is New Jersey in April. As such, VCF East will offer an online component that includes an
official Discord server
and three different live streams for the talks held on
Friday
,
Saturday
, and
Sunday
. That said, there won’t be any streaming video from the show floor itself, so unfortunately, you won’t be able to see any of the exhibits or workshops. That said, you can always count on there being several VCF wrap-up videos posted to YouTube by the usual retrocomputing suspects, to say nothing of the coverage you’ll be seeing on these pages.
Whether you’re there in person or experiencing it vicariously through the videos and articles posted by others, the Vintage Computer Festival East is a can’t-miss event for anyone who has a passion for computers and would like to learn more about how they became what they are today. Hackaday will be there — join us, won’t you? | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6632482",
"author": "ComputisProfundus",
"timestamp": "2023-04-13T19:27:25",
"content": "It’s the geek event where you’re square for NOT going!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6632501",
"author": "Jay Crutti",
"timestamp... | 1,760,372,332.289957 |
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