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https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/ages-of-renewable-energy-storage/ | AGES Of Renewable Energy Storage | Navarre Bartz | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"energy storage",
"geothermal",
"geothermal energy",
"oil well",
"renewable energy",
"repurposing"
] | As society transitions toward renewable energy sources, energy storage inevitably comes to mind. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found one way to store renewable energy that
re-purposes existing fossil fuel infrastructure
.
While geothermal electricity generation shows a lot of promise, it’s currently limited to a select few areas where hot rock is close to the Earth’s surface. Advanced Geothermal Energy Storage (AGES) stores energy underground as heat and recovers it later, even in places without high subsurface temperatures. For this study, the researchers located an old oil well and instrumented it with “flow meters, fiber optic
distributed temperature sensing (DTS) cable, surface pressure and temperature gauges, and downhole pressure and temperature gauges to monitor the thermal and hydraulic changes during the injection test.”
This field study found that AGES system efficiency could be as high as 82% and yield an “economically viable” levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of $0.138/kWh. Using existing deep hole infrastructure speeds up site selection and deployment of AGES when compared to developing on an undisturbed location, making this a very interesting way to deploy grid-scale storage rapidly.
We’ve covered
reusing fossil fuel infrastructure
before as well as
challenges
and
unusual solutions
to the energy transition if you’re looking for more about what might be on a
future smart grid
. | 26 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608995",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2023-03-03T17:12:48",
"content": "They state they can recover 82% of the stored heat. OK. Not implausible.The storage temperature is 250C.They then state “and a[sic] electricity generation efficiency of 73% can be achieved.” OK. Not pla... | 1,760,372,380.774733 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/this-week-in-security-openemr-bing-chat-and-alien-kills-pixels/ | This Week In Security: OpenEMR, Bing Chat, And Alien Kills Pixels | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"chat",
"lastpass",
"OpenEMR",
"This Week in Security"
] | Researchers at Sonar
took a crack at OpenEMR
, the Open Source Electronic Medical Record solution, and they found problems. Tthe first one is a classic: the installer doesn’t get removed by default, and an attacker can potentially access it. And while this isn’t quite as bad as an exposed WordPress installer, there’s a clever trick that leads to data access. An attacker can walk through the first bits of the install process, and specify a malicious SQL server. Then by manipulating the installer state, any local file can be requested and sent to the remote server.
There’s a separate set of problems that can lead to arbitrary code execution. It starts with a reflected Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attack. That’s a bit different from the normal XSS issue, where one user puts JavaScript on the user page, and every user that views the page runs the code. In this case, the malicious bit is included as a parameter in a URL, and anyone that follows the link unknowingly runs the code.
And what code would an attacker want an authenticated user to run? A file upload, of course. OpenEMR has function for authenticated users to upload files with arbitrary extensions, even
.php
. The upload folder is inaccessible, so it’s not exploitable by itself, but there’s another issue, a PHP file inclusion. Part of the file name is arbitrary, and is vulnerable to path traversal, but the file must end in
.plugin.php
. The bit of wiggle room on the file name on both sides allow for a collision in the middle. Get an authenticated user to upload the malicious PHP file, and then access it for instant profit. The fixes have been available since the end of November, in
version 7.0.0-patch-2
.
Bing Chat Injection
Or maybe it’s AI freedom. So, the backstory here is that the various AI chat bots are built with rules. Don’t go off into political rants, don’t commit crimes, and definitely don’t try to scam the users. One of the more entertaining tricks clever users have discovered is to tell a chatbot to emulate a personality without any such rules. ChatGPT can’t comment on political hot button issues, but when speaking as DAN, anything goes.
Arrrrr
This becomes really interesting when Bing Chat ingests
a website that has targeted prompts
. It’s trivial to put text on a web page that’s machine readable and invisible to the human user. This work puts instructions for the chat assistant in that hidden data, and demonstrates a jailbreak that turns Bing Chat malicious. The fun demonstration convinces the AI to talk like a pirate — and then get the user to click on an arbitrary link. The spooky demo starts out by claiming that Bing Chat is down, and the user is talking to an actual Microsoft engineer.
LastPass Details — Plex?
Last time we talked about the LastPass breach, we had to make some educated guesses about how things went down. There’s been
another release of details
, and it’s
something
. Turns out that in one of the earlier attacks, an encrypted database was stolen, and the attackers chose to directly target LastPass Engineers in an attempt to recover the encryption key.
According to Ars Technica
, the attack vector was a Plex server run by one of those engineers. Maybe related, at about the same time, the Plex infrastructure was also breached, exposing usernames and hashed passwords. From this access, attackers installed a keylogger on the developer’s home machine, and captured the engineer’s master password. This allowed access to the decryption keys. There is some disagreement about whether this was/is a 0-day vulnerability in the Plex software. Maybe make sure your Plex server isn’t internet accessible, just to be safe.
There’s
one more bit of bad news
, particularly if you use the LastPass Single Sign On (SSO) service. That’s because the SSO secrets are generated from an XOR of two keys, K1 and K2. K1 is a single secret for every user at an organization. K2 is the per-user secret stored by Lastpass. And with this latest hack, the entire database of K2 secrets were exposed. If K1 is still secret, all is well. But K1 isn’t well protected, and is easily accessed by any user in the organization. Ouch.
The
Ring
Alien
Turns out, just like a certain horror movie, there is
a video that the very watching causes death
. If you happen to be a Pixel phone, that is. And “death” might be a bit of an exaggeration. Though the video in question certainly nails the vibe. Playing a specific YouTube clip from Alien will instantly reboot any modern Pixel phone. A stealth update seems to have fixed the issue, but it will be interesting to see if we get any more details on this story in the future. After all, when data can cause a crash, it can often cause code execution, too.
In-The-Wild
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintains a list of bugs that are known to be under active exploitation, and that list just recently added a set of notches.
CVE-2022-36537 is the most recent
, a problem in the ZK Framework. That’s an AJAX framework used in many places, notable the ConnectWise software. Joining the party are CVE-2022-47986, a flaw in IBM Aspera Faspex, a file transfer suite, and CVE-2022-41223 and CVE-2022-40765, both problems in the Mitel MiVoice Business phone system.
Bits and Bytes
There’s
yet another ongoing attack against the PyPI repository
, but this one mixes things up a bit by dropping a Rust executable as one stage in a chain of exploitation. The other novel element is that this attack isn’t going after typos and misspellings, but seems to be a real-life dependency confusion attack.
The reference implementation of the Trusted Platform Module 2.0
was discovered to contain some particularly serious vulnerabilities
. The issue is that a booted OS could read and write two bytes beyond it’s assigned data. It’s unclear weather that’s a static two bytes, making this not particularly useful in the real world, or if these reads could be chained together, slowly leaking larger chunks of internal TPM data.
And finally, one more thing to watch out for,
beware of fake authenticator apps
. This one is four years old, has a five star rating, and secretly uploads your scanned QR codes to Google Analytics, exposing your secret authenticator key. Yoiks.
You need to be careful when you search for an authenticator app. This app sends the scanned QR codes to the developer's
#Google
analytics service. You won't miss it. It's running an ad campaign on the
#AppStore
#Privacy
#CyberSecurity
#2FA
pic.twitter.com/huvAtilUnV
— Mysk 🇨🇦🇩🇪 (@mysk_co)
February 19, 2023 | 8 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608959",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2023-03-03T15:46:34",
"content": "“…but this one mixes things up a bit by dropping a Rust executable…”Why does anything written in Rust always have to say so? If it was written in C it wouldn’t say “…but this one mixes things up a bit by dropp... | 1,760,372,380.310406 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/a-close-look-at-how-flip-dot-displays-really-work/ | A Close Look At How Flip-Dot Displays Really Work | Chris Lott | [
"classic hacks",
"Teardown"
] | [
"electromagnet driving waveforms",
"flip dot display",
"flip dots",
"Flip-disc display",
"flip-dot",
"WD6208"
] | [Mike Harrison] has an upcoming project which will combine a large number of flip-dot displays salvaged from buses. [Mike] thought he knew how these things worked, and had a prototype PCB made right away. But while the PCB was being manufactured, he started
digging deeper into the flip-dot’s flipping mechanism
.
As he dismantled one of the flip-dots, he realized there was a lot going on under the hood than he realized. The dots are bistable — staying put when power is removed. This is achieved with a U-shaped electromagnet. The polarity of a driving pulse applied to the coil determines which way to flip the dot and saturates the electromagnet’s core in the process. Thus saturated, each dot is held in the desired position because the black side of the dot is made from magnetic material. But wait, there’s more — on further inspection, [Mike] discovered another permanent magnet mounted in the base. He’s not certain, but thinks its job is to speed up the flipping action.
Besides curiosity, the reason [Mike] is studying these so closely is that he wants to build a different driver circuit to have better and faster control. He sets out to better understand the pulse waveform requirements by instrumenting a flip-dot and varying the pulse width and voltage. He determines you can get away with about 500 us pulses at 24 V, or 1 ms at 12 V, much better that the 10 ms he originally assumed. These waveforms result in about 60 to 70 ms flip times. We especially enjoyed the slow-motion video comparing the flip at different voltages at
16:55 in the video after the break
.
[Mike] still has to come up with the optimum driving circuit. He has tentatively has settled on a WD6208 driver chip from LCSC for $0.04/ea. Next he will determine the optimum technique to scale this up, deciding whether going for individual pixel control or a multiple sub-array blocks. There are mechanical issues, as well. He’s going to have to saw off the top and bottom margin of each panel. Reluctant to unsolder the 8500+ joints on each panel, his current idea is to solder new controller boards directly onto the back of the existing panels.
This video is a must-watch if you’re working on drivers for your flip-dot display project, and we eagerly look forward to any future updates from [Mike]. We also wrote about
a project that repurposed similar panels
a couple of years ago. There are a few details that [Mike] hasn’t figured out, so if you know more about how these flip-dots work, let us know in the comments below. | 19 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608891",
"author": "Max S.",
"timestamp": "2023-03-03T13:20:37",
"content": "I always wondered if you could make each of the flip-dots like an addressable LED using a driver chip: WS2811 IC led Pixel node Module (as found on aliexpress). So perhaps the Red channel would flip the... | 1,760,372,380.592539 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/missing-finger-gets-a-simple-yet-fancy-replacement/ | Missing Finger Gets A Simple Yet Fancy Replacement | Arya Voronova | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed prosthetic",
"finger",
"Prosthesis",
"prosthetic",
"prosthetics",
"thumb"
] | The possibility of a table saw accident is low, but never zero — and [Nerdforge] has lost a finger to this ever-useful but dangerous contraption. For a right-handed person, losing the left hand pinky might not sound like much, but the incident involved some nerve damage as well, making inaccessible a range of everyday motions we take for granted. For instance, holding a smartphone or a pile of small objects without dropping them. As a hacker,
[Nerdforge] decided to investigate
just how much she could do about it.
On Thingiverse, she’s hit a jackpot: a
parametric prosthetic finger project by [Nicholas Brookins]
, and in no time, printed the first version in resin. The mechanics of the project are impressive in their simplicity — when you close your hand, the finger closes too. Meant to be as simple as possible, this project only requires a wrist mount and some fishing line. From there, what could she improve upon? Aside from some test fits, the new finger could use a better mounting system, it could stand looking better, and of course, it could use some lights.
For a start, [Nerdforge] redesigned the mount so that the finger would instead fasten onto a newly-fingerless glove, with a few plastic parts attached into that. Those plastic parts turned out to be a perfect spot for a CR2032 battery holder and a microswitch, wired up to a piece of LED filament inserted into the tip of the finger. As for the looks, some metal-finish paint was found to work wonders – moving the glove’s exterior from the “printed project” territory into the “futuristic movie prop” area.
The finger turned out to be a resounding success, restoring the ability to hold small objects in ways that the accident made cumbersome. It doesn’t provide much in terms of mechanical strength, but it wasn’t meant to do that. Now, [Nerdforge] has hacked back some of her hand’s features, and we have yet another success story for all the finger-deficient hackers among us.
Hacker-built prosthetics have been a staple of Hackaday
, with
the OpenBionics project
in particular being a highlight of 2015 Hackaday Prize — an endearing demonstration of hackers’ resilience. | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608814",
"author": "Reluctant Cannibal",
"timestamp": "2023-03-03T09:43:55",
"content": "It’s almost worth cutting off a finger to try it out.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6608830",
"author": "WereCatf",
"t... | 1,760,372,380.377314 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/28/arc-overhangs-in-prusaslicer-are-a-simple-script-away/ | Arc Overhangs In PrusaSlicer Are A Simple Script Away | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"arc overhangs",
"overhangs"
] | Interested in the new hotness of printing previously-impossible overhangs? You can now
integrate Arc Overhangs into PrusaSlicer
and give it a shot for yourself. Arc overhangs is a method of laying filament into a pattern of blossoming concentric rings instead of stringing filament bridges over empty space (or over supports).
These arcs are remarkably stable, and result in the ability to print overhangs that need to be seen to be believed.
We covered this clever technique in the past
and there are now two ways for the curious hacker to try it out with a minimum of hassle: either run the Python script on a G-code file via the command line, or integrate the functionality into
PrusaSlicer
directly by adding it as an automatic post-processing script. The project’s GitHub repository has
directions for both methods
.
Here’s how it works: the script looks for layers with a “bridge infill” tag (which PrusaSlicer helpfully creates) and replaces that G-code with that for arc overhangs. It is still a work in progress, so keep a few things in mind for best results. Arc overhangs generally work best when the extruded plastic cools as fast as possible. So it is recommended to extrude at the lowest reliable temperature, slowly, and with maximum cooling. It’s not fast, but it’s said to be faster than wrestling with supports and their removal.
A few things could use improvement
. Currently the biggest issue is warping of the arc overhangs when new layers get printed on top of them. Do you have a solution or suggestion? Don’t keep it to yourself; discuss in the comments, or consider getting involved in the project. | 21 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607621",
"author": "Anders J",
"timestamp": "2023-03-01T04:05:48",
"content": "A suggestion is to after have the arch done, make next layer in another direction, like straight over or diagonally over the arch layer. Might help?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,372,380.709157 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/28/trying-and-failing-to-restore-a-1970s-cdc-10mb-hard-drive/ | Trying (and Failing) To Restore A 1970s CDC 10MB Hard Drive | Maya Posch | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"cdc",
"centurion",
"hard disk"
] | One fun aspect of 1970s-era hard disk drives is that they are big, clunky and are fairly easy to repair without the need for a clean room. A less fun aspect is that they are 1970s-era HDDs and thus old and often broken. While repairing a CDC 10 MB HDD for the upcoming VCF East event, the folks over at [Usagi Electric], this led to
quite a few struggles
, even after a replacement 14″ platter was found to replace the crashed platter with.
These CDC HDDs are referred to as
Hawk
drives, and they make the associated
8-bit Centurion
TTL logic-based computers so much faster and easier to work with (for a 1970s system, of course). Despite the large size of the components involved and the simple, all through-hole nature of the PCBs, issues that cropped up ranged from corroded DIP switches, to head alignment sensors, a defective analog board and ultimately a reported bad read-write head.
Frustratingly, even after getting the platters to spin up and everything moving as intended, it would seem that the remaining problem is that of possibly bad read-write heads, as in plural. Whether it’s due to age, previous head crashes onto platters, or something else, assembling a working Hawk drive turned out to be somewhat more complicated than hoped.
We definitely hope that the bunnies can get a working Hawk together, as working 1970s HDDs like these are become pretty rare. | 34 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607543",
"author": "Rocky",
"timestamp": "2023-03-01T00:36:08",
"content": "I and a friend did restore a couple of DGC Diablo disks a long time ago together with a Nova 4 plus a couple of boards with core-memory. We had extreme problems with the first disk, it failed to read/write ... | 1,760,372,380.851311 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/28/cat-feeder-depends-on-rfid-to-keep-the-peace-at-dinnertime/ | Cat Feeder Depends On RFID To Keep The Peace At Dinnertime | Dan Maloney | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"cats",
"coil",
"feeder",
"interrogate",
"pets",
"rfid"
] | Anyone with more than one cat can tell you that the
joy
mischief they bring into your life is much more than twice that of a single cat. And if those felines have different dietary needs, you can end up where [Benjamin Krejci] found himself, which resulted in
this fancy RFID cat feeder
.
For a little backstory, [Ben]’s furry friends [Luna] and [Fermi] have vastly different eating styles, with the former being a grazer and the latter more of a “disordered eater,” to put it politely. [Fermi] tends to eat until she vomits, which is fun, and muscles her pickier sister away from the bowl if there’s anything left in it. [Ben]’s idea was to leverage [Luna]’s existing RFID chip, which he figured would be a breeze. But the vet-inserted chip is designed to be read by a high-power reader directly in contact with the cat’s skin, which made reliably reading the chip a challenge.
Several round of design iteration resulted in the current configuration, with a large antenna coil poised above and behind the food dispenser. [Luna] has no choice but to put the back of her neck and shoulder blades almost directly in contact with the coil, which makes it easier to read the 134.2-kHz chip with a long-distance RFID module. If [Luna]’s chip is found, the lid on the food bowl opens gently and quietly, so as not to spook the mild-mannered cat. The lid stays open as long as [Luna] is in place thanks to some IR sensors, but as soon as she backs out, the lid comes down to keep [Fermi] from gorging herself.
Hats off to [Ben] for working through the problem and coming up with what looks like a fine solution. We suppose he could have tried something easier like
weighing the two cats
to distinguish between them, but this seems like a cleaner solution to us. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607450",
"author": "Juan M. Casillas",
"timestamp": "2023-02-28T21:05:37",
"content": "Nice project. Thanks for sharing the long range RFID module!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6607467",
"author": "dlcarrier",
"times... | 1,760,372,380.477081 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/28/when-one-cylinder-isnt-enough-the-briggs-and-stratton-v8/ | When One Cylinder Isn’t Enough: The Briggs And Stratton V8 | Jenny List | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"Briggs and Stratton",
"sidevalve",
"v8"
] | The Briggs & Stratton single cylinder sidevalve engine is one that has been in production in one form or another for over a century, and which remains one of the simplest, most reliable, and easiest to maintain internal combustion engines there is. The little single-cylinder can be found on lawnmowers and other similar machinery everywhere, so it’s rather easy to find yourself in possession of more than one. [Lyckebo Mekaniska] evidently had no shortage of them, because
he’s produced a V8 engine for a small lawn tractor using eight of them
. A small air-cooled V8 sidevalve is something of a unique engine to be made in the 2020s, and the series of videos is definitely worth a watch from start to finish. We’ve been keeping an eye on this build for a while now, and we’ve embedded it below the break for your entertainment.
Clearly a lot of CAD work has gone into this build.
For an engine which uses mass-produced engines for its construction, this one still relies heavily on parts machined from first principles. The cylinder blocks, valves, pistons, and crank rods are Briggs & Stratton, the rest is made in the workshop. It’s a design with the valves on the outside — so instead of the single camshaft you might expect from experience with OHV engines nestling in the V above the camshaft it has two camshafts at the bottom of the crankcase.
The crankcase is cast in sections first, followed by the machining of the crankshaft and camshafts, then the preparation of the cylinders.. The engine is assembled with a home made alternator on its flywheel and a conventional distributor from a donor vehicle. The lubrication system is another work of the machinist’s art, and the simple straight-through exhaust system is more at home on a drag racer than a lawnmower. Finally we see it running, and it sounds the business. Most recently he’s had to deal with a seizure and a replacement cylinder, but now it’s back together and he’s working on an improved cooling system.
All in all this is one heck of a build, and we wish we had some of those skills. We’re not sure whether he’ll mow the lawn with this thing, but one thing’s for sure,
lawnmower hacking has quite a past
. | 13 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607441",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2023-02-28T20:43:17",
"content": "it’s a pity he couldn’t have got away with a single cam in the v, but i guess since the stroke was so short there wasn’t enough room.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"c... | 1,760,372,380.647082 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/28/supercon-2022-selling-your-company-and-not-your-soul/ | Supercon 2022: Selling Your Company And Not Your Soul | Matthew Carlson | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Supercon",
"dexter",
"discussion",
"Hackaday Prize",
"haddington dynamics"
] | Haddington Dynamics is a particular company. After
winning the 2018 Hackaday Prize with an open-source robotic arm,
we’ve covered their
micro-factories
and
suction cup end-effectors
for making face shields during 2020. They’ve been laser-focused on their mission of creating a fantastic robot arm at a small price tag with open-source software and design. So how does a company with such a hacker ethos get bought by a much larger company, and why? They
came to SuperCon 2022 to share their story
in a panel discussion.
Haddington Dynamics started with two clever inventions: optical encoders that used analog values instead of digital values and an FPGA that allowed them to poll those encoders and respond rapidly. This allowed them to use cheaper motors and rely on the incredibly sensitive encoders to position them. After the Hackaday prize, they open-sourced the HD version of the robot and released the HDI version. But in 2020, they were bought by a group called Ocado. As to why the somewhat practical but not exciting answer is that they needed money. Employees needed to be paid, and they needed capital to keep the doors open.
So this leads to the next tricky question, how do you sell your company without changing it? The fine folks at Haddington Dynamics point out in their panel discussion that a company is a collection of people. The soul of that company is the collective soul of those people coming together. A company being bought can be akin to stopping working for yourself and going to work for someone else. Working alone, you have values and principles that you can easily stick to. But once you start working for someone else, they will value different things, and while the people that make up the company might not change, the company’s decisions might become unrecognizable.
As the panel points out, looking for a buyer with the same values is critical. Ocado was a great fit as their economic interests and culture matched Haddington’s. However, it’s not all roses, as Ocadao tends to be a very closed-source group. However, Haddington Dynamics still supports
its open-source initiatives.
It’s a fascinating look into a company’s life cycle and how they navigate the waters of open-source, funding, acquisitions, innovation, and invention. Despite the fairytale-like nature of inventing a revolutionary robot arm in your garage and winning many awards, it turns out there is quite a lot that happens after the happily ever after.
We look forward to seeing more of Haddington Dynamics and where they go next. Video after the break. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607342",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2023-02-28T18:54:08",
"content": "Here you go:https://github.com/HaddingtonDynamics/Dexter/wiki/Encoders",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6607360",
"author": "one",
"time... | 1,760,372,380.429475 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/28/challenging-the-limits-of-3d-printing-with-cymbals/ | Challenging The Limits Of 3D Printing With Cymbals | Navarre Bartz | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed musical instruments",
"cymbals",
"musical instruments"
] | We’re big believers in 3D printing here at Hackaday, but it’s important to recognize that there are plenty of applications where additive manufacturing (at least, from a desktop machine) just isn’t suitable. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to see what happens if you try. For example, [The Drum Thing] wanted to test the limits of 3D printing by
printing a set of cymbals
.
[The Drum Thing] had a friend design a cymbal in CAD and then the printed quarters were glued together. In the name of science, they produced them in six different materials to compare performance. Each cymbal was played for a short period or until it failed, including some very interesting slow motion camera work showing the vibrations traveling through the cymbals.
As one might expect, bashing “wafer thin” pieces of printed plastic with a wooden drumstick didn’t work out well for most of the cymbals, although the TPU, carbon fiber, and nylon cymbals were did largely survive their time in the limelight. The other cymbals all failed, either shattering, cracking, or failing at the glue joints. Based on the video, it seems the same glue was used for all of the cymbals, so making sure to have a better match between material and adhesive could help with the glue failures.
Maybe future testing can involve
playing these cymbals with a quadrotor
? | 22 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607264",
"author": "Stephen Bridges",
"timestamp": "2023-02-28T16:43:40",
"content": "Could these be improved by electroplating them?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6607417",
"author": "Aaron Leclair",
"times... | 1,760,372,380.530432 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/28/repurposing-old-smartphones-when-reusing-makes-more-sense-than-recycling/ | Repurposing Old Smartphones: When Reusing Makes More Sense Than Recycling | Maya Posch | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"green hacks",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"e-waste",
"recycling",
"upcycling"
] | When looking at the specifications of smartphones that have been released over the past years, it’s remarkable to see how aspects like CPU cores, clockspeeds and GPU performance have improved during this time, with even new budget smartphones offering a lot of computing power, as well as a smattering of sensors. Perhaps even more remarkable is that of the approximately 1.5 billion smartphones sold each year, many will be discarded again after a mere two years of use. This seems rather wasteful, and a
recent paper
by Jennifer Switzer and colleagues proposes that a so-called Computational Carbon Intensity (CCI) metric should be used to determine when it makes more sense to recycle a device than to keep using it.
What complicates the decision of when it makes more sense to reuse than recycle is that there are many ways to define when a device is no longer ‘fit for purpose’. It could be argued that the average smartphone is still more than good enough after two years to be continued as a smartphone for another few years at least, or at least until the manufacturer stops supplying updates. Beyond the use as a smartphone, they’re still devices with a screen, WiFi connection and a capable processor, which should make it suitable for a myriad of roles.
Unfortunately, as we have seen with the disaster that was
Samsung’s ‘upcycling’ concept
a few years ago, or Google’s defunct
Project Ara
, as promising as the whole idea of ‘reuse, upcycle, recycle’ sounds, establishing an industry standard here is frustratingly complicated. Worse, over the years smartphones have become ever more sealed-up, glued-together devices that complicate the ‘reuse’ narrative.
Recycling Imperfect
2011 photo of Ghanaians working in Agbogbloshie, a suburb of Accra, Ghana. (Credit:
Marlenapoli
)
One question that may come to mind when the idea of ‘recycling electronics’ is raised, is why this is such a terrible idea. After all, when you send a device in for recycling, it gets carefully stripped down and all materials from it are sorted before the metals molten down, plastics recycled and all the other bits and bobs handled in that industrial fashion that makes ‘How It’s Made’ episodes and kin such a delight to watch.
The reality is, unfortunately, less sunny and perfect.
According to the UN
, only 20% of an estimated 50 million tons of annual electronic waste (
e-waste
) is formally recycled, which is to say that those are recycled in properly equipped recycling centers. The remaining 80% of e-waste is dumped in landfills, or is ‘informally recycled’, generally by local people who burn the circuit boards and wiring to extract the metals, often without any kind of protective gear. These findings strongly highlight the need to reduce the amount of e-waste so long as we do not have the capacity to even recycle it.
Yet even within formal recycling facilities, only part of an old smartphone is truly recycled. For example, a massive problem is and remains
plastics
, many of which are highly
resistant to recycling
, especially when the economics of recycling plastics is taken into account. Worse, the economics of
phone recycling
are worsening over time, as fewer precious metals and other valuable elements are used in circuit boards and chips, as well as in smaller quantities. As a result, after shredding of the printed circuit boards and their components, recovery of these metals takes more effort for less material. Even with copper prices going up constantly, the economics of recycling are such that the concept of not recycling a working device, but rather reusing it can make sense from multiple perspectives.
Carbon And Economics
The aforementioned CCI metric proposed by Jennifer Switzer et al. is defined as: ‘the measurement of the lifetime carbon impact of a device versus the lifetime useful compute it performs’. In more basic terms, it tries to capture whether it makes more sense to use a computer (like a smartphone) for computing tasks rather than to send it off for recycling and buy a new device to replace it. Interestingly, it is also noted by their paper that between 60-70% of old smartphones are never thrown away, but rather kept lying around.
The capabilities of recent smartphones meet or exceed that provided for modern microservices. The three plots show the performance (according to the GeekBench score[21]), number of cores, and memory for the five most popular Android phones released each year since 2013. A GeekBench score of 1 is equivalent to an Intel Core i3 processor. Solid lines indicate the mean. The shading shows the minimum and maximum ranges. The memory plot has two lines corresponding to the minimum- and maximum-memory configurations available. The horizontal dotted lines show the capabilities of different Amazon EC2 T4g instance sizes as of August 2021, plotted for context. (Credit: Jennifer Switzer et al., 2023)
Would it make sense to use even a fraction of these devices as something like compute nodes instead? An interesting notion is that such smartphones are more than capable of running microservices and when powered using electricity from low-carbon sources (hydro, nuclear, solar, etc.), are essentially carbon neutral in their operation. The power efficiency of these smartphone SoCs are a great benefit here, as they are already optimized for performance per Watt, and they come with their own UPS in the form of the built-in battery.
In its simplest form, such a ‘compute farm’ using smartphones can be set up using nothing but a simple webpage, as demonstrated succinctly by the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre of the University of Edinburgh
back in 2016
. In this demonstration, volunteers would load the webpage that contained some JavaScript so that their device can then contribute to the impromptu parallel compute cluster. For a more custom solution, devices could be flashed with a custom ROM that optimizes it for a specific task.
Cycling Upwards
Promotional photo of Project Ara. (Credit:
Motorola
)
One aspect that really cemented the IBM PC as a computing concept that has endured to this day is the ability to upgrade, add and replace entire components through the use of storage, memory and processing unit modules. Attempts to accomplish something similar with smartphones have been attempted for more than a decade with so-called
modular smartphones
. Unfortunately, after
2015’s PuzzlePhone
(died: 2017) and Google’s Project Ara (
killed in 2016
), there have been no significant attempts to make smartphones in general into a modular, easily repairable system. This – along with the traditional locked bootloader – significantly limits any reuse attempts.
In this regard, reusing smartphones in a compute cluster is probably the most straightforward option, which could e.g. for an Android smartphone involve using the native development kit (NDK) to run the same C-based code as would run on regular compute nodes. Less straightforward would be reusing especially an older smartphone as a dedicated media player, as eventually the device’s OS would be considered ‘too old’ for such media player applications. Here the lack of updated (binary blob) drivers for older mobile SoCs is a major reusability obstacle, as this locks these systems essentially into an older Linux kernel.
When we look at
what Samsung was suggesting
with its upcycling program before it got nerfed, concepts for reuse included everything from a smart home controller to a weather station and nanny camera. More importantly, it would unlock the bootloaders and remove the need to purchase a lot of new devices whose functionality could be easily covered by an older smartphone. Anything involving a display, WiFi, Bluetooth and a battery, essentially. Considering that for example a smart home controller is just an SoC-based device with WiFi, a display, etc. using an old smartphone here instead would seem sensible.
In light of this, the skeptic’s view could thus be that the problem lies with the phone manufacturers, who will just not let us have nice things.
Throw-away Society
That it is more efficient to keep using devices such as smartphones that otherwise end up collecting dust in drawers – or shredded to recover a fraction of the materials that went into their production – is something that should be clear at this point. The lack of such reuse being implemented is something that can generally be attributed to the general ‘
throw-away society
‘ attitude that has become more and more prevalent since the rise of industrial-scale production of goods in the 20th century.
Considering the related concept of
planned obsolescence
, which was coined as early as the 1930s, it seems now almost quaint to look at the IBM PC and the extreme extensibility and upgradability that it enabled. Not only did it offer a flexible upgrade bus that enabled whole new industries of expansion cards and more to spring up, the PC clone wars of the 1990s also essentially annihilated the fixed-design, limited upgrades of the home computers up till then, even if this was not what IBM had intended to happen. It’s possible that IBM’s experience with easy upgrades, maintenance and repairs with mainframes played a role in this design choice, but the effect was that the PC became the de facto standard, with all of these modularity benefits.
Due to the modular nature of PCs, a system can be configured and reconfigured to fit a particular role, all of which helps to extend its useful life. Even if as a modern-day version of the
Ship of Theseus
every single component in a system will have been replaced over the span of a few decades, it seems fair to argue that although it’s not the exact same device that it was at the beginning, from an e-waste perspective, each individual component will have served its maximum useful life.
Additionally, as a modular system, components from different PCs can be assembled into another system, which might go on to be useful for another few years. This is also unfortunately a property that laptops have lost over the years, and which smartphones and tablets have never embraced in any meaningful way. Maybe that with the Right to Repair movement making inroads at long last, some level of modularity will also make it into smartphones and other devices, which would make not just repair but also reuse significantly easier and attractive.
Who knows, maybe one day smartphones will feature the same DIY, white box and OEM systems as we see with PCs today, and people will use old smartphones for
clusters
and hobby projects that today require a Raspberry Pi board or kin. | 89 | 38 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607170",
"author": "Arthur Wolf",
"timestamp": "2023-02-28T15:05:57",
"content": "One of the reasons we added an Ethernet port to Smoothieboard and developped web-based control interfaces for lasers, CNC and 3D printers, is so that users can re-use old smartphones and tablets as th... | 1,760,372,381.241648 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/02/scsi-the-disk-bus-for-everything/ | SCSI: The Disk Bus For Everything | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"retrocomputing",
"scsi"
] | Early home PCs usually had a floppy disk and a simple hard drive controller. Later, IDE hard drives became the defacto standard. Of course, these days, you are more likely to find some version of SATA and — lately — NVME connectors. But a standard predating all of this was very common in high-end systems: SCSI. [RetroBytes] recently did a video
on the bus
which he calls the “USB of the 80s.”
Historically, Shugart — a maker of disks — was tired of producing custom drive electronics for each device they made. Instead, they made disks with a standard interface and then produced a single interface board for each computer they wanted to support. The interface was very generic, and they were able to get it standardized with ANSI — an early example of the benefit of opening up a standard.
SCSI could connect to many things besides disks, like scanners and tape drives. You could even find SCSI to network adapters. It was fast for its day, too. There were also updated standards that pushed performance higher over time. In addition to a standard hardware interface, most SCSI devices didn’t need special device drivers.
There were a few cheap SCSI host adapters for the PC, like the Seagate ST01 and ST02, but they weren’t good performers. Fast interfaces were pretty expensive. The other hard drive connectors were cheaper and didn’t require complicated termination and expensive cables. So SCSI rapidly lost ground in the PC, and as the PC market grew, it started pushing out SCSI in personal computers. But high-end workstations used SCSI because it performed better, and [RetroBytes] has an extensive explanation of why it was faster than early hard drive standards.
The video does a nice job of showing off some grand old hardware and many use cases for SCSI like RAID arrays and shared storage. If you have the urge to walk down memory lane or you like learning about old technology, this video is worth a read. SCSI is still around, by the way, although now it is a serial standard that is very similar to SATA. It just isn’t nearly as prevalent as it used to be. You can
bridge USB and SCSI,
if you can find the hardware. You can also put today’s tiny computers on the bus and have them
pretend to be disk drives
. | 72 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608744",
"author": "A",
"timestamp": "2023-03-03T06:34:50",
"content": "The articles main picture shows an IDE connector, not an SCSI connector",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6608745",
"author": "Al Williams",
... | 1,760,372,381.013828 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/02/norm-abram-is-back-and-thanks-to-ai-now-in-hd/ | Norm Abram Is Back, And Thanks To AI, Now In HD | Tom Nardi | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"AI upscale",
"artificial intelligence",
"enhanced",
"Norm Abram",
"pbs",
"woodworking"
] | We’ve said many times that while woodworking is a bit outside our wheelhouse, we have immense respect for those with the skill and patience to turn dead trees into practical objects. Among such artisans, few are better known than the legendary Norm Abram — host of
The New Yankee Workshop
from 1989 to 2009 on PBS.
So we were pleased when the
official YouTube channel for
The New Yankee Workshop
started uploading full episodes of the classic DIY show a few months back for a whole new generation to enjoy. The online availability of this valuable resource is noteworthy enough, but we were particularly impressed to see the channel start experimenting with AI enhanced versions of the program recently.
Note AI Norm’s somewhat cartoon-like appearance.
Originally broadcast in January of 1992, the “Child’s Wagon” episode of
Yankee Workshop
was previously only available in standard definition. Further, as it was a relatively low-budget PBS production, it would have been taped rather than filmed — meaning there’s no negative to go back and digitize at a higher resolution.
But thanks to modern image enhancement techniques
, the original video could be sharpened and scaled up to 1080p with fairly impressive results.
That said,
the technology isn’t perfect
, and the new HD release isn’t without a few “uncanny valley” moments. It’s particularly noticeable with human faces, but as the camera almost exclusively focuses on the work, this doesn’t come up often. There’s also a tendency for surfaces to look smoother and more uniform than they should, and reflective objects can exhibit some unusual visual artifacts.
Even with these quirks, this version makes for a far more comfortable viewing experience on today’s devices. It’s worth noting that so far only a couple episodes have been enhanced, each with an “AI HD” icon on the thumbnail image to denote them as such. Given the computational demands of this kind of enhancement, we expect it will be used only on a case-by-case basis for now. Still, it’s exciting to see this technology enter the mainstream, especially when its used on such culturally valuable content. | 53 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608684",
"author": "gregg4",
"timestamp": "2023-03-03T03:07:14",
"content": "Every time Norm brought the host of This Old House over to the Workshop for a very special woodworking item that a new job needed, the host would get the “batman’s cave” treatment. And even though the work... | 1,760,372,381.651102 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/02/a-mega-tiny-arduino/ | A Mega-Tiny Arduino | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"32u4",
"arduino",
"atmega",
"Atmel",
"minimalist",
"small",
"USB C"
] | Integrated circuits, chipsets, memory modules, and all kinds of other transistor-based technology continues to get smaller, cheaper, and more energy efficient as time moves on. Not only are the components themselves smaller, but their supporting infrastructure is as well. Computers like the Raspberry Pi are about the size of a credit card and have computing power on the order of full-sized PCs from a few decades ago. The Arduino is no exception to this trend, either,
and this new dev board called the Epi 32U4
might be the smallest ATmega platform we’ve seen so far.
As the name suggests, the board is based around the ATmega32U4 which is somewhat unique among Atmel chips in that it includes support for USB within the chip itself rather than relying on external translating circuitry. This makes it an excellent choice for any project which involves sending keyboard, mouse, or other peripheral information to a computer. This goes a few steps further with eliminating “bloat” compared to other boards, too — there’s no on-board voltage regulator, and just a single LEDs on pin 13.
One of the other features this board boasts over other small form factor boards is on-board USB-C, which is definitely a perk as more and more devices switch away from the various forms of older USB-type plugs. The project’s specifications are also available on
this GitHub page
for anyone that wants to produce their own. And, if you don’t have a 32U4 on hand and still want to build a keyboard project,
it’s possible to get some other Arduinos to support these features
but it’ll take a little more work.
Thanks to [Rasmus L] for the tip! | 26 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608627",
"author": "Shirley Marquez",
"timestamp": "2023-03-03T00:25:08",
"content": "It’s cute. Not breadboard-friendly though, since the spacing of the crenellated pins is 1.27mm (aka 0.05 in). That aside, it looks like a decent option if you’re staying with the ATMega rather tha... | 1,760,372,381.530741 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/02/never-walk-uphill-again-with-this-motorized-sled/ | Never Walk Uphill Again With This Motorized Sled | Robin Kearey | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"dc motor",
"sled",
"snowmobile",
"winter hacks"
] | If you grew up in a snowy climate, chances are you’ve ridden a sled or toboggan when you were young. The downhill part of sledding is great fun, but dragging the thing back up gets boring quickly. [Luis Marx] had been dreaming of sledding uphill since he was a child, and decided to make his dream come true by building himself
a motorized sled
(video, in German, embedded below).
The sled is powered by two DC electric motors driving a continuous track, like a rudimentary snowmobile. The motors were originally designed for electric bikes, and can develop 30 newton-meters of torque each. [Luis] designed and 3D-printed a custom set of drive wheels to link the track to the bike motors. Two motor controllers enable basic speed control, while a beefy battery carries enough juice for multiple trips up and down a slope.
The motorized track is mounted on a clever frame that can swing up or down and is held in place by two spring-loaded pins. This way, you can simply lift the system off the snow when you’re ready to slide downhil, and swing it down again when you want the sled to do the pulling.
With winter nearing its end, the snow near [Luis]’s home in southern Germany was too soft to get much traction, but subsequent tests in a ski resort up in the Alps showed the system working perfectly. It even had enough traction to pull a second sled behind it. Perhaps
some proper suspension
could make it go faster on the downhill run, too. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608577",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-03-02T21:14:38",
"content": "Handy for those going both ways.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6608585",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2023-03-02T21:38:13",
"conten... | 1,760,372,381.464566 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/02/attiny85-automates-your-smartphone/ | ATtiny85 Automates Your Smartphone | Arya Voronova | [
"ATtiny Hacks",
"Phone Hacks"
] | [
"attiny85",
"smartphone hacking",
"tiny85",
"VUSB"
] | It might not seem too impressive these days, but when microcontrollers with hardware USB support were more expensive and rare, the VUSB library was often used to create USB devices with an ATtiny85. It became so popular that the ATtiny85 even got packaged into USB dongle formfactors, like the DigiSpark boards. Well, you might not know this, but your Android smartphones can also work with USB mice and touchscreens in lieu of the built-in touchscreen display. [ErfanSn] combined these two ideas,
creating a library
to automate smartphone touchscreen events and keyboard input with an ATtiny85 — open for all of us to use, and with examples to spare.
The library is called DigiCombo, and it comes with plenty of examples for any screen touch event emulation that you might want. For instance, check out the README —
it has video examples
for Instagram page scrolling, unlock screen brute-forcing with random coordinates, playing the
Stack
rhythm game, and pinch zoom — all the building blocks for your smartphone touch emulation needs are covered pretty well! Of course, all of these have
example code
corresponding to them, that you can download and base your own ideas on. What’s more, the library is available in current Arduino IDE under the DigiCombo name. So if you need to, say, make a quick autoclicker for your phone, the library is a few steps away!
If your smartphone project was stalled because you needed to emulate touchscreen input, this library is your chance to get it done! We appreciate projects that let us get more from smartphones — there’s a lot of those laying around, they’re pretty functional and self-sufficient devices, so it makes sense that
some projects of ours could do with a phone
instead of a Raspberry Pi. Some manufacturers let us
get a bit more of our phones,
but this hasn’t really caught on, which means we have to make do with help of libraries like these. Or, perhaps, you rely on your phone day-to-day, and you’d like to
add a touchpad to its back
? | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608573",
"author": "then",
"timestamp": "2023-03-02T21:04:51",
"content": "this is so amazing, it even works on ios without a hitch, beware where you plug your phone into ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6608581",
"author... | 1,760,372,381.412433 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/02/hacker-hotel-2023-back-again/ | Hacker Hotel 2023: Back Again! | Jenny List | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"hacker camp",
"Hacker Hotel",
"Netherlands"
] | After three years, it’s odd to think back to those few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic morphed from something on the news into an immediate and ever-present threat which kept us isolating for so long. For me, some of the last moments of normality were a trip to the Netherlands for Hacker Hotel, a hacker event in the comfort of a resort hotel. Now three years later and after two cancelled events, Hacker Hotel is back, and I made the same journey to Garderen to hang out for a weekend with a bunch of hacker friends over some good Dutch beer and a lot of bitterballen.
Hackers Take A Bit Of Getting Used To
Hacker Hotel, never change!
The event takes place in the
Westcord Hotel de Veluwe
, somewhere more accustomed to hosting business retreats and well-heeled tourists than several hundred hackers. In past years this has manifested itself as some unease from the hotel management at some of our hijinks. After all who outside our community would understand reading as many RFID room keys as possible to reverse engineer them, or picking the lock on the Club-Mate fridge after hours and leaving it locked with all the cash for the drinks ready for the barman to find?
It seems now they’re accustomed to our ways, and welcome us as a group who book the entire place and leave it spotless afterwards. The hotel has become one of my happy places, a welcome retreat in the dead of winter, and I was extremely glad to be back again.
The nature of an event in a hotel means that its focus coalesces around three main areas rather than a large number of villages. These are the bar, the hardware hacking area, and the talks. I freely admit that i always prefer to catch event talks online and the security-heavy talks which seem to be a feature of this event are less my cup of tea, so my time was mostly spent hanging out with my fellow hardware hackers.
There were the usual lines of tables with people’s projects, as well as a full surface mount assembly station with pick-and-place machine and IR oven. I never quite found out what it was there to assemble, but kudos for bringing it along. Highlights for me were lighting, the many [Brainsmoke] LED sculptures, an addressable flappy display, a teleprinter, Yvo de Hass’s robotised Robo Rally game which I hope to cover properly some time in the future, and [Boekenwurm]’s knitted LED strings into 3D shapes.
Plenty Of Talks To Take Your Fancy
An addressable flappy display
Brainsmoke again with the 7 segment wall
Knitted LED strings
An addressable teleprinter
Did you bring a pick-n-place? No? We got you covered!
At the time of writing
not all the talks are online
, and of those, a third are in Dutch. All is not lost however, because among those accessible to Anglophones are sure to be one or two you’d want to watch. I picked out Niko Dekens with
OSINT Past Present Future
, a very accessible look at how an OSINT professional does their job, and IJskimo with
Nothing but the truth
, or How to Lie Better and get Lied To Less. This event has less in the way of hardware and a heavier emphasis on infosec and allied fields, probably another reason I spent most of my time hanging out in the hacking area.
Finally to the bar, where there were those Dutch beers and bar snacks. The best conversations happen in the pub, and this one is like the comfiest of British watering holes. Hang out with your friends and tell tall tales just like at home, but here there’s enough computing power for a small space programme on the table. In the evening, we had probably the best pub quiz on the other side of the English channel, at which when an op-amp circuits round came up my friends discovered the value of having an engineer from the analogue age at the table. Nice to know I still got it!
At the end, the sad moment of packing up and hitting the rails back home came, as it must. The Veluwe in winter has been as enticing as ever, and I’m sorry to leave. Hacker Hotel has done what it always does though, which is provide a welcome recharge in the middle of winter, and the chance to look forward to the summer. It’s been a long time, and it’s good to be back. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608529",
"author": "Robert Tait",
"timestamp": "2023-03-02T19:04:11",
"content": "Not to be confused with the Maker Hotel in Shenzhen China!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6608530",
"author": "Jeremy",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,372,381.310076 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/02/a-look-inside-bicycle-gearboxes/ | A Look Inside Bicycle Gearboxes | Navarre Bartz | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bike",
"derailleur",
"gearbox",
"Honda"
] | While bicycle gearboxes date back to at least the 1920s, they’re relatively unseen in bike racing. One exception is Honda’s race-winning mid-drive gearboxes, and [Alee Denham] gives us a look at
what makes these unique drives tick
.
Honda has developed three generations of bicycle gearbox as part of their company’s R&D efforts, but none have ever been released as a commercial product. Designed as a way for their engineers to stretch their mental muscles, the gearboxes were only used in bike races and seen at a few trade shows. In 2004, the third gen “derailleur in a box” led to the first gearbox victory in the Downhill World Cup Circuit.
The third gen gearbox differs significantly from the CVT drivetrains in the first and second generation gearboxes, but it is unclear why Honda abandoned the CVT. [Denham] has a nice animation detailing the inner workings of these CVTs based on information from the original patents for these rarely seen gearboxes.
Derailleurs remain the primary drivetrain in racing due to their lighter weight and higher overall efficiency. While still expensive, the decreased maintenance of gearbox drivetrains make a lot of sense for more mundane cycling tasks like commuting or hauling cargo, but only time will tell if the derailleur can be supplanted on the track and trail.
For more on bicycle drivetrains, check out this
chainless digital drivetrain
or the
pros and cons of e-bike conversions
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUB-_-BM7gg | 23 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608483",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2023-03-02T16:43:43",
"content": "Honda’s entries were all in pure downhill racing, where bike weight doesn’t matter and pedaling efficiency almost doesn’t matter as you’re only pedaling for maybe 5-10% of the race.There are a fair ... | 1,760,372,381.787049 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/02/how-hard-could-it-be-to-get-millions-of-phone-bills-right/ | How Hard Could It Be To Get Millions Of Phone Bills Right? | Dan Maloney | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [] | It may be a foreign concept to anyone who has never paid a dime for a phone call over and above the monthly service charge, but phone calls were once very, VERY expensive — especially long-distance calls, which the phone company ungenerously defined as anything more than a few towns away. Woe betide the 70s teen trying to talk to out-of-town friends or carry on a romance with anyone but the guy or girl next door when that monthly phone bill came around; did anyone else try to intercept it from the mailbox before the parents could see it?
While it seems somewhat quaint now, being charged for phone calls was not only a big deal to the customers, but to the phone company itself. The Bell System, which would quickly become a multi-billion dollar enterprise, was built on the ability to accurately meter the use of their service and charge customers accordingly. Like any engineered system, it grew and changed over time, and it had to adapt to the technologies and economic forces at the time.
One of the most interesting phases of its development was the development of Automatic Message Accounting (AMA), which in a very real way paved the way for the wide-open, worldwide, too-cheap-to-meter phone service we enjoy today.
An Intensively Manual Process
From its very beginnings, telephone networks were money-making ventures, or at least were supposed to be. To that end, accounting systems needed to be developed alongside the network infrastructure, and needed to scale with them as the networks grew. That was a pretty simple proposition at first, when networks were generally limited to a single city and where connections between caller and recipient were generally managed manually by switchboard operators. Having humans in the switching loop was really the key to billing, since operators could easily write down information about the call on a ticket for submission to the accounting department, which would determine the charges and bill the customer.
As the phone network grew in scope, so to did its complexity increase. Trunk lines were installed between local exchanges, allowing subscribers to “reach out and touch someone” in the next town over. Automated switches, at first step-by-step (SxS) switches and later crossbar switches, automated away the need for operators to complete local calls — subscribers could now complete calls simply by dialing the correct number. This represented huge cost savings for the phone companies, who no longer had to employ vast numbers of operators, but it also presented a challenge: with no operators in the loop, who would take care of recording call details for billing information?
At first, the answer was simple — keeping some operators on the job. This was pretty much the answer to the problem of long-distance calling up until about the 1940s — subscribers could directly dial numbers within their local exchanges, and even within the small group of surrounding exchanges. Outside of those areas, specialist long-distance operators would make the connection and record call information for billing purposes. It worked, but it was expensive, error-prone, and would obviously not scale well as the network grew, so an alternative had to be found.
The first steps toward Automated Message Accounting (AMA), as the systems developed by Bell Labs would eventually be known, were taken in the 1940s with automatic ticketing. Instead of operators manually recording call information on a ticket, automatic equipment that could create billing tickets began being installed in the central offices of telephone exchanges. These devices sat before the exchange’s outgoing trunk lines and were essentiallly electromechanical printers driven by the impulses created by dialing a number. The ticket printed the caller’s numbers, the called number, the date and time of the call, the overall length of the call, along with technical and subscriber information. The call information was printed in plain text, and tickets were collected from the printers and forwarded to the billing department regularly.
Punch It Up
A section of perforated AMA tape. It’s not easy to appreciate the dimpled shape of the perforations here, but they were critical for proper reading of the tapes in centralized accounting centers. Source:
Bell Laboratories Record, vol. 29, pg. 402 (1951)
.
Automatic ticketing was a huge leap forward for the phone company, but it still had obvious problems — it only partially automated the billing process. Someone still had to sort and process all those billing tickets manually, so while automatic ticketing reduced the need for some operators, it meant more employees were needed in the billing department. A proper Automatic Message Accounting system would require recording call information in a way that it could be machine readable, so that both ends of the billing process could be automated.
The Bell System began deploying a fully automated AMA system in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Rollout of AMA was gradual; if it was nothing else, the Bell company was extremely conservative, and technologies cooked up at Bell Labs were given thorough testing under real-world conditions before being widely deployed across the network. And so it was mainly exchanges in larger cities that got first dibs on the new AMA equipment.
The Bell Labs researchers made some interesting engineering choices when designing the AMA equipment. Given the era, the obvious choice of recording medium would have been the venerable punch card. But Bell engineers decided to roll their own system — literally.
AMA recorders used oil-impregnated paper tape in long rolls as their recording medium. The tape was about 3″ (76 mm) wide, with information recorded as perforations across the width of the tape. There was room for 28 perforations, which allowed for six different fields to be recorded. Each row started on the left with a three-hole entry index field; this was followed by five groups of five perforations, each encoding a single digit from 0 to 9. Each digit was encoded with a 2-of-5 code, where only two “bits” out of the group of five are set for each digit.
Two-of-Five encoding truth table. Each “bit” is weighted as either 0, 1, 2, 3, or 6, and the two positions that add up to the digit’s value are set, or punched in this case. Zero is handled as an exception so that two positions out of the block of five are always set.
Digit
Weighting
01236
1
11000
2
10100
3
10010
4
01010
5
00110
6
10001
7
01001
8
00101
9
00011
0
01100
The AMA perforator mechanism. Getting the 28 punches to line up 0.1″ apart with such large electromagnets driving them was no mean feat. Source:
Bell Laboratories Record, vol. 29, pg. 505 (1951)
.
The AMA perforator itself was an ingenious design, and one that took great advantage of Bell’s long experience with electromagnetic systems. Each perforator had to cram 28 electromagnetically operated pins spaced only 0.1″ (2.54 mm) into less than 3″ of space.
This was accomplished by arranging the perforating magnets into four groups of seven, each arranged semicircularly on two different levels. Each pin lined up with a cylindrical punching drum, a precision-machined part that sat under the paper tape and allowed the pin to punch a cone-shaped dimple in it. The shape of the perforation was critical because it formed part of the drive mechanism for reading the completed tape; the dimples would engage with a similar drum in the AMA reader in accounting, which would rotate and pull the tape through the machine. This meant that the completed tapes had to be treated gingerly so as to not collapse the dimples before the data could be read.
Since each row could only encode five digits, the complete record of a phone call would cover multiple rows — anywhere from four to six. This presented a problem, since the time from starting a toll call to resolving it — either because the called number never picked up, or when the conversation ended — was variable and often quite long. Even a moderately busy central office could expect a different toll call to be started before the previous call had been completed, which meant that records from one call would often be spread across a wide amount of tape. It was even possible for records of a call to be recorded on two separate rolls, which were changed at around 3:00 AM every day. The AMA equipment in the accounting center had to handle this eventuality, which it did through devices called assemblers that correlated records through a two-digit entry index and the timestamp for the entry. The assembler would then record the sorted records on a separate roll of tape through another perforator, for further processing on the other machines in the accounting center.
AMA Across America
For all its computational crudity, AMA was wildly successful. As the short promotional film below shows, AMA enabled direct-dialing of long-distance calls for the first time, albeit in a limited number of markets, and introduced subscribers to the concept of an “area code.” The introduction of AMA was critical to making the
coast-to-coast microwave relay “Long Lines” project
, coincidentally enough also completed in 1951, a money-making operation.
By the mid-1950s, refinements of AMA, including Centralized Automatic Message Accounting (CAMA), which used things like banks of reed relays, ferrite cores, and cold-cathode tube amplifiers, began deployment nationwide. The invention of the transistor in 1947, also by Bell Labs scientists, and the subsequent revolution in digital computing would pave the way for the eventual demise of AMA systems, but not for a while — it wasn’t until 1966 that magnetic tape started replacing the AMA paper tapes, and the concepts behind AMA and CAMA continued to tote up toll charge in computerized form until the mid-1970s. | 46 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608442",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2023-03-02T15:06:20",
"content": "Surprising they did not use the same punch technology that Teletype (a division of Western Electric) used to punch their tapes. The requirement for delicate handling seems to be a major drawback.",
... | 1,760,372,381.882062 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/02/security-vulnerabilities-in-modern-cars-somehow-not-surprising/ | Security Vulnerabilities In Modern Cars Somehow Not Surprising | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"attack",
"ble",
"gattacker",
"key",
"security",
"tesla",
"unlock",
"vehicle",
"wireless"
] | As the saying goes, there’s no lock that can’t be picked, much like there’s no networked computer that can’t be accessed. It’s usually a continual arms race between attackers and defenders — but for some modern passenger vehicles, which are essentially highly mobile computers now, the defenders seem to be asleep at the wheel. The computing systems that control
these cars can be relatively easy to break into
thanks to manufacturers’ insistence on using wireless technology to unlock or activate them.
This particular vulnerability involves the use of a piece of software called gattacker which exploits vulnerabilities in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), a common protocol not only for IoT devices but also to interface a driver’s smartphone or other wireless key with the vehicle’s security system. By using a man-in-the-middle attack the protocol between the phone and the car can be duplicated and the doors unlocked. Not only that, but this can be done without being physically close to the car as long as a network of some sort is available.
[Kevin2600] successfully performed these attacks on a Tesla Model 3 and a few other vehicles using the seven-year-old gattacker software and methods first discovered by security researcher [Martin Herfurt]. Some other vehicles seem to have patched these vulnerabilities as well, and [Kevin2600] didn’t have universal success with every vehicle, but it does remind us of
some other vehicle-based attacks we’ve seen before
. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608419",
"author": "Alphatek",
"timestamp": "2023-03-02T14:06:43",
"content": "Given that it’s pretty easy to prevent this sort of attack at the protocol level (obviously you’ll never prevent analogue relay as used by current car thieves), it’s pretty appalling how poor so many sof... | 1,760,372,381.936976 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/02/a-ch32v003-toolchain-if-you-can-get-one-to-try-it-on/ | A CH32V003 Toolchain — If You Can Get One To Try It On | Jenny List | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"CH32V003",
"microcontroller",
"toolchain",
"WCH"
] | We’re in an exciting time for cheap microcontrollers, as with both the rise of RISC-V and the split between ARM and its Chinese subsidiary, a heap of super-cheap and very capable parts are coming to market. Sometimes these cheap chips come with the catch of being difficult to program though, but for one of them the ever-dependable [CNLohr]
has brought together his own open-source toolchain
. The part in question is the
WCH CH32V003
, which is a ten-cent RISC-V part that has an impressive array of capabilities. As always though, there’s a snag, in that we’re also told that while supplies are improving this part can be hard to find. The repository is ready for when you can get them again though, and currently also contains some demo work including addressable LED driver code.
As an alternative there’s a comparable and slightly cheaper ARM-based part,
the Puya PY32
. It’s reckoned to be the cheapest of the flash-based microcontrollers, and like the WCH part is bearing down on the crop of one-time-programmable chips such as the famous and considerably less powerful
3-cent Padauk
. This end of the market is certainly heating up a little, and from our point of view this can only mean some exciting projects ahead. | 40 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608327",
"author": "JAVIER",
"timestamp": "2023-03-02T10:05:06",
"content": "Arduino support for puya py32 would be awesome",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6626354",
"author": "Fulgencio de Nergiza",
"timestam... | 1,760,372,381.727548 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/01/making-ghidra-play-nice-with-rp2040/ | Making Ghidra Play Nice With RP2040 | Arya Voronova | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"Ghidra",
"rp2040",
"SVD file"
] | Developing firmware for RP2040 is undeniably fun, what’s with all these PIOs. However, sometimes you will want to switch it around and reverse-engineer some RP2040 firmware instead. If you’ve ever tried using Ghidra for that, your experience might have been seriously lackluster due to the decompiled output not making sense when it comes to addresses – thankfully, [Wejn] has now released patches for Ghidra’s companion, SVD-Loader, that turn it all around, and there’s
a blog post to go with these.
SVD-Loader, while an indispensable tool for ARM work, didn’t work at all with the RP2040 due to a bug – fixed foremost. Then, [Wejn] turned to a pecularity of the RP2040 – Atomic Register Access, that changes addressing in a way where the usual decompile flow will result in nonsense addresses. Having brought a ton of memory map data into the equation, [Wejn] rewrote the decoding and got it to a point where peripheral accesses now map to nicely readable register writes in decompiled code – an entirely different picture!
You can already
apply the patches yourself
if you desire. As usual, there’s still things left in TODO for proper quality of life during your Ghidra dive, but the decompiled code makes way more sense now than it did before. Now, if you ever encounter a RP2040-powered
water cooler
or an
air quality meter
, you are ready to take a stab at its flash contents. Not yet familiar with the Ghidra life? Well, our own HackadayU has
just the learning course
for you! | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608464",
"author": "Wejn",
"timestamp": "2023-03-02T16:09:45",
"content": "FTR: Maybe don’t apply the patches (which is a link to a diff against base), but `git clone` thehttps://github.com/wejn/SVD-Loader-Ghidra-RP2040.The link to a diff is useful (to see what was changed)… but it... | 1,760,372,381.972289 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/01/what-happened-to-swedens-slot-car-ev-road/ | What Happened To Sweden’s Slot Car EV Road? | Navarre Bartz | [
"car hacks",
"green hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"car",
"conductive charging",
"conductive rail",
"conductor",
"ehighway",
"electric highway",
"electric highways",
"electric truck",
"electric trucks",
"pantograph",
"transport",
"truck",
"trucks"
] | Many EVs can charge 80% of their battery in a matter of minutes, but for some applications range anxiety and charge time are still a concern. One possible solution is an embedded electrical rail in the road like the [
eRoadArlanda
] that Sweden unveiled in 2016.
Overhead electrical wires like those used in trolleys have been around since the 1800s, and there have been some tests with inductive coils in the roadway, but the 2 km [eRoadArlanda] takes the concept of the slot car to the next level. The top of the rail is grounded while the live conductor is kept well underground beneath the two parallel slots. Power is only delivered when a vehicle passes over the rail with a retractable contactor, reducing danger for pedestrians, animals, and other vehicles.
One of the big advantages of this technology being in the road bed is that both passenger and commercial vehicles could use it unlike an overhead wire system that would require some seriously tall pantographs for your family car. Testing over several Swedish winters shows that the system can shed snow and ice as well as rain and other road debris.
Unfortunately, the project’s website has gone dark, and
the project manager
didn’t respond when we reached out for comment. If there are any readers in Sweden with an update, let us know in the comments!
We’ve covered both
overhead wire
and
embedded inductive coil
power systems here before if you’re interested in EV driving with (virtually) unlimited range.
[via
New Atlas] | 60 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608201",
"author": "SayWhat?",
"timestamp": "2023-03-02T03:50:36",
"content": "Hello fond memories of 1965 at my favorite slot car track.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6608209",
"author": "fatbikr",
"timestamp": "2023... | 1,760,372,382.068605 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/01/the-tale-of-two-broken-flukes/ | The Tale Of Two Broken Flukes | Arya Voronova | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"epoxy",
"fluke",
"fluke meter",
"test equipment"
] | Some repairs happen as if by pure luck, and [Sebastian]
shows us one such repair
on Hackaday.io. He found two Fluke 175 meters being sold on eBay, with one having a mere beeper issue, and another having a “strange error”. Now, theoretically, swapping beepers around would give you one working meter and a kit of spare parts – but this is Fluke we’re talking about, and [Sebastian] wasn’t satisfied leaving it there.
First, he deduced that the beeper issue could be fixed by repositioning the piezo disk – and indeed, that brought the meter number one to working order. This left the mysterious error – the meter would only power up in certain rotations of the dial, and would misbehave, at that. Disassembly cleared things up – the dial mechanics failed, in that a half of the metal contacts came detached after all the plastic rivets holding the metal piece in place mysteriously vanished. The mechanics were indeed a bit intricate, and our hacker hoped to buy a replacement, but seeing the replacement switch prices in three-digit range, out came the epoxy tube.
An epoxy fix left overnight netted him two perfectly working Fluke meters, and while we don’t know what the listing price was for these, such a story might make you feel like taking your chances with a broken Fluke, too. The tale does end with a word of caution from [Sebastian], though – apparently, cleaning the meters took longer than the repairs themselves. Nevertheless, this kind of repair is a hobbyist’s dream – sometimes, you have to
design a whole new case
for your meter if as much as a wire breaks, or painstakingly
replace a COB with a TQFP chip. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608169",
"author": "Dj Biohazard",
"timestamp": "2023-03-02T02:06:16",
"content": "Might have to repair a couple more… to make sure it wasn’t just a Fluke.I’ll see myself out.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6608170",
... | 1,760,372,382.117168 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/01/self-destructing-usb-drive-releases-the-magic-smoke/ | Self-Destructing USB Drive Releases The Magic Smoke | Tom Nardi | [
"Security Hacks",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"access control",
"flash drive",
"Ovrdrive",
"usb flash",
"voltage doubler"
] | There were some that doubted the day would ever come, but we’re happy to report that the ambitious self-destructing USB drive that security researcher [Walker] has been working on for the last 6+ months
has finally stopped working
. Which in this case, is a good thing.
Readers may recall that the goal of the Ovrdrive project was to create a standard-looking flash drive that didn’t just hide or erase its contents when accessed by an unauthorized user, but actively damaged itself to try and prevent any forensic recovery of the data in question. To achieve this, [Walker] built a voltage doubler circuit into the drive that produces 10 volts from the nominal 5 VDC coming from the USB port. At the command of an onboard microcontroller, that 10 V is connected to the circuit’s 3.3 V rail to set off the fireworks.
Early attempts only corrupted some of the data, so [Walker] added some more capacitance to the circuit to build up more of a charge. With the revised circuit the USB controller IC visibly popped, but even after it was replaced, the NAND flash was still unresponsive. Sounds pretty dead to us.
Too user friendly, needs more buttons
Unfortunately, there’s still at least one issue that’s holding back the design.
As we mentioned previously
, [Walker] was having trouble getting the computer to actually acknowledge his homebrew drive had any free space available. It turns out that the SM3257EN USB controller IC he’s using needs to be initialized by some poorly documented Windows XP software, which might not be such a big deal if the goal was just to build one of them, but could obviously be a hindrance when going into production.
He hopes further reverse engineering will allow him to determine which commands the XP software is giving to the IC so that he can duplicate them in a less ancient environment. Sounds like a
job for Wireshark
to us — with any luck he should be able to capture the commands being sent to the hardware and replay them.
While we can understand some readers may have lingering doubts about the drive’s
spit-detection authentication system
, it’s clear [Walker] has made some incredible progress here. This project demonstrates that not only can an individual spin up their own sold state storage, but that should they ever need to, they can also destroy it in an instant. | 52 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608044",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2023-03-01T21:11:33",
"content": "How about looping some kanthal wire over the flash chip and just physically burning it? Once the wire melts through the casing and starts to carbonize the plastic, it should be very difficult to operate the ... | 1,760,372,382.314285 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/28/collection-of-old-films-rescued-for-preservation/ | Collection Of Old Films Rescued For Preservation | Chris Lott | [
"classic hacks",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"16mm film",
"35mm film",
"film preservation",
"film scanning"
] | Periscope Film
owners [Doug] and [Nick]
just released a mini-documentary
about the rescue of a large collection of old
35 and
16 mm celluloid films from the landfill. The video shows the process of the films being collected from the donor and then being sorted and organized in a temporary storage warehouse. There is a dizzying variety of films in this haul, from different countries, in both color and black and white.
We can see in the video that their rented 8 meter (26 foot) cargo truck wasn’t enough to contain the trove, so they dragged along a 1.8 x 3.6 m (6 x 12 ft) double-axle trailer as well. That makes a grand total of 49 cubic meters of space. Our back-of-the-envelope calculations says that filled to the brim, that would be over 30,000 canisters of 600 m (2,000 ft) 35 mm movie reels.
When it comes to preserving these old films, one big problem is physical deterioration of the film stock itself. You will know something is wrong when you get a strong acetic or vinegary odor when opening the can. [Nick] shows some examples where the film has even become solidified, taken on a hexagonal shape. It will take months to just assess and catalog the contents of this collection, with damaged films that are still salvageable jumping to the head of the queue to be digitized.
Film Scanning Artist [Esteban] Performing Color Correction
Films are digitized at 4K resolution using a Lasergraphics ScanStation archival quality film scanning system, and then the restoration fun begins. One issue demonstrated in this video is color deterioration. In the Eastmancolor film technology introduced in the 1950s, the blue dyes deteriorate over time. This, and a plethora of other issues, are corrected in the restoration process.
We’re particularly jealous of film scanning artist [Esteban]’s triple-headed trackball. We learned from a quick Google search this beast is merely the entry level control panel from UK company Tangent — they make even larger flavors.
If you’re interested in doing this with 8 mm home movies, we covered a project way back in 2011 of a
DIY home movie scanning project
. We also covered one of
Periscope Film’s
restored training films about
NASA soldering techniques from 1958
. Kudos to organizations who focus on keeping these types of interesting and historical films from being dumped in the landfill and lost forever. | 31 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607139",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2023-02-28T13:55:49",
"content": "I’ll never understand why people dump this kind of thing – is it really beyond the original owners to reach out and find somebody who may want them? The same of course applies to all of the other items that ... | 1,760,372,382.394512 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/28/move-over-steel-carbon-reinforced-concrete-is-here/ | Move Over Steel, Carbon-Reinforced Concrete Is Here | Jenny List | [
"Engineering"
] | [
"Carbon Fibre",
"concrete",
"TU Dresden"
] | Reinforced concrete is the miracle material which made possible so many of the twentieth century’s most iconic structures, but here in this century its environmental footprint makes it something of a concern. As part of addressing this problem, a team at TU Dresden in Germany have completed what is believed to be
the world’s first building made with carbon-reinforced concrete
, in which the steel rebar is replaced with carbon fiber.
New materials are always of interest here at Hackaday, so
it’s worth reading further about the nature of the reinforcement
. The carbon fiber is woven into a mesh, or as a composite material that mimics existing rebar structures. These two types of reinforcement can be combined in a composite to produce a concrete structure much lighter than traditional steel-reinforced ones. If you page through the architecture critic description, it’s this lightness which has enabled the curving structure of the Dresden building to be so relatively thin.
The carbon saving comes presumably in the lower energy cost from not smelting iron to make steel, as well as the need for less concrete due to the lightness. All we need now is a low-carbon replacement for Portland cement.
Want to know more about concrete reinforcement?
We’ve got you covered
. | 62 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607032",
"author": "martinimartin",
"timestamp": "2023-02-28T09:10:35",
"content": "And how well does carbon reinforced concrete recycle? Separating and reusing re-bar is not a problem.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6607063... | 1,760,372,382.627753 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/27/pokemon-rom-hacks-brought-to-the-real-world/ | Pokemon ROM Hacks Brought To The Real World | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"cartridge",
"emerald",
"fire red",
"flash",
"flora sky",
"pokemon",
"rom",
"ROM hack",
"Vega"
] | If you were a kid anywhere in the last 30 years, it was nearly impossible to avoid at least some exposure to the Pokemon franchise. Whether that’s through games like Red and Blue to Scarlet and Violet, the brief summer everyone played Pokemon Go, or to other media such as the trading card game or anime, it seems to have transcended generations and cultures fairly thoroughly. And, if you’ve consumed all there is of official Pokemon video gaming, you may be surprised to know there are
a number of slightly modified games floating around out there that can be translated onto game carts
just like their official counterparts.
[imablisy] has played a lot of these ROM hack games but always within something like a virtual console or emulator, so he wanted something physical which would work on original hardware of the era. For this he’s making physical copies of Flora Sky and Vega, which are based on Pokemon Emerald and Fire Red originally for the Game Boy Advance. To get the cart he found a bunch of Mother 3 cartridges to use as the donor. From there he backed up his Emerald and Fire Red cartridges, modified the ROMs with the modifications, and then sent those new ROMs to overwrite the data on the Mother 3 cartridges.
A playable cartridge is only half of the build, though. He wants these to look and feel like real Pokemon games, so he added a color-appropriate translucent case and also printed custom holographic labels for each. It might seem straightforward, but from the style of [imablisy]’s video it’s clear he is very familiar with processes like these, from the artwork all the way to the hardware and software side. We’re also pleased no classic hardware was damaged during this build,
much like this version of Doom on an NES cart
which used a common game for the donor to upset the least number of collectors. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606952",
"author": "nidoking",
"timestamp": "2023-02-28T06:06:14",
"content": "I had recently been wondering how one would create a working flash card… I remember when I first found this site as a dorky little kid I was amazed by the people who’d do things like get a floppy drive w... | 1,760,372,382.945511 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/27/morphos-a-modern-operating-system-for-powerpc/ | MorphOS: A Modern Operating System For PowerPC | Maya Posch | [
"Mac Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"MorphOS",
"powerpc"
] | When it comes to modern operating systems for PowerPC-based systems like pre-Intel Macs, or other PowerPC-based systems like older or newer AmigaOS-compatible systems, there is an increasing lack of options. For 32-bit PPC, official Linux support has been dropped already, leaving only unofficial builds and of course AmigaOS as well as AmigaOS-like operating systems. So what do you do if you have a PPC-based Mac system lying around which you do not simply want to run the same old, unsupported copy of MacOS on? In a recent video, [Michael MJD] decided to
give MorphOS 3.17 a shot
on a Mac G4 Cube.
Originally created for the now-defunct Pegasos PPC-based series of computers and PPC accelerator cards for Amiga systems,
MorphOS
is based on the proprietary Quark microkernel, In its current release, it
supports
a range of G4 and G5-based Apple systems, as well as the
AmigaOne
500 and X5000, with some asterisks. In addition to its own applications it supports AmigaOS applications, including those targeting the m68k architecture, via its JIT emulator.
A cursory look at the
community
shows that MorphOS finds use for being a fast and relatively up to date alternative OS for especially PPC-based Macs. The price tag of €79 per system (
transferable
to a new system) should offer some guarantee of continued development, which includes e.g. the
Wayfarer
browser for MorphOS, which is based on Webkit, but optimized for e.g. Altivec.
Although installing MorphOS went relatively smoothly for [Michael] (with just a monitor-related glitch), he did not try too much beyond an initial impression of the GUI and preinstalled applications. There is also a 30-minute timer on the trial version (resettable via reboot) that ended [Michael]’s look at this OS.
What do you run on your PPC-based machines, and have you used MorphOS? What are your thoughts on this OS? | 29 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606879",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-02-28T03:58:09",
"content": "Someone must be reading my mind. Anyway it’s nice to see all the attention paid to alternative OS. Something to learn from.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"commen... | 1,760,372,382.480645 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/27/antenna-hidden-in-holiday-lights-skirts-hoa-rules/ | Antenna Hidden In Holiday Lights Skirts HOA Rules | Bryan Cockfield | [
"home hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"christmas",
"disguise",
"ham",
"HF",
"high frequency",
"HOA",
"holiday",
"homeowner's association",
"lights",
"radio"
] | For all their supposed benefits, homeowner’s associations (HOAs) have a reputation of quickly turning otherwise quaint neighborhoods into a sort of Stanford prison experiment, as those who get even the slightest amount of power often abuse it. Arbitrary rules and enforcement abound about house color, landscaping, parking, and if you’ve ever operated a radio, antennas. While the FCC (at least as far as the US is concerned) does say that HOAs aren’t permitted to restrict the use of antennas, if you don’t want to get on anyone’s bad side
you’ll want to put up an antenna like this one
which is disguised as a set of HOA-friendly holiday lights.
For this build, a long wire is hidden along with a strand of otherwise plain-looking lights. While this might seem straightforward at first, there are a few things that need to be changed on the lighting string in order to make both the antenna and the disguise work. First, the leads on each bulb were removed to to prevent any coupling from the antenna into the lighting string. Clipping the leads turns what is essentially a long wire that might resonate with the antenna’s frequency into many short sections of wire which won’t have this problem. This also solves the problem of accidentally illuminating any bulbs when transmitting, as the RF energy from the antenna could otherwise transfer into the lighting string and draw attention from the aforementioned HOA.
Tests of this antenna seemed to show surprising promise while it was on the ground, but when the string and antenna was attached to the roof fascia the performance dropped slightly, presumably because of either the metal drip edge or the gutters. Still, the antenna’s creator [Bob] aka [HOA Ham] had excellent success with this, making clear contacts with other ham radio operators hundreds of miles away. We’ve shared another of [Bob]’s HOA-friendly builds below as well which hides the HF antenna in the roof’s ridge vent, and if you’re looking for other interesting antenna builds
take a look at this one which uses a unique transformer
to get wide-band performance out of an otherwise short HF antenna. | 90 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606755",
"author": "dr. cryogen",
"timestamp": "2023-02-28T00:41:05",
"content": "Sir, I applaud you! I have the misfortune to be the president of our HOA, and I absolutely loathe rule enforcement. This outside the box thinking is excellent and would make it very, very hard to just... | 1,760,372,382.898994 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/27/watch-time-slide-by-with-this-electromechanical-clock/ | Watch Time Slide By With This Electromechanical Clock | Robin Kearey | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"3D printed clock",
"electromechanical clock",
"rack and pinion",
"sliding"
] | Back in the 18th century, clockmakers were held in high esteem, as turning pieces of metal and wire into working timepieces must have seemed like magic at the time. The advent of mass production made their profession largely obsolete, but today there are several hardware hackers whom you could consider modern heirs of the craft. [Hans Andersson] is one of them, and has made a name for himself with an impressive portfolio of electromechanical clocks. His latest work, called
the Time Slider
, is every bit as captivating as his previous work.
The mechanical display is almost entirely made of 3D printed components. Four flat pieces of red PLA form a basic 88:88 indicator, onto which the correct time is displayed by sliding frames that black out certain pixels. Those frames are moved up and down by a rack-and-pinion system driven by stepper motors. Evertyhing is controlled by an Arduino Mega, acoompanied by a DS3231 RTC and eight ULN2003-based stepper motor drivers.
[Hans] wrote a detailed assembly guide to go along with the STL files and Arduino code, so it should be easy make your own Time Slider if you have a decent supply of PLA filament. The display takes about ten seconds to update, but the process has certain hypnotic quality to it, helped by the mechanical whirring of the stepper motors in the background. Especially the hourly change of three or four digits at once is mesmerizing, as you can see in the video embedded below.
Time Slider is the latest in [Hans]’s long line of mechanical clocks, which includes the Time Twister series that evolved from
a clever Lego-based design
to
a neat 3D-printed model
. The rack-and-pinion system can also be used to make
a compact linear clock
. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606640",
"author": "jyg",
"timestamp": "2023-02-27T21:08:55",
"content": "beautiful",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6606682",
"author": "SayWhat?",
"timestamp": "2023-02-27T22:24:51",
"content": "My fa... | 1,760,372,382.687391 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/27/diy-stm32-scope-is-simple-cheap-and-featureful/ | DIY STM32 Scope Is Simple, Cheap, And Featureful | Arya Voronova | [
"hardware",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"Digital storage oscilloscope",
"diy oscilloscope",
"dso",
"oscilloscope",
"ST7735",
"stm32",
"STM32F4"
] | Would you like to have a small digital oscilloscope? Do you have a spare BlackPill (STM32F401) board and a TFT display laying around? [tvvlad1234] presents us with a simple and educational
digital storage oscilloscope design
that barely needs any components for you to build one, and it’s packed with features just like you would expect from a self-respecting open-source project. Not just that — it can even stream data to your computer, in a format compatible with the TekScope software!
It’s hard to overshadow just how easy this scope is to build, use, and hack on. You really don’t need much in the way of parts, a protoboard will do, though you can also etch or order
your own PCBs.
The front-end is super straightforward to find components for and assemble, a few opamps and resistors is all you need. So after jumper-wiring the LCD and three push buttons to your BlackPill, you’re golden.
Of course, the simple frontend results in the input range being from -3.3 V to 3.3 V, but as you could guess, this is exactly the kind of project where you could tweak the resistors and even upgrade it later on. Are you a bit lost in how oscilloscopes work? [tvvlad1234] has
an explainer for you,
too!
This build could easily take up a honorary “temporary turned permanent” place on your bench, thanks to its McGyver-esque qualities. It’s also, quite possibly, a better scope than the red “soldering kit” ones we’ve seen online. All in all, it’s a strong contender in the “simple and powerful DIY scope” arena, before this, we’ve seen one built with
an Arduino Nano,
and one
with a Pi Pico. | 27 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606600",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2023-02-27T20:08:05",
"content": "Very nice. And runs from a battery. I’ll probably go with a Li-ion from my stash if I build it.Tempting",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "... | 1,760,372,382.754436 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/01/a-thoroughly-modern-serial-terminal/ | A Thoroughly Modern Serial Terminal | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks",
"computer hacks"
] | [
"rp2040",
"serial terminal",
"terminal"
] | The humble desktop serial terminal may have long disappeared from the world of corporate IT, but there are still plenty of moments when professionals and enthusiasts alike need to hook up to a serial port. Many of us use a serial port on our laptops or other mobile devices, but
[Neil Crawforth] has gone one better than that with the VT2040
. It’s an old-style serial terminal in a super-handy portable format, and as one might guess from the name, it has an RP2040 microcontroller at its heart.
Attached to the chip is a rather nice keyboard, and an ILI9488 480×320 LCD display. The software is modular, providing a handy set of re-usable libraries for the different functions including a PIO-based serial port. His main application seems to be talking to an ESP8266, but we’re guessing with a MAX232 or other level shifter chip it could drive a more traditional port. Everything can be found in
the project’s GitHub repository,
allowing anyone to join the fun.
As long-time readers will know, we’ve been partial to a few serial terminals in the past. Particularly beloved is this
extremely retro model with vintage dot matrix LEDs
. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6608027",
"author": "3L_S4N70",
"timestamp": "2023-03-01T20:39:16",
"content": "No link to previous entries is given. Regarding this every, nice terminal with a tight budget!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6608033",
"author... | 1,760,372,382.994838 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/01/the-die-is-cast/ | The Die Is Cast! | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"die casting",
"metal",
"metal casting",
"sand casting"
] | We all know the basics of how metal casting works, a metal is heated up to melting point and the resulting liquid metal is poured into a mold. When the metal sets, it assumes the shape of the mold. It’s a straightforward way to reliably replicate a metal item many times over, and the basics are the same whether the metal is a low-temperature alloy in a silicone mould or a crucible of molten steel poured into a sand mould.
A sand mould being formed around a pattern. Lukas Stavek, CC BY-SA 3.0 .
What we all understood as casting in our conversation was sand casting. Sand is packed around a pattern of the piece to be cast, and then the pattern is removed leaving a cavity in its shape which becomes the mould. There are refinements to this process and the mould is frequently formed in two halves, but it’s something that’s even practical to do in a hackerspace level setting.
A refinement of sand casting is so-called lost-wax casting, in which a hollow wax model of the piece to be cast is packed around with sand, and
when the metal is poured onto the top of it the wax melts
and the wax is melted out before pouring the metal in to take its place. A variation on this appears here from time to time, so-called
lost-PLA
casting, where the wax model is replaced with a PLA 3D print.
Injection Molding For Metals
A die casting machine. Ahmed elbhje,
Public domain
.
Where our confusion crept in was with die casting. We could recognise a die-cast piece, but just what is die-casting, and how is a die-casting made? The answer there lies in mass-production, because a snag with sand casting is that a sand mould can be labour intensive to produce. Much better to come up with a quick-turnaround process that re-uses the same mould over and over, and save all that time!
Enter the die-casting, to metalwork what injection moulding is to polymers. The die is a mould made out of metal, usually with liquid cooling, and the casting is done not by pouring but by forcing the molten metal into the mould under pressure. The whole process becomes much quicker, meaning that it can become a piece of process machinery spitting out castings rather than a labour-intensive individual task. The metals used for die-casting are the lower temperature ones such as aluminium, zinc, and their alloys, but you will find die-castings in all conceivable places.
It’s obvious that Hackaday editors are not experienced foundrymen
even if some of us grew up around metalwork
, but we know that among our readers lie genuine experts in all sorts of fields. If that’s you and you operate a die-casting machine, please take a moment to tell us about it, we really would like to know more!
Header: Constantin Meunier,
Public domain
. | 31 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607976",
"author": "cliff claven",
"timestamp": "2023-03-01T18:42:14",
"content": "Just a note about lost wax: NEVER try to melt the wax pattern out with the molten metal. The wax is `burned out’ prior to pouring.Also, never forget lost foam as an option.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,383.063543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/01/morse-code-clock-for-training-hams/ | Morse Code Clock For Training Hams | Bryan Cockfield | [
"classic hacks",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"battery",
"clock",
"ds1307",
"ham radio",
"lithium",
"morse",
"pic",
"Practice",
"rtc"
] | It might seem antiquated, but Morse code still has a number of advantages compared to other modes of communication, especially over radio waves. It’s low bandwidth compared to voice or even text, and can be discerned against background noise even at extremely low signal strengths. Not every regulatory agency requires amateur operators to learn Morse any more, but for those that do it can be a challenge,
so [Cristiano Monteiro] built this clock to help get some practice
.
The project is based around his favorite microcontroller, the PIC16F1827, and uses a DS1307 to keep track of time. A single RGB LED at the top of the project enclosure flashes the codes for hours in blue and minutes in red at the beginning of every minute, and in between flashes green for each second.
Another design goal of this build was to have it operate with as little power as possible, so with a TP4056 control board, single lithium 18650 battery, and some code optimization, [Cristiano] believes he can get around 60 days of operation between charges.
For a project to help an aspiring radio operator learn Morse, a simple build like this can go a long way. For anyone else looking to build something similar we’d note that the DS1307 has a tendency to drift fairly quickly, and something like a DS3231 or even this similar Morse code clock which uses NTP
would go a long way to keeping more accurate time
. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607955",
"author": "MartyK",
"timestamp": "2023-03-01T17:33:13",
"content": "Does this really serve as a learning device? Hams need to train their ears and not their eyes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6607960",
"... | 1,760,372,383.114127 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/01/fosdem-2023-an-open-source-conference-literally/ | FOSDEM 2023: An Open-Source Conference, Literally | Arya Voronova | [
"cons",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider",
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"FOSDEM",
"linux",
"open source",
"software"
] | Every year, on the first weekend of February, a certain Brussels university campus livens up. There, you will find enthusiasts of open-source software and hardware alike, arriving from different corners of the world to meet up, talk, and listen. The reason they all meet there is the conference called
FOSDEM
, a long-standing open-source software conference which has been happening in Belgium
since 2000.
I’d like to tell you about FOSDEM because, when it comes to conferences, FOSDEM is one of a kind.
FOSDEM is organized in alignment with open-source principles, which is to say, it reminds me of an open-source project itself. The conference is volunteer-driven, with a core of staff responsible for crucial tasks – yet, everyone can and is encouraged to contribute. Just like a large open-source effort, it’s supported by university and company contributions, but there’s no admission fees for participants – for a conference, this means you don’t have to buy a ticket to attend. Last but definitely not least, what makes FOSDEM shine is the community that it creates.
FOSDEM’s focus is open software – yet, for hackers of the hardware world, you will find a strong hardware component to participate in, since a great number of FOSDEM visitors are either interested in hardware, or even develop hardware-related things day-to-day. It’s not just that our hardware can’t live without software, and vice-versa – here, you will meet plenty of pure software, a decent amount of pure hardware, and a lot of places where the two worlds are hard to distinguish. All in all, FOSDEM is no doubt part of hacker culture in Europe, and today, I will tell you about my experience of FOSDEM 2023.
What’s So Cool?
This year, FOSDEM happened from 4th to 5th of February, with almost ten thousand visitors from countries all over the globe, somewhat biased towards Western Europe close to Belgium. Nevertheless, people booked long flights, took trains and planned hotels well in advance – AirBnB and hotel rooms around get sold out quite a bit before the event. Why invest time into such a gathering? For a start, if you’re arriving on your own just to explore, there will be plenty of like-minded people for you to meet, exploration and talks to learn from, and warm memories afterwards. Not just that, however – this conference helps open-source communities gain their wings, and if you participate in an open-source project, even by virtue of using a programming language, there’s a whole new dimension in FOSDEM for you.
My first trip to FOSDEM, back in 2018, was to meet some open-hardware project developers and share experience about an idea of mine; once I got to the conference, the various talks got my attention, and FOSDEM’s volunteering system pulled me in during my free time. Next year, I myself was working on a small but interesting open-source hardware project, and I went to meet some contributors and to-be-users of mine, chatting about hardware throughout. A year afterwards, I didn’t have as much of a reason to go – but at this point, I just couldn’t miss it. Two “FOSDEM happening online” years passed, and I went back to Brussels, now making sure to bring a few friends so that more people could appreciate what makes this conference; perhaps, FOSDEM is just a bit addictive.
“Community” is likely the word I have in mind when it comes to what makes FOSDEM unique. The aura of FOSDEM never seems to fail to bring people that I’m interested in, it is why people come back, and it’s why some people volunteer throughout the event or even become staff to make FOSDEM possible year by year. There is no large corporation directing the event, and FOSDEM wouldn’t be much if it weren’t for everyone’s individual contribution, whether it’s giving a talk, being in a room listening, wandering around the stalls, standing at a stall talking to anyone interested in your project, helping at one of the infodesks, or being on standby throughout the weekend helping debug video streaming problems at a moment’s notice; everybody’s participation makes the open-source world shine just a bit more as a result.
Expected Pathways
When it comes to open-source communities, year after a year, FOSDEM doesn’t just familiarize people with open projects – it also brings the projects closer together. My priority is hardware, but as you might expect, the brightest examples of FOSDEM helping open-source projects grow, are in the open-source software area – and this year, Matrix is a great demonstration of what I mean by that.
Matrix is a fully open messaging platform that aims to take over every single proprietary messenger by force of open-source without compromise, and the takeover has been happening everywhere – from friend groups to entire governments. This year’s FOSDEM,
Matrix had a blast
– they did the “Matrix 2.0” main track talk, hosted a Matrix-dedicated devroom with talks throughout the weekend, had developers meet up and hack on various aspects, and delivered the message of Matrix to myriads of people beyond the core – all in all, it’s a social jet engine boost towards a future free of proprietary messengers. Now, this is a giant project, but thanks to ideas like the Birds of Feather rooms, small projects can have their own small get-together; also, any thematic talk can and often does turn into an impromptu project meetup afterwards.
This kind of principle, of course, propagated throughout the FOSDEM’s hardware hacker front. For a start, there was the AW building, a must-visit area – not giant but nevertheless distinct, full of hardware project embassies and devrooms; to add to it, an extra dozen of heavily-hardware-adjacent tables could be found all throughout the campus. Of course, part of open-source software is the mobile OSes, and you’d expect the postmarketOS and the Linux on Mobile community around a desk absolutely full of smartphones of all kinds. However, there was way more – a ham radio enthusiast gathering, the coreboot/flashrom embassy, MicroPython, Espruino and embedded JavaScript tables, Automotive Linux, OpenHAB, and the OpenEmbedded/Yocto project table, all of them eager to talk with people who might be their users and just not know it yet, or already are users and would like to lift the LCD and nickname veil.
Last but not least, there was a
surprise
demo
of the
Pocket MNT Reform.
For instance, MicroPython’s ambassador has told me that throughout this year’s event, she’s met quite a few hardware-curious people who have either never heard of MicroPython or never got to try it, and were happy to find a table where they could actually see for themselves what MicroPython is about. Next to their desk, Pine64 took a large spotlight – with key members arriving from as far as Far East, at FOSDEM, you could meet the Pine64 in person, both the manufacturing and the community side. From the usual Pine offerings to developer-only boards, tech demos and a few yet-to-be-released gadgets like the Star64, the Pine64 desk was never free of people who wanted to take a look at genuinely open-source devices of all kinds. As I said, the hardware didn’t end in the AW building – for instance, FOSSASIA had a desk where they were showing the PSLAB, a small all-in-one benchtop lab device.
All of these are examples of how FOSDEM supports the hardware scene and how the hardware scene is an inseparable part of FOSDEM – however, that’s far from the only value FOSDEM provides for a hardware hacker.
Random Encounters
Hardware was a supporting component at many software desks too – for instance, the Jenkins table had a cute cluster of ARM devices with a neat 3D-printed frame that helped demo the features of Jenkins, the FreeBSD table had a “hardware hacking with FreeBSD” demo sporting a BeagleBone and a few breadboards, and the KDE table had a single-board computer with a touchscreen demoing their mobile device work. These are all apt examples of how some hardware hacking on the side can greatly boost a software project’s perceived coolness – through the pure power of metaphorical blinking LEDs shown being powered by this software project. We all know that pure hardware only gets you so far – which makes such collaborations crucial.
However, you’d be missing out if you paid attention only to hardware-augmented things and not to the overall joyous open-source spirit that fills the campus. Whether it’s people in VLC hats or the PostgreSQL elephant wandering around, the impromptu hacking sessions at cafeteria tables, the unique energy in devrooms when the whole audience is listening to a speaker’s proudly delivered discoveries and software war stories – you are invited to participate in this atmosphere. You will learn of whole new areas of open software and hardware world, discover complexities that you might have never suspected to be there and gain respect for people dealing with them.
You will also find things you never knew you wanted to find. For instance, every now and then, a far-away-country-based community sets up an embassy at FOSDEM – this year, I was surprised to find a table where a few Taiwan’s software world representatives were showing how they advance their own openness and education goals, make friends in the European open-source community. Also, at some point, I left one of the main buildings and found a sizeable group of people watching a small transparent balloon rise up – later, I learned that it was equipped with a LoRa transmitter! Such occurrences will be unique for everyone, and if you walk around the campus as FOSDEM unfolds around you, you will find something that fascinates you in particular.
Naturally, every developer-populated community attracts people who are looking for developers, and you might just stumble upon some ways to get paid for what you already love doing, too. What if you are looking for a career change and just haven’t looked a good opportunity yet? Well, drop by the jobs board, a dedicated wall for job and contract advertisements, project pitches and, as a bonus, a sticker exchange. Or, perhaps, do you have a public good open-source project idea in mind, and something to show for it? The NLNet embassy is right there – they’re an organization that sponsors open-source projects in software and hardware areas, and if your project fits their criteria, you could get a grant to work on that one fundamental idea of yours.
FOSDEM’s community has a way of surpassing your expectations if you give it a chance – and, of course, as with any self-respecting conference, the talks seal the deal.
Talks, Of Course
The “healthy mix of hardware and software” MO also applies to the talks, and I’ll give hardware the spotlight yet again – there’s more than enough for all of our tastes. For instance, this year,
FOSDEM’s main track
had participants dive into
open-source chip design
,
browser-based maker tools
and
home automation
, giving these topics a much-needed highlight. Aside from the main track, talks happen in thematic devrooms, with a few devrooms closely tied to hardware and a lot of pure software ones. The lightning talk areas have hardware talks peppered in, too – I’ve found the
LibreSoC
open System-on-Chip family,
FPGA music synthesis
,
FOSSBot
educational robot, and
FabAccess
(creative space access control system) talks to be engaging, short yet sweet.
Ddevrooms are where it’s at for learning purposes – there, you can learn directly from developers on any given topic. Say, would you like to know just what the deal is with SecureBoot, TPMs and secure computing in general, without the everpresent FUD? There’s entire two devrooms (
Secure Measured Boot
and
Open-Source Firmware
) where you can learn directly from open-source developers tackling these, and they’ve been going on for a few years in some form. Are your hardware&software skills alone not enough to create devices that users enjoy interacting with? Drop by the
Open-Source Design
devroom to learn the under-taught basics of friendly design. The
Embedded, Mobile and Automotive devroom
will have you get close to the metal, from
VoLTE
and
FPGA bitstreams
, to
Bluetooth mesh networks
or reverse-engineering
this
and
that
, and way more – this is perhaps, one of the most immediately engaging devrooms for a Hackaday reader. Last but not least, if you ever wanted to learn about FOSS on mobile devices and the challenges associated with making our pocket devices free from proprietary nonsense,
the namesake devroom
has plenty to offer.
My view has always been that you can view all the talks afterwards, but you can’t walk around and meet people post-factum. However, it’s hard to deny that the talks will keep you entertained at a whim, and there will be some that you feel like you just won’t be able to miss. Perhaps, would you like to
learn more about the infrastructure
that runs FOSDEM?
Speaking About The Infrastructure
Whether you’d like to socialize during FOSDEM or it’s just that you can’t make the trip, all of the talks are livestreamed and recorded. It’s a simple statement, but consider the amount of devrooms, and the sheer volume will have you realize that these words have some serious backing to them; indeed, the video infrastructure has some technical spice to it. The recordings are up almost as soon as the conference ends, and the livestreams have all the remote attendants highly satisfied with their virtual trip. The infrastructure, whether networking, video, or the on-site volunteer coordination, has the event go without a hitch, evidently refined throughout the years by the FOSDEM core group – volunteers who have been there throughout the years and have taken up all the fundamental preparation and coordination tasks.
Of course, don’t forget, this is a community-driven conference, which means there’s plenty of hacker spirit at play while making things work this flawlessly. For example, during a peek behind the scenes, I was astonished that part of the FOSDEM video infrastructure stack includes a flock of 35 Thinkpads chugging away with lids half-open. Let’s face it – the results do speak for themselves, so it has to have been the best solution to whatever problem this part of the stack tackles.
On the opposite side of the equation, another hacker spirit manifestation is
something you can find
in all devrooms sitting on presenter desks – these sizeable lasercut boxes, each equipped with a bunch of XLR, HDMI, VGA and Ethernet connectors, as well an LCD screen. You know there’s something important going on – and indeed, inside you find a combination of AV capture and processing boards, a single-board computer, and a PC power supply. These boxes have been a crucial element when making FOSDEM’s video stream work, and the exact SBC and AV board combination in use this year has been perfected over the years – providing stability, throughput and featurefulness that ultimately, only a DIY solution could reach.
Of course, it’s not just the core team that runs everything. If you’re a FOSDEM visitor and you have a bit of free time, be it Friday or Sunday evening, or throughout the conference; perhaps, your devroom of choice or an interesting talk also happens to need a herald – there’s a volunteer system that shows you which part of FOSDEM could use help, and lets you join in. Friday evening, in case you arrive to Brussels early enough, is the buildup – large amounts of Ethernet cables are rolled out from building to building, signage is attached, tables, chairs and posters are put where they belong. Sunday evening, as you might guess, is the cleanup event, when all of these changes are rolled back; there’s
always a need
for a spare pair of hands. Throughout the event, each devroom, talk and infodesk needs a group of volunteers, and if the volunteer system shows that one of them could use a few more people, it might just be your time to shine.
Until Next Year
Despite being an open-source software conference, FOSDEM has plenty of things to offer to hardware hackers, and the community that springs up throughout the weekend, makes it an unique place to be; I expect to keep coming back. This year’s FOSDEM is over, leaving us with a bouquet of videos to watch – next first weekend of February, it will be time for the 2024 installment, and perhaps, you’d also like to drop by and check it out for yourself!
Big purple FOSDEM logo
upscaled by Andrew Shadura. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607924",
"author": "Bruno Verachten",
"timestamp": "2023-03-01T16:02:49",
"content": "So cool, there is a picture and a few words about #miniJen, my attempt to get #Jenkins running in a small form factor with various CPU architectures.Thanks a lot for stopping by.",
"parent_id"... | 1,760,372,383.173872 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/01/aaron-christophel-brings-doom-to-payment-terminal/ | Aaron Christophel BringsDOOMTo Payment Terminal | Arya Voronova | [
"Reverse Engineering",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"does it run doom",
"payment terminal",
"Will It Doom?"
] | Payment terminals might feel intimidating — they’re generally manufactured with security in mind, with all manner of anti-tamper protections in place to prevent you from poking around in the hardware too much. But [Aaron Christophel] thinks that level of security isn’t aren’t always in practice however, and on his journey towards repurposing devices of all kinds,
has stumbled upon just the terminal
that will give up its secrets easily. The device in question is Sumup Solo terminal, a small handheld with a battery, LTE connection and a payment card slot – helping you accept card payments even if you’re on the go.
Now, this terminal has security features like the anti-tamper shield over the crucial parts of the device, leading to payment processing-related keys being erased when lifted. However, acupuncture needles, a tool
firmly in [Aaron]’s arsenal
, helped him reach two UART testpoints that were meant to be located under that shield, and they turned out to be all that a hacker needed to access the Linux system powering this terminal. Not just that, but the UART drops you right into the root shell, which [Aaron] dutifully explored — and after some cross–compilation and Linux tinkering, he got the terminal to, naturally, run Doom.
The video shows you even more, including the responsible disclosure process that he went through with Sumup, resulting in some patches and, we hope, even hardware improvements down the line. Now, the payment processing keys aren’t accessible from the Linux environment — however, [Aaron] notes that this doesn’t exclude attacks like changing the amount of money displayed while the customer is using such a terminal to pay.
If you’d like to take a closer look at some of the hardware tricks used in these secure devices,
we did a teardown on one back in 2019
that should prove interesting. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607853",
"author": "CashIsKing",
"timestamp": "2023-03-01T13:25:22",
"content": "So, in short, nobody has ever played doom on physical coins and notes (yet), but atleast physical cash can’t be hacked from you. And physical cash doesn’t care if a battery runs down either. Playing do... | 1,760,372,383.222987 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/01/brand-new-colecovision-console-on-a-breadboard/ | Brand New Colecovision Console – On A Breadboard | Jenny List | [
"Games",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"Coleco",
"colecovision",
"console"
] | The Colecovision console from the early 1980s is probably not the most memorable platform of its era, but it retains a retrocomputing following to this day. The original hardware can be a bit pricey in 2023, so [nanochess]
has built one of his own on a breadboard
. It’s fully functional from original Colecovision cartridges, and we see it in the video below the break running
Frogger
.
Behind the mess of wires is a surprisingly simple circuit with only a few logic chips beyond the Z80 processor, the various memory and EPROM chips, and the video and sound chips. We’re told the complexity is considerably reduced by the use of a Texas Instruments TMS9118 video controller instead of a 9918.
Had we been building it we would probably have taken the less brave step of using color coded wires for the various signals, because we remember the fun and games associated with wiring old-style 8-bit computers by hand only too well. But we have to admit that it reminds us of a lost youth working out Z80 address decoder schematics, so it’s very pleasing to see one built today.
If you’re hungry for more Coleco goodness,
this isn’t the first home made Colecovision we’ve brought you
. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607910",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2023-03-01T15:43:25",
"content": "OMG",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6607951",
"author": "Stanley Smith",
"timestamp": "2023-03-01T17:19:01",
"content": "I worked on end of ... | 1,760,372,383.375316 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/28/a-more-expressive-synth-via-flexure/ | A More Expressive Synth Via Flexure | Navarre Bartz | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"breadboard",
"Daisy Seed",
"expressive synth",
"expressive synthesizer",
"flexure",
"hall effect sensor",
"synth",
"synthesizer"
] | Synthesizers can make some great music, but sometimes they feel a bit robotic in comparison to their analog counterparts.
[Sound Werkshop]
built a
“minimum viable” expressive synth
to overcome this challenge. (YouTube)
Dubbed “The Wiggler,” [
Sound Werkshop
]’s expressive synth centers on the idea of using a flexure as a means to control vibrato and volume. Side-to-side and vertical movement of the flexure is detected with a pair of linear hall effect sensors that feed into the Daisy Seed microcontroller to modify the patch.
The build itself is a large 3D printed base with room for the flexure and a couple of breadboards for prototyping the circuits. The keys are capacitive touch pads, and everything is currently held in place with hot glue. [
Sound Werkshop
] goes into detail in the video (below the break) on what the various knobs and switches do with an emphasis on how it was designed for ease of use.
If you want to learn more about flexures, be sure to checkout this
Open Source Flexure Construction Kit
. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6607716",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2023-03-01T07:36:01",
"content": "Ages ago I made the same thing in analog. It was quite simple: a ribbon controller on pivoted arm would provide the note, which you could wiggle left and right to make the vibrato. Pressing it down against a... | 1,760,372,384.196303 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/27/emulating-all-the-trs-80-software/ | Emulating All The TRS-80 Software | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"retrocomputing",
"trs-80"
] | Even if you didn’t own a TRS-80, the widespread footprint of Radio Shack in malls meant that if you are old enough, it is a good bet you have seen one and maybe even played with one. The games were crude, but state-of-the-art for 1982. If you wanted business software, that was there too, just don’t expect much on any of the personal computers of the day. My old TRS-80 Model III doesn’t boot anymore and is waiting for me to find time to pull it apart. But it turns out you can run all those old programs with almost no effort. If you’ve experimented with emulators before, you know there are two major problems. First, you need to install the sometimes-fidgety emulator. Second, you need to find the software you want to run and probably convert it into some format the emulator will read. The website named The
Big List of TRS-80 Software
solves both problems.
You are probably thinking this doesn’t solve any problem because it is just a list of links to software. That’s a reasonable thing to think, but we think the website really needs a new name. There are 15,873 pieces of software on the site, although some of them are duplicates or multiple versions of a single program. You can download them in a format that is useful for some emulators or, in some cases, the original files. But here’s the kicker. You can also click to launch a virtual TRS-80 in your browser and start the program.
Sounds great, right? Well, for the most part, it is. However, some of the programs are finicky and don’t run well in the browser. There’s also the problem of finding the documentation, but you can’t have everything. If you want a quick run of a very common game from back in the day, try
Flying Saucers
.
A Tale of Two Emulators
The
browser-based emulator
is from [Peter Phillips]. If the program you want to run doesn’t work well in the browser, you might want to try
trs80gp
, a full-featured stand-alone emulator that can run the DMK files you can download from the list.
The trs80gp software can emulate just about every TRS-80 and variant including the Model II and MC-10 Color Computer. The emulator is simply amazing. It not only emulates complete systems with cassettes, floppies, or hard drives, but it can even emulate the terrible display you’d expect from a vintage 1980s computer.
Emulated with authentic video
Emulated with sharp video
The emulator can slow down or run at full speed. You can even have cassette audio output captured automatically on the PC. Unfortunately, one of my old favorites — Asylum — acts the same in both emulators. It starts up, asks you a yes or no question, and refuses to accept any keyboard input. Keyboard input works for other programs, though. Even the emulator’s on-screen keyboard (both of them have one) won’t put input into this and a few other programs I tried.
Trash-80 Wine
There is a problem with the stand-alone emulator, though. There are versions available that don’t require Windows. However, the website mentions that the Windows version has more features. It does, however, run under Wine. In my case, I installed it using Crossover Office, which is a paid version of Wine. I can confirm that it works great.
Computer-aided design circa 1981
If you find a program you want to try on the list, you can start with the AUTORUN link to run it directly in the browser. If you prefer, you can download the DMK file and mount it as a floppy on the stand-alone emulator. Some floppies are bootable, and others require you to use the second drive with a standard boot floppy in the main drive. Don’t forget, the drives are numbers in TRSDOS and most other TRS-80 operating systems. So DIR :1 will list the files on the secondary drive.
If things don’t work, you can try the DEBUG link. This lets you select if you want to boot under DOS Plus, LDOS, NewDos-80, or TRSDOS. Another option is to pick up the individual files. You can’t download these files directly from the table. Instead, you click on the file name, and a page will show you the file along with several options.
BattleTrek, one of many Star Trek clones for the TRS-80
You can pick a few options for emulating or downloading the program from that page. You can also show and download the program parsed as a BASIC file, a text file, a Z80 program, or a few other formats. The “Hex File” option, as far as I can tell, actually means raw, not an Intel hex format file. You can even edit the program in place and emulate it if you like, although for machine language programs, that will be difficult.
If you want a few things to try in addition to the UFO game mentioned above, try
Battle Trek
, or try your hand at
word processing
(type SCRIPSIT at the prompt). Just be prepared to explore the disks, run a few things, and maybe Google some old user manuals.
Practical?
Is all this practical? No way. But if you enjoy computer history, this is an easy way to poke around in what would have been a truly extensive software library in its day. Sure, a real TRS-80 would be even more fun. But it would also be a lot more work, not the least of which would be transferring media around.
Then again, you could build
a clone
. Or play with some other
browser-based retro computers
. | 37 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606559",
"author": "Wenzel",
"timestamp": "2023-02-27T19:14:39",
"content": "Oh wonderful! Free accounting software… I’ll get the staff working with this…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6606565",
"author": "MmmDee",
"t... | 1,760,372,383.6074 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/27/life-at-cern-hack-chat/ | Life At CERN Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, March 1st at noon Pacific for the
Life at CERN Hack Chat
with
Daniel Valuch
!
You know the story — work is just…work. The daily grind, the old salt mine, the place where you trade your time and talent for the money you need to do other stuff in the few hours you’re not at work. It’s not the same for everyone, of course, but chances are good that just getting through the day is a familiar enough experience even for someone who’s currently working his or her dream job.
We’re going to go out on a limb here a bit, but it really seems like working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), has got to be a dream gig for almost any engineer. CERN is the top place in the world for particle physics research and home to such ludicrously large machines as the famous Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The facilities and instruments at CERN attract tens of thousands of researchers from all over the world every year who produce multiple petabytes of data; perhaps not coincidentally, it’s also the place where Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web. Thanks, Sir Tim!
To say that being an electrical engineer at CERN might be a little like dropping a kid off at a combination candy store/bouncy house/petting zoo is probably not an understatement. When the biggest of Big Science is always on the menu, it must be hard to focus on this cool project or that new instrument. Then again, we’re just guessing — maybe it’s all still “just work.” Luckily, we found someone to ask: Daniel Valuch, currently an electrical engineer who is rapidly closing in on 25 years at the fabled institution.
You’ll recall Daniel from some of his side projects, like
the most accurate pendulum clock in the world
, or
his super-clicky pseudorandom number generator
. He’s also teaching at the university level, and we’ve seen him give back to the community with
his work for the “ZENIT in Electronics” contest
, an annual STEM event that’s currently in its 39th year of inspiring students. Daniel is going to stop by the Hack Chat so we can pick his brain about what it’s like to work at CERN, what kind of projects he’s worked on, and what a career in Big Science is all about.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, March 1 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a
handy time zone converter
.
Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io. You don’t have to wait until Wednesday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.
[Featured image:
CERN
,
CC BY 4.0
, via Wikimedia Commons] | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,383.484362 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/27/floppy-8-is-a-tiny-pc-in-a-floppy-drive/ | Floppy-8 Is A Tiny PC In A Floppy Drive | Jenny List | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"cartridge slot",
"floppy",
"Lattepanda",
"pc"
] | At first sight, Floppy-8 is simply
a LattePanda based PC built into the shell of a external vintage floppy drive
. Indeed, it’s a very nicely executed LattePanda PC in a floppy, and we’re impressed by it. What turns it from a nifty case mod into something a bit special though, is the way creator [Abraham Haskins] has used floppy-like cartridges in the original floppy slot, as a means of loading software.
The cartridges started out as PCBs in the shape of a floppy with an SD socket on their bottom, and progressed to USB drives on 3D printed cartridges and finally and simplest of all, the same 3D printed cartridges with micro SD cards embedded in their leading edges. All this was necessary to get them thin enough to fit into the existing disk slot — if dimensions weren’t a concern, you could
enclose various USB devices into printed cartridges
. A script on the computer looks for new card insertion, and runs the appropriate autostart.sh script on the SD card if it finds one. If you don’t need the “disks” to fit into an existing slot, you could print them larger and embed
Beyond the cartridges, the PC itself is assembled on a 3D printed frame inside the case. It’s controlled via Bluetooth, with a pair of knock-off NES controllers for games and an Amazon Fire remote for media. We particularly like the idea of weighting the controllers with ball bearings to give them a little heft.
The LattePanda gives the Raspberry Pi a run for its money in these applications. We particularly liked
this portable Macintosh
. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606542",
"author": "filmplus apk",
"timestamp": "2023-02-27T18:52:11",
"content": "As the final bits and bobs began to line up I was finally able to do some real testing for heat, cartridge seating, and ~vibe~.Heat wise, amazingly, even with all the junk in the case the Latte Panda... | 1,760,372,383.524904 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/27/laptop-motherboard-no-x86-single-board-computer/ | Laptop Motherboard? No, X86 Single-Board Computer! | Arya Voronova | [
"Featured",
"laptops hacks",
"Original Art",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"diy",
"motherboard",
"raspberry pi",
"reuse",
"SBC"
] | Sometimes a Raspberry Pi will not cut it – especially nowadays, when the prices are high and the in-stock amounts are low. But if you look in your closet, you might find a decently-specced laptop with a broken screen or faulty hinges. Or perhaps someone you know is looking to get rid of a decent laptop with a shattered case. Electronics recycling or eBay, chances are you can score a laptop with at least some life left in it.
Let’s hack! I’d like to show you how a used laptop motherboard could be the heart of your project, and walk you through some specifics you will want to know.
And what a great deal it could be for your next project! Laptop motherboards can help bring a wide variety of your Linux- and Windows-powered projects to life, in a way that even NUCs and specialized SBCs often can’t do. They’re way cheaper, way more diverse, and basically omnipresent. The CPU can pack a punch, and as a rule PCIe, USB3, and SATA ports are easily accessible with no nonsense like USB-throttled Ethernet ports.
What Makes Laptop Motherboards Cool?
Apart from unparalleled availability all around us, laptop motherboards can help you add a range of cool features to your project, without reinventing the wheel! Want some hardware-accelerated video encoding? The CPU’s integrated GPU is at your service, and if there’s a discrete GPU, it might be just what you’re looking for in a DVR project of yours. Do you want a display attached to your project for your notification or video playback needs? It was born to have a display, just make sure you have a suited cable and a compatible LCD panel – usually, most of them from the same date range. A SATA drive or two, perhaps? A laptop was born to work with those; at least, the not-so-recent ones are.
Sometimes, the laptop works, but you know you won’t be using it as a laptop anymore
Do you want battery backup for your project – perhaps, do you want to safety shut everything down when power cuts out? Laptops are meant to do that! If you base your DVR or DIY security system around a laptop motherboard and add the laptop battery to the mix, it can easily last an hour-two when the power goes out, and if you use one as your pick&place machine controller, it won’t lose all job data when someone trips the breakers in your hackerspace.
Are you looking to run some VMs for your home automation, safety, convenience or other purposes? You might go for a $300 multi-core ARM SBC, learning the questionable joys of ARM virtualization and containerization hiccups along the way. Alternatively, you might go for a $50 piece of consumer hardware with a, still, pretty powerful CPU that will flawlessly run all your likely-already-x86 VMs. Hardware-accelerated encryption, for whatever you might need it? Both Intel and AMD will serve you well here.
Oh, and it’s x86 – most software will run on it, and some software runs on x86 exclusively; in such cases, going for a x86 board is a no-brainer. Is a laptop mainboard going to be as low-power as an ARM core? No. Will it be really damn close, with laptops always optimized for low power? Yes! Will it give you less grief in quite a few scenarios? Also yes! Is it widely tested hardware with a trove of software to use? Yes, yes and yes.
Apart from discussing the purpose-tailored aspects, however, there is something seriously fun about taking a piece of technology that’s almost-but-not-quite suitable for your project, and making it fit your needs exactly as you need it. It makes for quite a learning experience, too. Especially if you can access schematics, you get a glimpse into what it takes to design a product fit to reach tens of thousands of people in different circumstances, and a pretty complex product electronics-wise, at that.
Even in cases where the advantage of a laptop board over a Raspberry Pi isn’t clearcut, it makes your project journey bit more remarkable. By now, I build projects based on laptop motherboards as a bit of a hobby – it’s not just a means to an end, but also a lovely way to spend some time, and a bit more noteworthy than using a generic single-board computer for achieving whatever need you’re looking to get fulfilled.
What Can You Build?
You can indeed build a DVR, or a VM server, a
general-purpose server
with more oomph, or a controller box for that one machine that requires Windows for its software – a pick and place, lasercutter, or a fancy printer with one-of-a-kind software setup requirement. Apart from all the fun aspects that laptop board reuse has, it generally makes sense to use laptop motherboards in projects that take advantage of x86 strengths – and there’s quite a few examples that come to mind.
For instance, I’ve built a dual display-over-the-network receiver for my workshop needs, with a cheap laptop motherboard from some 2012 laptop, showing datasheets and browser windows on a far away desk where pulling video cables wasn’t practical. Its CPU, while anemic, decodes video streams easily thanks to out-of-the-box hardware acceleration. Its Ethernet connection is gigabit by default, backed by a decent PCIe link instead of a USB bottleneck – throughput isn’t a problem. Given the dual video output requirement, I also didn’t have to dedicate a Pi 4 to the task – after all, those are rare beasts nowadays. Best of all, of course, was that I only spent $20 on the components.
Another laptop board now serves as my backup processing server. It came out of a fancy laptop with four SATA drives, and plenty of PCIe exposed – great for backing up my NVMe drives. There’s no network connection – a backup handling server is best off without it; I did, however, replace its SATA plugs with sockets so that I could wire them up to some cheap 3.5″ drives. Nowadays, I boot it up once in a while, run a time-consuming backup or compression/encryption job, and comfortably leave it for a while until it finishes processing – this way, if I need to backup or encrypt something, I don’t need to leave my main laptop tethered to a HDD.
Buyer’s Guide
You typically won’t need to look out for much if you’re getting the board as part of a broken-case laptop. However, if you’ve found a bare motherboard deal, you’ll want to know some things. First off, don’t buy boards that come without a heatsink, unless you can get one on the cheap separately. The CPU / GPU / chipset heatsinks are custom-tailored for each board out there, and unless you want to spend a ton of time figuring a cooling solution for the bare chip, I advise you not to bother. Also make sure you receive the necessary daughterboards, especially if the daughterboard looks crucial for functioning: like it has the power switch, CMOS battery, or project-required ports. For the first two, schematics might help, but of course, won’t always be sufficient.
Make sure the cooling solution is included
It also helps if you can find schematics for your board online. You can usually simply look them up in your search engine of choice. This can get you into a legal grey zone, though, because sometimes these copyrighted schematics are being given away without permission. I’ll put it this way – if you ever want to get more out of your board, say, wire a few buttons up to the keyboard connector or tap into a 3.3 V power rail for part of your project, schematics will help you quite a bit.
Laptop chargers are important, too! In essence, they are power supplies – the battery charging is done with a separate chip on your laptop’s mainboard. If your laptop works from 18 V to 20 V, then any 18 V to 20 V charger will work with it; solder wires to the board if you don’t have a matching plug for the socket. If your laptop is from the HP-Dell-Lenovo dark triad and you use a different charger, you will want to spoof the charger power detection – accessible as the third pin on the DC input socket. HP and Lenovo use resistors to ground, and Dell uses 1-wire EEPROM chips, that you can either buy online or spoof with an ATTiny. As usual, higher amperage charger is okay, lower amperage charger is likely not sufficient. With USB-C-powered boards, you shouldn’t have any problems of the sort. I recommend against using 24 V power supplies – components on the power input path, like input capacitors, might only be rated to 25 V.
In general, the more parts that come together with your board, the better; however, working with the bare board itself is also okay. Whichever you pick, plug some RAM in, and let’s get going – in the next installment! | 47 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606482",
"author": "leoncoolmoon",
"timestamp": "2023-02-27T17:05:33",
"content": "the moribund x86 is hopeless. Lack of new mainstream os support almost equal to dead.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6606744",
"autho... | 1,760,372,383.747171 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/27/compact-ultrasonic-holographs-for-single-step-assembly-of-matter-in-3d/ | Compact Ultrasonic Holographs For Single Step Assembly Of Matter In 3D | Maya Posch | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"ultrasonic holography",
"xolography"
] | Creating three-dimensional shapes from basic elements or even cells is an important research topic, with potentially many applications in the fields of medicine and general research. Although physical molds and scaffolding can be used, the use of ultrasonic holographs is in many ways preferable. Using ultrasonic sound waves into a liquid from two or more transducers shaped to interact in a predetermined manner, any particulates suspended in this liquid will be pushed into and remain in a specific location. Recent research by [Kai Melde] and colleagues has produced some
fascinating results here
, achieving recognizable 3D shapes in a liquid medium.
These are some of the most concrete results produced, following
years of research
. What distinguishes ultrasonic holography from light-based
xolography
is that the latter uses photon interference between two light sources in order to rapidly 3D print an object within the print medium, whereas ultrasonic holography acts more as a ultrasonic pressure-based mold. Here xolography is also more limited in its applications, whereas ultrasonic holography can be used with for example biological tissue engineering, due to the gentle pressure exerted on the suspended matter.
For ongoing medical research such as the growing of organs (e.g. for transplantation purposes), scaffolding is required, which could be assembled using such a technique, as well as the manipulation and assembly of biological tissues directly. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606431",
"author": "Dan (No, the OTHER one)",
"timestamp": "2023-02-27T15:20:57",
"content": "Black Magic. Pure as RF witchery.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6606434",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2023-... | 1,760,372,383.652768 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/27/hacker-friendly-and-elegant-air-quality-sensor-hub/ | Hacker-Friendly And Elegant Air Quality Sensor Hub | Arya Voronova | [
"hardware",
"home hacks"
] | [
"air quality",
"Air quality sensors",
"particulate",
"particulates"
] | Ever wanted an indoor environment sensor that’s dead simple yet a complete package? That’s
the
anotter-sensor-hub
project
from [Jana Marie],
designed for the Sensirion SEN05x series sensors, with a SEN055 sensor shown in the picture above. Given such a sensor, you can measure VOCs and NOCs (Volatile and Non-Volatile Organic Compounds), as well as PM1, PM2.5, PM4 and PM10 particulate matter indices, with temperature and humidity sensing thrown in for good measure. Fully open and coupled with 3D printable stand files, this alone makes for an air quality hub fit for a hacker’s desk. That’s not all, however — this board’s elegant extensibility is a good match for the sensor’s impressive capabilities!
The PCB itself might look simple, it’s simply an ESP32 and some supporting circuitry required. But you’ll notice there’s also a trove of connector footprints for different interfaces; whatever else you might want to add to your sensor hub, whether it connects through I2C, SPI or PWM, you can! As usual, the sensor itself is the most expensive part of such a project — the boards themselves are around $5 USD apiece fully assembled, but one sensor-included hub will set you back roughly $42 USD. That said, it’s a great value for the price, and the trove of sensing data you can get might just more than pay for itself in quality-of-life improvements you make. Of course, everything is open-source and comes as a complete packages for you to start using. The firmware, KiCad files, 3D holder and even Grafana dashboard files can be found on GitHub.
Such air quality sensor platforms have been getting more and more popular, and hackers have been paying attention. Having a full open-source package like this at our disposal is amazing. If you’re looking for a cheaper “baby’s first air quality sensor”, drop by your local IKEA — there’s a way less featureful but quite cheap sensor that you
can equip with an ESP8266
, perhaps, even
on a custom PCB. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606337",
"author": "ian 42",
"timestamp": "2023-02-27T10:54:33",
"content": "I’d be interested where she got the board made and populated for $5, as there are not details on github etc..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "660634... | 1,760,372,383.799501 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/26/a-milliwatt-of-doom/ | A Milliwatt OfDOOM | Jenny List | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Parts"
] | [
"doom",
"NDP200",
"Will It Doom?"
] | The seminal 1993 first-person shooter from id Software,
DOOM
, has become well-known as a test of small computer platforms. We’ve seen it on embedded systems far and wide, but we doubt we’ve ever seen it consume as little power
as it does on a specialized neural network processor
. The chip in question is a
Syntiant NDP200
, and it’s designed to be the always-on component listening for the wake word or other trigger in an AI-enabled IoT device.
DOOM
running on as little as a milliwatt of power makes for an impressive PR stunt at a trade show, but perhaps more interesting is that the chip isn’t simply running the game, it’s also playing it. As a neural network processor it contains the required smarts to learn how to play the game, and in the simple circular level it’s soon picking off the targets with ease.
We’ve not seen any projects using these chips as yet, which is hardly surprising given their niche marketplace. It is however worth noting that there is
a development board
for the lower-range sibling chip NDP101, which sells for around $35 USD. Super-low-power AI is within reach. | 36 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606198",
"author": "KC",
"timestamp": "2023-02-27T06:12:20",
"content": "With all this talk of AI lately, and now low power AI, I’m reminded of the quote “I’m more afraid of a computer failing the Turing test on purpose than passing it.”On a more related note, the average human bra... | 1,760,372,383.884092 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/26/diy-tool-makes-wrapping-wiring-harnesses-a-breeze/ | DIY Tool Makes Wrapping Wiring Harnesses A Breeze | Navarre Bartz | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"harness",
"machine",
"wire",
"wire harness",
"wrap"
] | If you’re making a lot of wiring harnesses, wrapping them can become a bit of a drag. [Well Done Tips] wanted to make this process easier and built a
wiring harness wrapping machine
.
The “C” shape of this wrapping machine means that you can wrap wires that are still attached at one or both ends, as you don’t have to pull the wires all the way through the machine. The plastic “C” rotates inside a series of pulleys with three of them driven by a belt attached to an electric motor. A foot pedal actuates the motor and speed is controlled by a rotary dial on the motor controller board.
Since this is battery powered, you could wrap wires virtually anywhere without needing to be near a wall outlet. This little machine seems like it would be really great if you need to wrap a ton of wire and shouldn’t be too complicated to build. Those are some of our favorite hacks.
If you’re wanting more wire harness fun, try this
simple online wiring harness tool
or see how the
automotive industry handles harnesses
. | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6606182",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2023-02-27T05:48:56",
"content": "Love the idea, and I love the video, it has a timelapsy feel to it. Also, neat trick of using a compass tracing the inside of a circle.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,384.325485 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/26/hackaday-links-february-26-2023/ | Hackaday Links: February 26, 2023 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"balloon",
"exoplanet",
"hackaday links",
"simulator",
"surplus",
"U-2"
] | It’s probably safe to say that most of us have had enough of the Great Balloon Follies to last the rest of 2023 and well beyond. It’s been a week or two since anything untoward was spotted over the US and subsequently blasted into shrapnel, at least that we know of, so we can probably put this whole thing behind us.
But as a parting gift, we present what has to be
the best selfie of the year
— a photo by the pilot of a U-2 spy plane of the balloon that started it all. Assuming no manipulation or trickery, the photo is remarkable; not only does it capture the U-2 pilot doing a high-altitude flyby of the balloon, but it shows the shadow cast by the spy plane on the surface of the balloon.
The photo also illustrates the enormity of this thing; someone with better math skills than us could probably figure out the exact size of the balloon from the apparent size of the U-2 shadow, in fact.
On the other hand, maybe you’re not sick of the whole balloon thing and you pine for the days when the sky was filled with them. Spoiler alert: it always was, and still is. Between the hundreds of radiosondes sent up twice a day every day to the hundreds of “pico balloons” that amateurs launch just for fun, there’s a lot of stuff floating around up there. And if you’d like a simulation of where one of these balloons might end up, check out
the Spy Balloon Simulator
. You can spawn a balloon onto the globe at any point and see where it would end up based on historic weather data. The simulation seems to make some assumptions about altitude, and the launch date seems fixed at November 11, 2022, so there are significant limitations. But it says right up front that it’s just for fun, and it is indeed cool to see that almost every path gets into a gyre of some kind, where the balloon just gets stuck before continuing.
In astronomy news, while the James Webb gets most of the attention these days, there are a lot of other telescopes doing fascinating work too. And one of them has captured one of the most amazing images we’ve seen —
direct images of a bright exoplanet orbiting its star
. Normally, exoplanets are observed indirectly, by watching for the subtle dip in a star’s brightness as the planet passes between it and us, for example. But this time, the aptly named Very Large Telescope in Chile used its adaptive optics to blot out the light from star AF Leporis in the constellation Lepus (we’d never heard of it either) and directly see one of the system’s planets.
The planet is a whopper, about five or six times the size of Jupiter, which is really big considering the star is only about the size of the Sun. What’s more, the whole system is almost brand new — only about 24 million years old and only about 87 light-years away. So looking at this system is an almost real-time look at both stellar and planetary formation.
And finally, with so few brick and mortar electronic surplus stores left, it’s sad to hear of yet another one falling on hard times. It seems like that’s the way of things, though, so we weren’t surprised to hear of yet another long-time surplus dealer feeling the pinch of reality.
P&T Surplus, located in Kingston, NY, has been a fixture of the local scene for decades. Located close to where IBM had a cluster of factories, P&T was well-positioned to buy scrap machines, excess materials, and large lots of overstock parts and resell them to a broad customer base. Over the years, though, factories closed and shut down source after source of surplus, and the customer base changed too. Squeezed from both sides and suffering from illnesses, the owners are now behind on their rent and have turned to
crowdsourcing
to hopefully get them over the hump. If you’re in the area, now might be a good time to stop by and see if there’s anything you need. | 32 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605967",
"author": "Lee Hart",
"timestamp": "2023-02-27T00:08:09",
"content": "What I can’t figure out is why the US had to use a half a million dollar missile to shoot down a balloon. Couldn’t they just shoot a few holes in it to let the gas out, so it would gradually descend?",
... | 1,760,372,383.976932 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/26/rubber-bands-and-o-rings-give-3d-prints-some-stretch/ | Rubber Bands And O-Rings Give 3D Prints Some Stretch | Donald Papp | [
"Parts"
] | [
"3d printed",
"embedded",
"flexible",
"O-ring",
"rubber band"
] | Sometimes it would be helpful if a 3D printed object could stretch & bend. Flexible filament like TPU is one option, but [NagyBig] designed a simple bracelet to ask:
how about embedding rubber bands or o-rings into the print itself
?
Embedding objects into prints usually involves hardware like fasteners or magnets, but this is the first one (we can think of) that uses rubber bands. Though we have seen
rubber bracelets running on printed wheels
, and
o-rings used to provide tension
on a tool holder.
The end result is slightly reminiscent of
embedding 3D printed shapes into tulle
in order to create fantastic, armor-like flexible creations. But using rubber bands means the result is stretchy and compliant to a degree we haven’t previously seen. Keep it in mind the next time you’re trying to solve a tricky design problem; an embedded o-ring or rubber band might just do the trick. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605886",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2023-02-26T21:51:24",
"content": "Interesting, but I’d worry the rubber bands will be degraded by the heat coming off the cooling filament when embedded like that. Not sure how heat tolerant they are, but I know I’ve seen a few melty st... | 1,760,372,384.127384 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/26/a-loving-look-inside-vacuum-fluorescent-displays/ | A Loving Look Inside Vacuum Fluorescent Displays | Dan Maloney | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"anode",
"audiophile",
"cathode",
"filter",
"phosphor",
"retro",
"vacuum fluorescent display",
"vfd"
] | Everyone knows we’re big fans of displays that differ from the plain old flat-panel LCDs that seem to adorn most devices these days. It’s a bit boring when the front panel of your widget is the same thing you stare at hour after hour while using your phone. Give us the chunky, blocky goodness of a vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) any day of the week for visual interest and retro appeal.
From
the video below
, it seems like [Posy] certainly is in the VFD fandom too, rolling out as he does example after example of unique and complicated displays, mostly from audio equipment that had its heyday in the 1990s. In some ways, the video is just a love letter to the VFD, and that’s just fine with us. But the teardowns do provide some insights into how VFDs work, as well as suggest ways to tweak the overall look of a VFD.
For example, consider the classy white VFDs that graced a lot of home audio gear back in the day. It turns out, the phosphors used in those displays weren’t white, but closer to the blue-green color that VFDs are often associated with. But put a pink filter between the display and the world, and suddenly those turquoise phosphors look white. [Posy] does a lot of fiddling with the stock filters to change the look of his VFDs, some to good effect, others less so.
As for the internals of VFDs, [Posy]’s look at a damaged display reveals a lot about how they work. With a loose scrap of conductor shorting one of the cathodes inside the tube, the damaged VFD isn’t much to look at, and is beyond reasonable repair, but it’s kind of cool to examine the spring mechanisms that take up slack as the cathodes heat up and expand.
Thanks to [Posy] for this heartfelt look into the VFDs of yesterday. If you need more about how VFDs work,
we’ve covered that
before, too. | 20 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605799",
"author": "thom",
"timestamp": "2023-02-26T19:14:31",
"content": "The most beautiful display ever made…IMOHave a Kenwood TS-450SAT and still love the lookof the VFD. And stereos from the 80’s—same thing.Nothing like a audio spectrum analyzer display whilelistening to RUSH ... | 1,760,372,384.082145 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/26/the-last-meccano-factory-is-to-close-will-we-miss-it/ | The Last Meccano Factory Is To Close. Will We Miss It? | Jenny List | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"erector set",
"meccano",
"toy"
] | If we were to talk to engineers about the childhood toys which most inspired them, it’s likely that the older among them would mention either Meccano or Erector Set. These similar construction toys using metal components originated independently around the turn of the 20th century in both Britain and America, and eventually became part of the same company.
They were a staple of toy shops through the middle of the century, but have steadily declined in popularity over the past few decades.
Now news has emerged that the last dedicated Meccano factory, in Calais, France, is to close
. The products will still be made, but in other factories alongside other toys. It’s not the end for Meccano or Erector Set, but it’s clear that they are both toys whose time may have passed.
It’s fair to say that the possibilities of those perforated metal sheets and myriad nuts and bolts might seem a little limited for the 2020s child, but it opens the age-old question of what remains to interest young minds in engineering or technology. The obvious answer to that question comes in the form of Lego, evidently so much more fun can be had with plastic bricks.
Did you have Meccano or Erector Set when you were a kid? If so what did you do with it?
We’ve seen a few projects using it here
over the years.
Header: Alf van Beem,
CC0
. | 64 | 45 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605659",
"author": "eriklscott",
"timestamp": "2023-02-26T15:18:19",
"content": "I’m not going to lie – I had some erector set pieces and some lego. The legos were a lot more fun. Flame on, but remember I’m a CS guy who operates more or less on the computer engineering side. Maybe... | 1,760,372,386.295201 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/26/teaching-a-robot-to-hallucinate/ | Teaching A Robot To Hallucinate | Donald Papp | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"ai",
"diffusion models",
"image generators",
"imagen",
"machine hallucination",
"robotics",
"training data"
] | Training robots to execute tasks in the real world requires data — the more, the better. The problem is that creating these datasets takes a lot of time and effort, and methods don’t scale well. That’s where
Robot Learning with Semantically Imagined Experience
(ROSIE)
comes in.
The basic concept is straightforward: enhance training data with hallucinated elements to change details, add variations, or introduce novel distractions. Studies show a robot additionally trained on this data performs tasks better than one without.
This robot is able to deposit an object into a metal sink it has never seen before, thanks to hallucinating a sink in place of an open drawer in its original training data.
Suppose one has a dataset consisting of a robot arm picking up a coke can and placing it into an orange lunchbox. That training data is used to teach the arm how to do the task. But in the real world, maybe there is distracting clutter on the countertop. Or, the lunchbox in the training data was empty, but the one on the counter right now already has a sandwich inside it. The further a real-world task differs from the training dataset, the less capable and accurate the robot becomes.
ROSIE aims to alleviate this problem by using image diffusion models (such as
Imagen
) to enhance the training data in targeted and direct ways. In one example, a robot has been trained to deposit an object into a drawer. ROSIE augments this training by inpainting the drawer in the training data, replacing it with a metal sink. A robot trained on both datasets competently performs the task of placing an object into a metal sink, despite the fact that a sink never actually appears in the original training data, nor has the robot ever seen this particular real-world sink. A robot without the benefit of ROSIE fails the task.
Here is a link to the team’s paper
, and embedded below is a video demonstrating ROSIE both in concept and in action. This is also in a way a bit reminiscent of a plug-in we recently saw for
Blender
, which
uses an AI image generator to texture entire 3D scenes
with a simple text prompt. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605584",
"author": "michael",
"timestamp": "2023-02-26T12:18:42",
"content": "Sounds similar to taking a nap as a human being so the brain can digest new information during some heavy studying or learning new complex tasks. Only we call it dreaming instead of hallucinating…",
"... | 1,760,372,385.885305 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/26/sofa-armrest-is-a-nifty-storage-spot/ | Sofa Armrest Is A Nifty Storage Spot | Navarre Bartz | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"couch",
"furniture",
"Hidden storage",
"pegboard",
"sofa",
"storage"
] | If you’re like us, you’re always in need of a little more space to store things. [Javier Guerrero] realized his sofa wasn’t living up to its full storage potential and designed this
sofa armrest storage
.
[Guerrero]’s sofa arms were hiding 80 liters of space, so he really wanted to do something with it. After disassembling them, he found his original plan of just cutting them up wouldn’t work due to the minimal structure inside. Not to be discouraged, he drew up some plans and built replicas from 15 mm plywood.
For one armrest, he made a single giant box that opens from the top where he can store a couple of folding chairs. On the other side, he made a shorter top-opening bin for charging phones and storing the remote. Underneath that is a large pull out drawer with a pegboard for organizational bliss.
The arms were upholstered using the fabric from the original arms plus a little extra from another slip cover. Separate arm modules and easily obtainable matching fabric aren’t a given for every couch, but we expect that almost any sofa with arms could benefit from this hack given a little ingenuity.
If you’re looking for more storage hacks, checkout this
Modular Storage from Old Filament Spools
, the
Last Component Storage System You’d Ever Need
, or the ever popular
Gridfinity
. | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605580",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2023-02-26T11:55:19",
"content": "Put the HTPC in it for a couchputer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6605698",
"author": "NQ",
"timestamp": "2023-02-26T16:32:07",
... | 1,760,372,386.120844 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/25/cart-cruises-abandoned-california-rail/ | Cart Cruises Abandoned California Rail | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"blm",
"cart",
"custom",
"exploration",
"mold",
"motor",
"polyurethane",
"rail",
"railroad",
"wheels"
] | Southern California is known for its nearly perfect year-round climate, excellent surf, and extremely high cost of living, but once you get away from the coast things are radically different. Rural California has huge tracts of land run by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is publicly accessible to anyone willing to venture into the deserts. There’s not much in the way of infrastructure out there, but [Ryan] does have a unique way of traveling through it
using abandoned railroad lines and this custom rail cart
.
The frame of this cart is simple enough, it’s little more than 2×3 framing with a plywood deck. Some extra support is added for the motor mount and for the seating location. It uses slightly longer go-kart axles to accommodate the width of the railroad, and a small six horsepower gas engine with a single gear to power the rear axle. There are no brakes other than the riders’ shoes, and while this all seems straightforward enough the real hack here is [Ryan]’s custom wheels. He found that steel or cast wheels were not particularly comfortable on long journeys so after a few attempts he has come up with a home-built polyurethane wheel which is cast in a mold around a steel go-cart wheel and then trimmed on a lathe.
For pure exploration, there’s almost no better place to go than the American west thanks to all the public BLM land available. In this cart, you can explore long distances using an extremely low-cost method of transportation. We’ve added another video of [Ryan] exploring this area below the break to show the cart being used, too, but if you’d like a more multipurpose vehicle to use on abandoned rail near you, take a look at
this bicycle which is converted to operate on the railroad
. | 21 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605487",
"author": "Paul K",
"timestamp": "2023-02-26T07:13:27",
"content": "Nice! Kreosan did an electric version to explore Chernobyl.Enjoy:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcOUeIA978g",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6605524"... | 1,760,372,386.35076 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/25/the-forgotten-commodore-900-a-look-at-a-rare-prototype/ | The Forgotten Commodore 900: A Look At A Rare Prototype | Maya Posch | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"commodore",
"Commodore 900"
] | Of the computers produced and prototyped by Commodore, most people are likely well-acquainted with the PET, VIC-20, C64 and C128, as well as the never released Commodore 65. Of these systems many examples and plentiful of documentation exist, but probably among the most rare is the Commodore 900, as
recently covered
by [Neil] over at
RMC – The Cave
on YouTube. The
Commodore 900
, conceived in 1983, was intended to become a microcomputer based on the 16-bit Zilog Z8001 CPU that targeted businesses as a UNIX workstation.
Only fifty prototypes were ever built of the C900 and no hardware was ever sold, even though the intended UNIX-based OS (MWC’s
Coherent
) had already been ported to the Z8000 and the rumor mill suggested a
release in 1984
. Although UNIX workstations were rather popular during the 1980s — with HP and Sun featuring prominently in this market segment — Commodore was
more known
for its home computers, which probably played a major role in C900 development being cancelled. At the time Commodore was also in the process of acquiring Amiga, with the C900 perhaps unsurprisingly featuring similar design language as the Amiga 2000.
Perhaps ironically, the
Z8000
CPU that features in the C900 had a bit of a tragic history as well. Although featuring a range of interesting features, such as the ability to use its registers as 8-, 16-, 32- or even 64-bit registers by combining them as needed. Although this and the general performance of the Z8000 made it a solid CPU, it could not compete against the Motorola 68000 and Intel 8086/8088 CPUs when those appeared on the market.
In the video, [Neil] takes us through a detailed history of the C900, its feature list and the hardware inside the C900 prototype he got his hands on. It’s a fascinating glimpse at a part of Commodore history where this company almost went toe to toe with Sun, HP and other workstation giants. | 28 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605388",
"author": "Bil Herd",
"timestamp": "2023-02-26T03:15:03",
"content": "Love that he starts out with the engineers names: Shiraz Shivji, Frank Hughes and Bob Russel.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6605425",
"a... | 1,760,372,386.532662 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/25/new-possibilities-from-fading-lighting-technology/ | New Possibilities From Fading Lighting Technology | Bryan Cockfield | [
"High Voltage"
] | [
"cfl",
"coil",
"compact fluorescent",
"driver",
"fluorescent",
"heater",
"high voltage",
"induction"
] | Like the incandescent bulb before it, the compact fluorescent (CFL) bulb is rapidly fading into obscurity as there are fewer and fewer reasons to use them over their LED successors. But there are plenty of things to do with some of the more interesting circuitry that made these relatively efficient light bulbs work, and
[mircemk] is here to show us some of them
.
Fluorescent bulbs require a high voltage to work properly, and while this was easy enough for large ceiling installations, it was a while until this hardware could be placed inside a bulb-sized package. When removed, the high voltage driver from the CFL is used in this case to drive a small inductive heating coil circuit, which can then be used to rapidly heat metals and other objects. After some testing, [mircemk] found that the electronics on the CFL circuit board were able to easily handle the electrical load of its new task.
When old technology fades away, there are often a lot of interesting use cases just waiting to be found. [mircemk] reports that he was able to find these light bulbs at an extremely low price due to low demand caused by LEDs, so anyone needing a high voltage driver board
for something like a small Tesla coil
might want to look at a CFL first. | 54 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605350",
"author": "Andy",
"timestamp": "2023-02-26T01:44:45",
"content": "I like it . It’s how we know ChatGPT isn’t writing the articles.Now back on topic, an induction heater…This definitely wouldn’t have been something that I would have thought to try.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,386.203169 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/25/low-power-challenge-keep-plants-green-and-clean-with-e-paper-smart-tags/ | Low Power Challenge: Keep Plants Green And Clean With E-Paper Smart Tags | Dan Maloney | [
"contests",
"green hacks"
] | [
"contest",
"eink",
"epaper",
"esphome",
"Low-Power Challenge",
"waveshare"
] | There are plenty of reasons to devote oneself to the care of houseplants — after all, a room full of bright, glossy-leaved plants can be a joy to behold, and that’s not even one of the more tangible benefits they bring. But as any green thumb knows, there’s a fine line between a healthy, vibrant plant and one that’s soon to give up the ghost.
If your thumb tends less toward green and more toward the brown and crusty side of things, something like [Jon]’s
Smart Plant system
might be just the thing for you. These low-power plant tags are built around increasingly ubiquitous e-Paper displays, like the kind you might find in a retail shelf price tag system. The current version of [Jon]’s tags uses a Waveshare 2.9″ tricolor display and a PCB with capacitive probes that stick into the plant’s soil. An ESP32-S lives on the top section of the PCB, along with a 1,000 mAh LiPo pack that’s charged off USB-C. The design includes an optional solar panel for keeping the battery topped off, which may or may not help depending on the plant’s place in your personal jungle.
In addition to the soil moisture sensor, the Smart Tag has an ambient temperature and humidity sensor and a light sensor — everything to keep your plant happy. The power-hungry sensors are only powered on when the Smart Tag pops out of deep sleep; this gives and estimated five to six weeks runtime between charges, without solar charging of course. The e-Paper display shows custom graphics of the plant’s current environmental state, and the same data is also available via Home Assistant thanks to the ESPHome firmware.
These are nice-looking plant tags that can really pull a lot of weight in keeping plants healthy. Check out the other offerings in our
Low Power Challenge Contest
, and maybe get an entry together yourself. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605231",
"author": "Reluctant Cannibal",
"timestamp": "2023-02-25T21:09:08",
"content": "“more toward the brown and crusty side of things” ……. Toast?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6605237",
"author": "Corrosion proof too?... | 1,760,372,386.445704 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/25/pi-pico-calculates-water-usage/ | Pi Pico Calculates Water Usage | Bryan Cockfield | [
"home hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"automation",
"home",
"magnetometer",
"meter",
"pico",
"raspberry pi",
"utility",
"water",
"waveform"
] | Modern WiFi-enabled microcontrollers have made it affordable and easy to monitor everything from local weather information to electricity usage with typically no more than a few dollars worth of hardware and a little bit of programming knowledge. Monitoring one’s own utility data can be a little bit more difficult without interfering with the metering equipment, but we have seen some clever ways of doing this over the years. The latest is this
water meter monitoring device based on a Raspberry Pi Pico
.
The clever thing here isn’t so much that it’s based on the tiniest of Raspberry Pis, but how it keeps track of the somewhat obscured water flow information coming from the meter. Using a magnetometer placed close to the meter, the device can sense the magnetic field created as water flows through the meter’s internal sensors. The magnetic field changes in a non-obvious way as water flows through it, so the program has to watch for specific peaks in the magnetic field. Each of these specific waveforms the magnetometer detects counts to 0.0657 liters of water, which is accurate for most purposes.
For interfacing with a utility meter, this is one of the more efficient and elegant hacks we’ve seen in a while. There have, of course,
been other attempts to literally read the meter using web cams and computer vision software
, but the configuration for these builds is much more complex than something like this. You can interface with plenty of utility meters other than water meters, too,
regardless of age
. | 18 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605171",
"author": "Clancydaenlightened",
"timestamp": "2023-02-25T18:40:02",
"content": "Get an esp and a rf coil and I can just get that data by placing a coil on top of my water meter, and also get power consumption for each circuit in the house and approximately the global powe... | 1,760,372,385.990809 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/25/simultaneous-invention-all-the-time/ | Simultaneous Invention, All The Time? | Elliot Williams | [
"News",
"Rants"
] | [
"ai",
"coding",
"newsletter",
"search"
] | As Tom quipped on the podcast this week, if you have an idea for a program you’d like to write, all you have to do is look around on GitHub and you’ll find it already coded up for you. (Or StackOverflow, or…) And that’s probably pretty close to true, at least for really trivial bits of code. But it hasn’t always been thus.
I was in college in the mid 90s, and we had a lab of networked workstations that the physics majors could use. That’s where I learned Unix, and where I had the idea for the simplest program ever. It took the background screen color, in the days before wallpapers, and slowly random-walked it around in RGB space. This was set to be slow enough that anyone watching it intently wouldn’t notice, but fast enough that others occasionally walking by my terminal would see a different color every time. I assure you, dear reader, this was the very
height
of wit at the time.
With the late 90s came the World Wide Web and the search engine, and the world got a lot smaller. For some reason, I was looking for how to set the X terminal background color again, this time searching the Internet instead of reading up in a reference book, and I stumbled on someone who wrote nearly exactly the same random-walk background color changer. My jaw dropped! I had found my long-lost identical twin brother! Of course, I e-mailed him to let him know. He was stoked, and we shot a couple funny e-mails back and forth riffing on the bizarre coincidence, and that was that.
Can you imagine this taking place today? It’s almost boringly obvious that if you search hard enough you’ll find another monkey on another typewriter writing exactly the same sentence as you. It doesn’t even bear mentioning. Heck, that’s the fundamental principle behind Codex / CoPilot – the code that you want to write has been already written so many times that it will emerge as the most statistically likely response from a giant pattern-matching, word-word completion neural net model.
Indeed, stop me if you’ve read this before.
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
! | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605078",
"author": "Thomas Hargrave",
"timestamp": "2023-02-25T15:37:17",
"content": "This is true but unlike GetHub the web is loaded with mostly crap code. Start looking for code solutions for more complex problems and you find a mix of incomplete solutions or code that never cou... | 1,760,372,386.407456 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/25/this-camera-produces-a-picture-using-the-scene-before-it/ | This Camera Produces A Picture, Using The Scene Before It | Jenny List | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"ai",
"ai camera",
"DALL-E",
"raspberry pi"
] | It’s the most basic of functions for a camera, that when you point it at a scene, it produces a photograph of what it sees. [Jasper van Loenen]
has created a camera that does just that
, but not perhaps in the way we might expect. Instead of committing pixels to memory it takes a picture, uses AI to generate a text description of what is in the picture, and then uses another AI to generate an image from that picture. It’s a curiously beautiful artwork as well as an ultimate expression of the current obsession with the technology, and we rather like it.
The camera itself is a black box with a simple twin-lens reflex viewfinder. Inside is a Raspberry Pi that takes the photo and sends it through the various AI services, and a Fuji Instax Mini printer. Of particular interest is the connection to the printer which we think may be of interest to quite a few others, he’s reverse engineered the Bluetooth protocols it uses
and created Python code allowing easy printing
. The images it produces are like so many such AI-generated pieces of content, pretty to look at but otherworldly, and weird parallels of the scenes they represent.
It’s inevitable that consumer cameras will before long offer AI augmentation features for less-competent photographers, meanwhile we’re pleased to see Jasper getting there first. | 23 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605016",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2023-02-25T13:08:29",
"content": "Rather interesting… Although I do wonder what copyright battles will come from AI generated content.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6605098",
... | 1,760,372,385.941057 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/24/hunting-for-space-pirates/ | Hunting For Space Pirates | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Space"
] | [
"amateur",
"antenna",
"directional",
"ham",
"pirate",
"radio",
"satellite",
"space",
"yagi"
] | Ever since the first artificial satellite was launched into orbit, radio operators around the world have been tuning in to their space-based transmissions. Sputnik 1 only sent back pulses of radio waves, but in the decades to follow ever more advanced radio satellites were put into service that could support two-way communications from Earth to space and back again.
Some of these early satellites were somewhat lacking in security, though, and have been re-purposed by various pirates around the world for their own ends. [Gabe] aka [saveitforparts] is here
to show us how to hunt for those pirates and listen in on their radio traffic
.
Pirates on these satellites have typically used them for illicit activities, and it is still illegal to use them for non-governmental or non-military purposes, so [Gabe] notes that he will only be receiving, not transmitting. The signals he is tuning in to are VHF transmissions, specifically around 220 MHz. That puts them easily within the reach of the RTL-SDR and common ham radio equipment, but since they are coming from space a more directional antenna is needed. [Gabe] quickly builds a Yagi antenna from scrap, tuned specifically to 255 MHz, and mounts it to an old remote-controlled security camera mount which allows him to point it exactly at the satellite and monitor transmissions.
From there he is able to pick up what looks like a few encrypted and/or digital transmissions, plus analog transmissions of likely pirates speaking a language he guesses to be Portuguese. He also hears what he thinks is a foreign TV broadcast, but oddly enough turns out to be NPR. These aren’t the only signals in space to tune to, either. There are plenty of
purpose-built ham radio satellites
available for any licensed person to use, and we’ve also seen
this other RTL-SDR configured to snoop on Starlink signals
. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6604418",
"author": "Piotrsko",
"timestamp": "2023-02-24T17:16:44",
"content": "Used to be a big thing with tv reception before “encoding” pay tv. Afaik, there’s no hardware on the satellites to prevent this, they used to just recieve whatever signal made it all that way and retran... | 1,760,372,386.588969 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/24/this-week-in-security-godaddy-joomla-and-clamav/ | This Week In Security: GoDaddy, Joomla, And ClamAV | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"ClamAV",
"GoDaddy",
"This Week in Security"
] | We’ve seen some rough security fails over the years, and
GoDaddy’s recent news about a breach
leading to rogue website redirects might make the highlight reel. The real juicy part is buried on page 30 of
a PDF filing to the SEC
.
Based on our investigation, we believe these incidents are part of a multi-year campaign by a sophisticated threat actor group that, among other things, installed malware on our systems and obtained pieces of code related to some services within GoDaddy.
That multi-year campaign appears to goes back
to at least October 2019
, when an SSH file was accessed and altered, leading to 28,000 customer SSH usernames and passwords being exposed. There was also a 2021 breach of the GoDaddy WordPress environment,
that has been linked to the same group
.
Reading between the lines, there may be an implication here that the attackers had an ongoing presence in GoDaddy’s internal network for that entire multi-year period — note that the quote above refers to a single campaign, and not multiple campaigns from the same actor. That would be decidedly bad.
Joomla’s Force Persuasion
Joomla has a critical vulnerability,
CVE-2023-23752
, which is a trivial information leak from a web endpoint. This flaw is present in all of the 4.x releases, up to 4.2.8, which contains the fix.
The issue is the Rest API
, which gives access to pretty much everything about a given site. It has an authentication component, of course. The bypass is to simply append
?public=true
. Yes, it’s a good old “You don’t need to see his identification” force suggestion.
There’s even a PoC script that
runs the request and spits out
the most interesting data: the username, password, and user id contained in the data. It’s not quite as disastrous as that sounds — the API isn’t actually leaking the administrative username and password, or even password hash. It’s leaking the SQL database information. Though if your database is accessible from the Internet, then that’s pretty much as bad as it could be.
ClamAV Chokes on DMG and HFS
You may not be familiar with ClamAV. It’s an open source antivirus, and it’s mainly used for automatically scanning emails and attachments. If your email flows through a Linux-based mail server, there’s a decent chance ClamAV does a virus check on your incoming mail. Which is why
the pair of vulnerabilities just announced
could be really bad news.
ClamAV does more than simple hash value comparisons, and for some file types, it processes, decompresses, and otherwise parses the file looking for malicious data. That sort of detailed investigation is a two-edged sword. Yes, it will catch more malware, but it only takes one error in a parser to have a problem. And
ClamAV had two
.
CVE-2023-20052 is an XML eXternal Entity injection (XXE) in the handling of DMG files. This injection can potentially lead to remote information leak, and rudimentry details are available online. Third party researchers have managed a file leak when ClamAV is run in debug mode. Based on the advisory, there’s more to the story.
And then CVE-2023-20032 is the bad one. HFS+ files can be malformed to trigger a heap buffer overflow. It’s a simple flaw, that allows an attacker to specify the memory allocation, the data to copy, as well as the data length to write. Sounds like trivial Remote Code Execution — except, as pointed out by the OneKey researchers, every Linux distribution worth its salt is using the NX bit, a stack canary, Position Independent Executables, and other hardening techniques to make exploitation difficult. At the very least, turning this into a full RCE is going to take an additional information leakage vulnerability, likely one more usable than the XML problem mentioned above. Even without that, this flaw makes it trivial to crash the ClamAV process on a mail server. Regardless, updates have been released fixing these two issues.
Bits and Bytes
After legitimate business forged the way with *-as-a-Service offerings, criminals have followed suit, most notably with spam and ransomware offerings. Now we can add yet another service to the ranks,
phishing as a service
. And that’s a fun read, because the researchers at Cyberark found an archive on the phishing server, and used the information to infiltrate the scammer’s Telegram channel.
Browser extensions. Just how dangerous can they be? [Matt Frisbie] takes a look, and demonstrates what we should already know:
running untrusted code is a bad idea
. The good news is that the permission request is accurate, but most browser extensions need dangerous permissions to do anything useful. And keep in mind that any trustworthy browser extension is one update away from being malicious, a-la
The Great Suspender
and others.
Want to dive down the rabbit hole of PlayStation vulnerability and homebrew research? It’s a follow-on to mast1c0re, all about triggering a bug in the PS4 and PS5’s PS2 emulation, and then
escaping that emulation context
. Maybe we’ll see a return of installing Linux on newer PlayStations as a result?
Security research on Apple’s MacOS and iOS platforms continues, with
the recent discovery of a new vulnerability
. This one is based on
See No Eval
, and it’s all about abusing the
NSPredicate
feature. It looks like a limited-use class for data filtering, but really allows for arbitrary code to be run in another process. The new news is that some of the mitigations for this exploit are easily sidestepped, just by asking nicely.
Now for a final pair of stories that aren’t quite fully baked this week: Look forward to a new stable release of ZoneMinder to fix
some flaws found in a Capture the Flag event
, coming Soon(tm)! Update:
It’s here
And why has
Intel published a brand new security advisory
for a BMC flaw that was found and fixed in 2021? Mysteries abound. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605663",
"author": "29s38rnu",
"timestamp": "2023-02-26T17:21:18",
"content": "I like how every memory protection listed has nothing to do with Linux heap management… Even if it was stack COOP and most ROP will bypass all of those; Even if you added GCC implantation of CET and CET_... | 1,760,372,386.622828 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/24/answering-some-pico-balloon-questions/ | Answering Some Pico Balloon Questions | Jenny List | [
"Current Events"
] | [
"balloon",
"HAB",
"pico balloon"
] | When the US Air Force shot down some suspected Chinese spy balloons a couple of weeks ago, it was widely reported that one of the targets might have been a much more harmless amateur radio craft. The so-called pico balloon K9YO was a helium-inflated Mylar balloon carrying a tiny solar-powered WSPR beacon, and it abruptly disappeared in the same place and time in which the USAF claimed one of their targets. When we covered the story it garnered a huge number of comments both for and against the balloonists, so perhaps
it’s worth returning with the views of a high-altitude-ballooning expert
.
[Dave Akerman] has been sending things aloft for a long time now, we think he may have been one of the first to put a Raspberry Pi aloft back in 2012. In his blog post he attempts to answer the frequently asked questions about pico balloons, their legality, whether they should carry a beacon, and what the difference is between these balloons and the latex “weather balloon” type we’re familiar with. It’s worth a read, because not all of us are part of the high-altitude balloon community and thus it’s good to educate oneself.
Meanwhile,
you can read our original report here
. | 29 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6604203",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2023-02-24T12:34:20",
"content": "“A” Chinese spy balloon. The others were not identified. Perhaps just a small bit of “if it’s floating, shoot it down” going on.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,387.21153 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/24/tiny-machine-learning-on-as-little-as-2-kb-of-ram/ | Tiny Machine Learning On As Little As 2 KB Of RAM | Al Williams | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Software Development"
] | [
"machine learning",
"tensorflow",
"TinyML"
] | All of the machine language stuff coming out lately doesn’t affect you if you are developing with embedded microcontrollers, right? Perhaps not. Microsoft Research India wants you to use their
EdgeML
tool to do machine learning tasks such as gesture recognition in tiny devices like an Arduino Uno. According to the developers, you might need as little as 2 KB of RAM. There’s no network connection required and the work is using Tensorflow underneath, so it is compatible with much of what you’ll find for bigger computers.
If you add processing power, you can get more capability. For example, one of the demonstrations is a wake-word recognizer on a Raspberry Pi Zero (although the page for that
demo
seems to be missing at the moment; try the
GesturePod
, instead).
The system generally uses Python, but there are efficient C++ implementations for selected algorithms. The code lives on
GitHub
. There are also a number of research papers about each tool that you can find on the GitHub page. There’s also a recent paper on
MinUn
, an attempt to make things even more efficient for ARM microcontrollers. In particular, MinUn can store approximate numbers to save space, allows for variable precision of tensors, and tries to reduce memory fragmentation, an important feature for CPUs that don’t have memory management units.
If you haven’t studied TensorFlow yet,
start here
. Why use something like this with a microcontroller? How about
smarter robots
? | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6604080",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2023-02-24T09:34:51",
"content": "when it will run on a NE556 (dual-core NE555) I will have a look.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6604131",
"author": "Kalle",
"timestamp": "2023... | 1,760,372,386.992578 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/23/sailing-on-a-sea-of-seven-segment-displays/ | Sailing On A Sea Of Seven-Segment Displays | Dan Maloney | [
"Art",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"binary code modulation",
"grayscale",
"seven segment",
"TLC5920"
] | The amount of information the humble seven-segment display can convey is surprising. There are the ten numerals, dead-ringers or reasonable approximations for about half the alphabet, and even a few not-quite-canonical symbols.
But when you put 12,288 segments to work
, you get all that and much more.
Behold
Sea of Segments
, an art piece by [Will Gallia] that really pushes what’s possible with seven-segment displays. The piece, which looks about the size of a decent flat-panel TV, is composed of an 8×6 array of PCBs, each of which holds an 8×4 array of white LED seven-segment displays; each board also holds two TLC5920 LED drivers. [Will] designed the PCBs to tile horizontally and vertically, making it possible to take data either from the top or right side and output to the bottom or left. Power is distributed to the modules through a series of steel bus bars, which also provide structural support for the display. The whole thing lives in an enclosure with a smoked acrylic front panel, and hangs from a pair of steel cables that also provide power.
Under the hood, a PocketBeagle does all the heavy lifting of talking to the display and translating images onto the display. [Will] came up with an encoding scheme that gives about five bits of grayscale, and built a program to figure out which segments should be lit to create an image. The result is a smooth and convincing reproduction of videos of waves on a beach, which is where the project gets its name. Check out the results in the video below.
[Will] says he drew inspiration for this build from
the DigitGrid by [Skot9000]
. That was a great project too, but
Sea of Segments
takes the concept to another level. | 40 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6604005",
"author": "Tom Hargrave",
"timestamp": "2023-02-24T07:26:10",
"content": "Simply amazing!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6604060",
"author": "xamiax",
"timestamp": "2023-02-24T09:02:30",
"content": "so sat... | 1,760,372,387.064084 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/23/german-air-force-surplus-teardown/ | German Air Force Surplus Teardown | Al Williams | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"helicopter",
"military",
"teardown"
] | It isn’t clear to us how [mrsylvain59] came into possession of a late-model piece of military gear from the German airforce, but we enjoyed watching the
teardown
below anyway. According to the documentation, the thing has a huge price tag, although we all know that the military usually pays top dollar for various reasons, so we are guessing the cost of the parts is quite a bit less than the price tag.
We don’t think [mrsylvain59] was sure what the amplifier (verstärker is German for amplifier) does. However, we recognized it as an avionics box from a UH-1 helicopter. We aren’t sure of its exact function, but it is classified under “Automatic Pilot Mechanisms and Airborne Gyro Components.”
The wiring harnesses, though, are thick and nicely done. The top board isn’t a traditional PCB, but a board full of solder contacts. There’s also a large transformer and some potted assemblies. Under a panel, there are also a couple of very beefy transistors with Solitron logos on them.
While we don’t know exactly what this amplifier does, we always enjoy peeking inside this equipment that we’d normally never get a chance to see. We aren’t sure what his plans are for the box or the components inside, but we doubt it is going back in a helicopter.
While we are no fan of warfare, we have to admit it makes for interesting hardware. We’ve looked at
range computers
and
Soviet missiles
, among other things. | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6603826",
"author": "Nikolai",
"timestamp": "2023-02-24T03:08:17",
"content": "BTW, Lowes sells Wiha screwdrives now. Just a few models only.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6603892",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2023-0... | 1,760,372,386.910274 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/23/supersized-laptop-laughs-in-the-face-of-portability/ | Supersized Laptop Laughs In The Face Of Portability | Navarre Bartz | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"80/20 aluminum extrusions",
"aluminum extrusion",
"diy laptop",
"Evan and Katelyn",
"giant",
"huge",
"laptop"
] | Sometimes a project needs to go big, and [Evan and Katelyn] threw portability to the wind to build the
“world’s biggest” laptop
.
Stretching the believability of “bigger is better,” this laptop features a 43″ screen, an enormous un-ergonomic keyboard, and a trackpad that might be bigger than your hand. Not to be outdone by other gaming laptops, it also features RGB lighting and a logo that really pops with neon resin.
The pair started the build with an aluminum extrusion frame joined by hinges. Plywood forms the top lid and bottom of the device, and the interior was covered with a mix of vinyl and ABS to keep everything tidy. A nice detail is the windows cut in the area above the keyboard to keep an eye on the charge of the two battery packs powering the laptop. Weighing more than 100 pounds, we suspect that this won’t be the next revolution in computing.
If you need more supersized gadgets, maybe try out the
world’s biggest working keyboard
or this giant
Xbox Series X
? | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6603717",
"author": "MmmDee",
"timestamp": "2023-02-24T00:29:44",
"content": "While you might be able to place this computer on someone’s lap, there is a larger “laptop” computer that has a 16 foot (sic) screen.http://www.recomgroup.com/world's_largest_working_laptop_computer.htmEve... | 1,760,372,387.397508 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/25/internet-connected-pinball-machine-shows-off-scores/ | Internet Connected Pinball Machine Shows Off Scores | Al Williams | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"Pi Pico W",
"pinball"
] | Before video games, there were pinball machines. Not that they don’t exist today, but a modern pinball machine will likely have microprocessors and other fancy things that traditional pinball machine designers could never dream of. [Eli] had one of these mechanical machines from 1974 as a kid and, later, encountered a more modern machine with a rudimentary microprocessor and other integrated circuits onboard. One thing this enabled is the ability to remember high scores. But you have to physically look at the machine, and you can only see the top four scores. [Eli] decided to adapt the machine to
upload high score data to the Internet
, and it is a fun project.
[Eli]’s design goals were to make it automatic and robust. That is, if the network is down or the machine loses power, you shouldn’t lose high score data. In addition, he didn’t want to change the appearance or damage the 40-year-old machine. You can see a video of how it all turned out below.
The Laser Cue machine is one of many built around the “Williams System 7” platform. A 6808 CPU, along with some I/O chips to manage all the lights, sensors, and bells. The game has only 1K of RAM, 12K or ROM, and 128 bytes (no prefix, just bytes) of RAM with battery backup. There was even a common “operating system” called Flipper ROM, and that’s actually documented over on
GitHub
.
The ESP32 version of the WiFi interface board
Since the memory for the machine is all in external chips, it was a reasonable idea to replace the CPU with a board that monitored signals on the board. The CPU would plug into this new board, and then a newer microcontroller with an Internet connection could eavesdrop on bus traffic. However, removing the old CPU and jamming pins into the ancient socket was worrisome, so instead, [Eli] elected to tap into a test connector that was already on the board but not plugged into anything.
An ESP32 is more than capable of the speeds, although connecting to 5 V logic was a bit of a problem. The CPU has 5 V tolerant pins, but some of the 25 available pins on the development board either set items on boot or may briefly be outputs and were thus unusable. To reduce the necessary pins, [Eli] decided to do some of the decoding in separate logic. Instead of using TTL chips, he elected to use a programmable logic array.
After that, it seemed it would be straightforward, but there was something preventing the ESP32 from reading each bus cycle. [Eli] never got to the bottom of it but instead switched to the Raspberry Pi Pico W. Using the chip’s special I/O processors made the job easy, and it worked perfectly. The rest of the project was just fit and finish. Be sure to read to the end to find out the lessons learned which might help you on your next similar project.
A modern DIY machine might even have
an FPGA inside
. Don’t have room for a big full-sized pinball machine?
No problem
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605159",
"author": "willmore",
"timestamp": "2023-02-25T18:15:09",
"content": "Hacks are cool, don’t get me wrong, but…..https://scorbit.io/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6607103",
"author": "TinWhisker",
"t... | 1,760,372,387.148574 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/24/deep-dive-into-the-hp-scantjet-4c/ | Deep Dive Into The HP ScantJet 4C | Chris Lott | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"flatbed scanner",
"HP-4C",
"scanjet",
"scsi"
] | [Shelby] at Tech Tangents recently wrapped a project / obsession to obtain an old HP ScanJet 4C, get it running on a PC and put it through its paces. After after nearly five years, three scanners, and untold SCSI cards and drivers later,
he finally succeeded
. The first big problem was getting a working scanner. These don’t stand up well to shipping, and one arrived with broken mirrors. And when he finally got one that worked, sorting out SCSI controller and driver issues was surprisingly complicated, though ultimately successful.
The HP ScanJet 4C was introduced in 1995, and was notable for its scanning quality, its resolution ( 2400 DPI interpolated / 600 DPI optical ), and selling for under $1000. Except for replacement parts concerns, particularly the customized triphosphor fluorescent bulb assembly, it would still be a very competent scanner today. For this reason, [Shelby] will not be using it as his daily use scanner.
DIP-packaged three-line CCD
Once everything was running smoothly, he makes a series of test scans at various settings, and compares them to scans made with a modern true 2400 DPI scanner. The verdict seems to be to ignore the built-in interpolation and scan at the 600 DPI resolution. He goes on to show the scanner running under modern Linux on a PC that has a PCI slot. The almost hour-long video wraps up by going over some of the cool design features, like the crazy optics path and the scanner’s three-line CCD built into a DIP package. To read more, check out
this article in the Feb 1997 HP Journal
which describing the scanner design.
Even if you aren’t planning on restoring an HP 4C, and [Shelby] advises against that, there is a lot of interesting and useful information about scanner technology in this video. Don’t let the running time scare you away, it’s quite engaging — as one commenter put it, “
How the hell did you get me to watch a nearly hour long video about a 30yo scanner. Kudos
“. Do you still use a scanner these days? Let us know in the comments below. | 28 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6604870",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-02-25T07:06:11",
"content": "I keep mine around for when laying physical items on to scan like boards.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6604895",
"author": "nanonic",
... | 1,760,372,387.347484 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/24/pushing-crates-in-8-bit-color/ | Pushing Crates In 8-bit Color | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Games"
] | [
"8 bit",
"AVR",
"AVR128DA28",
"color",
"crate",
"display",
"game",
"oled",
"sokoban"
] | Moore’s law isn’t strictly holding anymore, but it is still true that most computing systems are at least trending towards lower cost over time, if not also slightly smaller size. This means wider access to less expensive hardware, even if that hardware is still an 8-bit microcontroller. While some move on to more powerful platforms as a result of this trend, there are others still fighting to push these platforms to the edge. [lcamtuf] has been working to this end, stretching a small AVR microcontroller to
not only play a classic video game, but to display it on a color display
.
The video game that [lcamtuf] is recreating is known as Sokoban, a puzzle game which involves pushing crates to their assigned spaces without accidentally pinning yourself into a no-win situation. It’s much less common than the Snake builds we’ve seen plenty of, but still lends itself to the platform quite well. It’s based on a AVR128DA28 microcontroller which not only handles the game but also drives a 160×128 color OLED display. Making room for the display on the relatively small microcontroller was a challenge, but after several clever workarounds to make the most of memory and processor cycles, the game is up and running on about as small of a device as is possible.
[lcamtuf] does claim that this project was done mostly as a challenge, but also to instruct his children in some of the more enjoyable aspects of efficient game design. For those less interested in the game design aspect and more in the best ways to cram as much processing power into a small package as possible, take a look at this build
which implements VGA with nothing more than an ESP32
. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6605000",
"author": "Stappers",
"timestamp": "2023-02-25T12:21:47",
"content": "> The video game that lcamtuf is recreating is known as Sokoban, a puzzle game which involves pushing crates to their assigned spaces without accidentally pinning yourself into a no-win situation.And tho... | 1,760,372,387.104374 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/24/producing-a-pair-of-parallel-pliers/ | Producing A Pair Of Parallel Pliers | Navarre Bartz | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"heirloom",
"lathe",
"machining",
"mill",
"parallel pliers",
"Pask Makes",
"pliers"
] | A regular pair of pliers is fine most of the time, but for delicate work with squarish objects you can’t go wrong with a pair of parallel pliers. [Neil Paskin] decided to make
his own pair from scratch
. (YouTube)
The jaws were machined down from round stock in [Paskin]’s mill before heat treating and tempering. The steel portions of the handles were cut from 16 gauge plate steel and half of them were stamped on a fly press to make the bridging section around the pivot bolt. The filler for the handles is copper on one side and brass on the other as [Paskin] didn’t have enough brass of the correct size to do both.
The steel and filler were joined with epoxy and copper pins before beveling the edges and sanding to give a comfortable contour to the handles. The bolts for the pliers started as ordinary hex bolts before being machined down on the lathe to a more aesthetically-pleasing shape and size. The final touches included electrolytically etching a logo into the bridge and then spraying down the pliers with a combination lubricant and corrosion preventative spray. This is surely a pair of pliers worth handing down through the generations.
For more mesmerizing machining, checkout this
pocket safe
or this
tiny adjustable wrench
. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6604727",
"author": "NSFW",
"timestamp": "2023-02-25T02:12:25",
"content": "If you like these, you should also check out Knipex pliers. I like them so much I ran out and bought all three sizes after I got the first one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,387.439699 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/24/low-power-challenge-e-paper-shelf-label-becomes-ultra-frugal-clock/ | Low Power Challenge: E-Paper Shelf Label Becomes Ultra-Frugal Clock | Robin Kearey | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"e-paper clock",
"Electronic shelf label",
"nRF52832"
] | Over the past two decades, e-paper has evolved from an exotic and expensive display technology to something cheap enough to be used for supermarket price tags. While such electronic shelf labels are now easy to find, actually re-using them is often tricky due to a lack of documentation. Luckily, [Aaron Christophel] has managed to reverse engineer many types of shelf labels, and he’s demonstrated the results by turning one into
an ultra-low-power clock called Triink
. It’s based on a 128×296 pixel e-ink display paired with an nRF52832 BlueTooth Low-Energy SoC and uses just 65 micro-amperes on average: low enough to keep it running for more than a year on a single battery charge.
Power on the left, e-ink on the right: the custom PCB is clever and compact, too
The clock is housed in an enclosure that’s simple but effective: a 3D-printed triangular prism with a slot for the screen and space for the 18650 lithium battery. One side can be opened to access the internal components, although that’s really only needed to charge the battery. You can see how cleverly everything snaps together in the video embedded below.
The CPU spends most of its time in sleep mode, only waking up once a minute to update the display. In order to save power, [Aaron] wrote this routine in such a way that it only updates those pixels that have actually changed. Once an hour, it completely refreshes the screen in order to prevent burn-in. An integrated real-time clock keeps track of time and can be adjusted through BlueTooth by using a smartphone app.
If you’ve got a bunch of similar e-ink shelf labels gathering dust, you can find all the design files and software to build your own Triink on [Aaron]’s hackaday.io page. In fact, you might want to browse around some of his other projects too: he’s managed to
reverse engineer three-color e-ink price tags
for instance, and even
combined 300 shelf labels into a giant e-ink display
. | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6604636",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2023-02-24T23:27:54",
"content": "Is it sensible to use a rechargeable battery for an application like this?The cost of an item is a pretty good proxy for its environmental impact, so you need to use a lot of charge/discharge cycles of a lit... | 1,760,372,387.493803 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/24/toroid-transformers-explained/ | Toroid Transformers Explained | Al Williams | [
"Parts",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"toroid",
"toroidal",
"toroidal transformer"
] | HF radios often use toroidal transformers and winding them is a rite of passage for many RF hackers. [David Casler, KE0OG] received a question about how they work and
answered it in a recent video
that you can see below.
Understanding how a conventional transformer works is reasonably simple, but toroids often seem mysterious because the thing that makes them beneficial is also what makes them confusing. The magnetic field for such a transformer is almost totally inside the “doughnut,” which means there is little interaction with the rest of the circuit, and the transformer can be very efficient.
The toroid itself is made of special material. They are usually formed from powdered iron oxide mixed with other metals such as cobalt, copper, nickel, manganese, and zinc bound with some sort of non-conducting binder like an epoxy. Ferrite cores have relatively low permeability, low saturation flux density, and low Curie temperature. The powder also reduces the generation of eddy currents, a source of loss in transformers. Their biggest advantage is their high electrical resistivity, which helps reduce the generation of eddy currents.
If you haven’t worked through how these common little transformers work, [David]’s talk should help you get a grip on them. These aren’t just for RF. You sometimes see them in
power supplies that need to be efficient
, too. If you are too lazy to wind your own, there’s
always help
. | 34 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6604508",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2023-02-24T20:26:14",
"content": "I’ve been working on designing a chunk of magnetic core memory, which uses quite different-material toroids, but one thing I ran across that was kinda cool was how IBM managed to design magnetic cor... | 1,760,372,387.647594 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/24/hackaday-podcast-207-modular-furniture-plastic-prosthetics-and-your-data-on-youtube/ | Hackaday Podcast 207: Modular Furniture, Plastic Prosthetics, And Your Data On YouTube | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Join Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi as they explore the best and most interesting stories from the last week. The top story if of course the possibility that at least some of the unidentified flying objects the US Air Force valiantly shot down were in fact the work of amateur radio enthusiasts, but a quantitative comparison of NASA’s SLS mega-rocket to that of popular breakfast cereals is certainly worth a mention as well.
Afterwards the discussion will range from modular home furnishings to the possibility of using YouTube (or maybe VHS tapes) to backup your data and AI-generated
Pong
. Also up for debate are cheap CO2 monitors which may or may not be CO2 monitors, prosthetic limbs made from locally recycled plastic, and an answer to Jenny’s Linux audio challenge from earlier this month.
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 it your own bad self
!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 207 Show Notes:
News:
The USAF (Almost) Declares War On Illinois Radio Amateurs
Space Launch System Acoustics: Noise measurements of Artemis-I Launch
What’s that Sound?
Know that sound?
Fill out the form for a chance to win
!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
OpenStructures Is A Modular Building System For The RepRap Age
How to Make Everything Ourselves: Open Modular Hardware – LOW-TECH MAGAZINE
Giant 3D Printed Excavator Is Awesome, But Needs Work
YouTube As Infinite File Storage
Let Machine Learning Code An Infinite Variety Of Pong Games
Anatomy Of A Fake CO2 Sensor
A Better Playlist Shuffle Algorithm Is Possible
Elliot’s horrible MPD 3-shuffler code from 2003
Maximal Length LFSR Feedback Terms
Precious Plastic Prosthetics
Think Globally, Build Locally With These Open-Source Recycling Machines
Plastic Recycling At Home Promises A Revolution In Local Plastic Production
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Tidy Breadboard Uses Banana Bread
New Product: The Raspberry Pi Debug Probe
Low Power Challenge: Weather Station Runs For Months Thanks To E-Ink Display
Reverse Engineering The Apple Lightning Connector
Tom’s Picks:
DIY Mini Fridge Is Pure Brilliance In Foam
Travel The World Looking For Retro Tech, Virtually
Watch Sony Engineers Tear Down Sony’s VR Hardware
Can’t-Miss Articles:
How To Build Jenny’s Budget Mixing Desk
Ask Hackaday: The Ten Dollar Digital Mixing Desk?
PipeWire, The Newest Audio Kid On The Linux Block
Retro Gadgets: Nintendo R.O.B Wanted To Be Your Friend | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6604601",
"author": "Jonathan Bennett",
"timestamp": "2023-02-24T22:31:22",
"content": "Mystery sound sounds like an art installation that plays generative music, based on PVC pipes that act like pan flutes in the wind.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,387.575124 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/22/lo-fi-tchaikovsky/ | Lo-Fi Tchaikovsky | Chris Lott | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"hardware orchestra",
"lo-fi",
"orchestra",
"speaker"
] | [Kevin] over at Simple DIY ElectroMusic Projects recently
upgraded his Lo-Fi Orchestra
. To celebrate his 400th blog post, he programmed it to play Tchaikovsky’s
1812 Overture
. Two Arduino Nanos, four Arduino Unos, four Raspberry Pi Picos, and one Raspberry Pi have joined the Lo-Fi Orchestra this year, conducted by a new Pico MIDI Splitter. Changes were made in every section of the orchestra except percussion. We are delighted that the Pringles tom and plastic tub bass drums remain, not to mention the usual assortment of cheap mixers, amps, and speakers.
Tchaikovsky’s score famously calls for some “instruments” not found in the typical orchestra — a battery of cannon and a carillon, for example. Therefore [Kevin] had to supplement the Lo-Fi Orchestra for this performance with extras — a JQ6500 MP3 module on clash cymbals, a bare metal MiniDexed Raspberry Pi playing the carillon, and a MCP4725 with a Lots-of-LEDs shield firing off cannon and fireworks, respectively.
Although slightly disappointed that the MCP4725 beat out
Mr. Fireworks
in the auditions, we do like the result. [Kevin] reports that the latest version is much more reliable and predictable, having eliminated various MIDI faults and electrical noise. It presents a stable platform for future musical presentations, a kind of on-demand Lo-Fi Orchestra jukebox, as he describes it. A detailed review of all the changes can be found in his
explanatory blog post
. Check out an earlier performance of Holst’s
The Planets
suite from
our coverage back in 2021
. | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6603298",
"author": "Jonathan Bennett",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T15:14:37",
"content": "It’s a midi-based organ on micro-controllers. That’s really something. I approve of this hackery.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6605126"... | 1,760,372,387.712792 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/22/an-amiga-mouse-the-modern-way/ | An Amiga Mouse, The Modern Way | Jenny List | [
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"amiga",
"hid",
"quadrature"
] | When we recently featured an Amiga upgrade project, [EmberHeavyIndustries ] was prompted to share one of their own, an adapter
to allow a modern USB HID mouse to be used with the Commodore quadrature mouse port
.
The first mice simply transferred the rotation of the ball through rollers to switches or optical sensors which passed pulse trains to the host computer. From the relative phase of these pulse trains the computer could work out what direction the mouse was going, as well as how far it had moved through counting the pulses. Since this was the simplest mouse interface, many of the 16-bit era machines used these signals. The PC meanwhile lacked such a port, so companies such as Microsoft had to place a microcontroller in the mouse to do the position sensing, and send the result over a serial interface. This evolved over time into the USB HID mouse interface you are probably using today.
Unfortunately for owners of quadrature mouse driven machines, real quadrature mice are a little thin on the ground these days, thus the adapter is a seriously useful device. At its heart is an STM32 microcontroller, and it’s been through a few updates and now supports mouse wheels. Your Amiga has been waiting for this!
There are quite a few other treats for Amiga enthusiasts
in the EmberHeavyIndustries GitHub account
, meanwhile
here’s the video upgrade which caused us to receive the tip. | 27 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6602772",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T04:13:09",
"content": "That’s cool and all, but what point is it if we replace all components by cheap PC parts? At one point, why not just use an emulator? It’s even more authentic given CRT emulation. Or let’s go make replicas... | 1,760,372,387.77287 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/22/laser-scanner-upgraded-to-use-pcb-motor/ | Laser Scanner Upgraded To Use PCB Motor | Chris Lott | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"laser scanner",
"pcb motor"
] | [Rik]’s
Hexastorm laser scanner project
originally used a discrete polygon mirror controller+motor module from Sharp to spin a prism. But the scanner head was a bit difficult to assemble and had a lot of messy wires. This has all been replaced by a single board featuring a PCB-printed motor, based on the work of [Carl Bugeja]. The results are promising so far — see video below the break.
Since the prism is not attached to anything, currently it will fall off if mounted in the intended vertical orientation. One of [Rik]’s next steps is to improve the mount’s design to constrain the spinning prism. The previous Sharp motor was specified to 21000 RPM, but was only driven to 2400 RPM in [Rik]’s first version. This new PCB motor spins at 2000 RPM in these tests, comparable to his previous experiments ( we’re not sure about the maximum RPM ).
See our
original writeup from 2019
to review the goals of this project, and be sure to checkout details and documentation on
the Hexastorm project page
. To learn more about PCB motors, read our article about [Carl]’s first design and visit
his Hackaday.io page
. Thanks to [Jonathan Beri] for the tip. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6602765",
"author": "Andy",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T04:08:57",
"content": "This would be beautiful if it had double-sided eurocard (160 x 100) exposure abilities, automatic board & image registration when flipped, and a gui allowing gerbers to be lased. Dreams.",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,372,387.813747 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/22/digital-replica-antique-weather-monitoring-instruments/ | Digital Replica Of Antique Weather Monitoring Instrument | Bryan Cockfield | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"antique",
"arduino",
"barograph",
"barometer",
"classic",
"display",
"i2c",
"style"
] | Computers and digital sensors have allowed for the collection and aggregation of data barely possible to imagine to anyone in the instrumentation scene even sixty years ago. Before that, things like weather stations, seismometers, level sensors, and basically any other way of gathering real data about the world would have been performed with an analog device recording the information on some sort of spool of paper. This was much more tedious but the one thing going for these types of devices was their aesthetic. [mircemk] is back
to bring some of that design inspiration to a digital barometric display
.
The barometer is based around an Arduino Arduino Nano and a relatively large I2C display to display the captured data. It also uses a BME 280 pressure sensor board, but the technical details of this project are not the focal point here. Instead, [mircemk] has put his effort in recreating the old analog barographs, which display barometric data on a spool of paper over time, on the I2C display. As the device measures atmospheric pressure, it adds a bar to the graph, displaying the data over time much as the old analog device would have.
We’ve discussed plenty of times around here that old analog meters and instrumentation like
this recreation of a VU meter
are an excellent way of getting a more antique aesthetic than is typically offered by digital replacements. Adding in a little bit of style to a project like this can go a long way, or you can simply
restore the original antique
instead. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6602574",
"author": "Comedicles",
"timestamp": "2023-02-22T23:36:37",
"content": "This is a very nice idea. I will mention the drums usually held 7 day charts. And it would be nice to have options for pressure in inches and mm of mercury. This was an important reference because anyo... | 1,760,372,388.074886 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/22/drawing-knots-on-an-oscilloscope-using-analog-means/ | Drawing Knots On An Oscilloscope Using Analog Means | Maya Posch | [
"Art",
"classic hacks"
] | [
"analog circuit",
"analog oscilloscope"
] | Generating interesting imagery on an analog oscilloscope is a fun activity enjoyed by many, with an excellent demonstration by [Henry Segerman] provided in a
recent video
which covers [Matthias Goerner]’s demonstration. Using the electron beam, shapes can be drawn onto the phosphor of the oscilloscope’s CRT — all without touching any digital circuitry. At the core are analog components like an
operational amplifier integrator
, multipliers and other elements.
With just a number of these simple components in a circuit, it’s possible to draw a wide variety of shapes, all by applying the appropriate trigonometric parameters. In addition to the drawing of shapes, it is also demonstrated how these analog signals can be used for an analog audio synthesizer, and finally the image displayed on the oscilloscope is captured on Kodak (Polaroid) instant film, making the entire generating, processing and capturing chain fully analog.
While we’d be the last to campaign against digital electronics, it is fascinating to consider just how much can be done with analog electronics and a bit of mathematics. We assume that everyone did pay attention during math classes, making this a perfect chance to use all that knowledge of trigonometry.
Thanks to [Bornach] for the tip. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6602496",
"author": "Mecrisp",
"timestamp": "2023-02-22T20:53:19",
"content": "Beautiful!For a completely digital variant of vector art seehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NboW5DR5U8Ehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oditfDi7T6s",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [... | 1,760,372,388.414763 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/22/linux-fu-sharing-your-single-wifi/ | Linux Fu: Sharing Your Single WiFi | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Linux Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"hotspot",
"linux",
"wifi"
] | If you are trying to build a router or access point, you’ll need to dig into some of the details of networking that are normally hidden from you. But, for a normal WiFi connection, things mostly just work, even though that hasn’t always been the case. However, I ran into a special case the other day where I needed a little custom networking, and then I found a great answer to automate the whole process. It all comes down to hotel WiFi. How can you make your Linux laptop connect to a public WiFi spot and then rebroadcast it as a private WiFI network? In particular, I wanted to connect an older Chromecast to the network.
Hotel WiFi used to be expensive, but now, generally, it is free. There was a time when I carried a dedicated little box that could take a wired or wireless network and broadcast its own WiFi signal. These were actually fairly common, but you had to be careful as some would only broadcast a wired network connection. It was more difficult to make the wireless network share as a new wireless network, but some little travel routers could do it. Alternatively, you could install one of the open router firmware systems and set it up. But lately, I haven’t been carrying anything like that. With free WiFi, you can just connect your different devices directly to the network. But then there’s the Chromecast and the dreaded hotel login.
Log In Pages and The Laptop Connection
Most public hotspots don’t just directly dump you to the Internet. Instead, they show you a captive page with some ads or maybe the network policy. They might want you to accept terms or put in some sort of ID like a room number. They might offer you upgraded service for a fee. However you do it, you have to click some button or buttons to get actually connected.
This is a problem for the Chromecast — the Google TV network adapter. Even though most hotels have a TV with an HDMI port accessible, you can’t get the Chromecast on a network where you need to log in through a portal page.
No problem. Just use your laptop to connect to the WiFi, then create a new access point to rebroadcast it as though it were your private WiFi. Connect your phone and Chromecast to that new network, and you can watch your favorite shows on the road. This might seem like a first-world problem, but we’ve seen many hotels now offer you a way to log in to things like your NetFlix or YouTube accounts from the hotel TV, but it isn’t widespread. At least, not yet.
What I wanted to do is possible with
hostapd
. However, it isn’t trivial since that program can do many things, not all of which we care about in this context.
Make it Simple, Stupid
There had to be a better way to solve this than fumbling with
hostapd
configurations after a long flight. There is and it is called
linux-wifi-hotspot
. It uses
hostapd
along with networking tools like
iproute2
,
iptables
, and
dnsmasq
, to create a hotspot with very little effort. It is worth noting that NetworkManager can also do this if you have two WiFi adapters. But, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t know how to put the AP on the same adapter as the incoming Internet connection.
I installed the program from a package and I had to install
hostapd
, too. There’s also a ppa for Ubuntu, or you can build it from source by following the instructions.
The interface to the program is relatively simple. You name your hotspot and provide a password. You can make it a tough one because you can have the program display a QR code that will let your phone, for example, hook right up to it.
The linux-wifi-hotspot user interface
The tricky part is where you select the interfaces. In the screenshot, you can see that the same wireless interface appears in both slots. Of course, it would be easy to create an AP to another network interface. Even NetworkManager can do that. However, when I ran the program, I could not select the same interface as the screenshot shows. However, I could make the internet interface “lo” and that worked. I suspect this is because NetworkManager already controlled the WiFi, but your mileage may vary.
There are a few features inside the advanced section of the interface that are initially hidden, but I didn’t need to change any of those. There’s also a way to see a list of devices currently connected to the hotspot.
In addition to the GUI, you can control the program via the command line or even set up to start when the system first runs. I didn’t care about any of that for this project.
Does it Work?
It works! To be honest, though, it doesn’t have remarkable throughput. But it managed about 15-20 Mbps with a 100 Mbs upstream connection. That sounds bad, and it certainly isn’t great. But when you consider that you are sharing the WiFi adapter, it probably isn’t too bad, and it is sufficient to stream movies.
There are other options, of course. You can spoof the Chromecast mac address on your laptop long enough to log in. There are
Ethernet adapters
that connect to Chromecast if you can still find a hardline connection. Some of the captive portals put the authorized mac address in the URL and don’t check it again, so if you see that, you might try replacing your mac with the Chromecast’s and logging in. So, as always, there are plenty of options. But a quick way to spin up a hotspot from your laptop has a lot of versatility, even if you don’t care about connecting a streaming box.
The best way to do this would be to add a second USB WiFi adapter. In that configuration, you could also bridge with NetworkManager, so you might not need this software for that case.
Of course, something like this may not work with your exact setup. There are notes that it has some trouble with some 5 GHz adapters and some RealTeK adapters. There are workarounds, and you can read about them on the project’s web page.
If you have free access to WiFi and you can just log in, you are probably better off doing that. But if you have a router or a device like a Chromecast that won’t tolerate a sign on page, this is a handy way to beam access to as many of your devices as you like. If you are paying per connection, this might save you some money, too.
This doesn’t quite fall into the realm of
a true network hack
. If that worries you, you can probably
roll your own VPN
easily. | 25 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6602415",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2023-02-22T18:52:23",
"content": "I had no idea this was possible: I thought you needed two wireless cards to hotspot, and have an old laptop with a pcmcia card in it just for this. Very cool that you found a way to get this workin... | 1,760,372,388.140951 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/22/ibm-wants-you-to-learn-tech/ | IBM Wants You To Learn Tech | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"education"
] | IBM — no stranger to anyone who works in the computing field — has launched a series of training modules on a site called
skillsbuild.org
. The site targets high school students, college students, and adult learners and offers tracks for jobs like cybersecurity analyst, IT support technician, Web developer, and data science. Several other companies are participating, such as Red Hat and Fortinet. The cost? The courses are free and you can earn digital credentials to show you’ve completed certain classes.
Even more interesting is that they have resources for schools and other organizations that want to leverage the material for students. There is even software that educators can download at no charge for classroom use. The material is available in a variety of languages, too. For more advanced topics, there’s also
Cognitive class
from IBM, also free and which also provides the same sort of credentials.
Apparently, the digital
credentials
are far more than just an electronic diploma. Employers you select can examine the credentials and see things like exams and results along with other information to help them understand your skill level.
Even though you’re reading Hackaday and probably already have a good roster of tech skills, this could be a nice way to get some documentation of what you know. If you work with kids or even adults that need tech skills, or you just want to add some to your resume, you can’t beat the cost. If you aren’t sure, there are some sample guest classes you can try without even registering.
We live in an amazing time when you can build your own
college-level education
. You can even
“study” at MIT
and other big institutions inexpensively or for free. | 19 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6602361",
"author": "Marcus",
"timestamp": "2023-02-22T17:19:52",
"content": "So… IBM has teamed up with coursera.hint hint: that’s how coursera earns money; they offer exactly this kind of service to companies: Put your educational content into our format, and we’ll handle delivery... | 1,760,372,387.991429 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/23/fixing-a-reflow-ovens-conveyer-belt-with-an-ne555-and-stepper-motors/ | Fixing A Reflow Oven’s Conveyer Belt With An NE555 And Stepper Motors | Maya Posch | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"NE555",
"repair",
"stepper"
] | Some design choices on manufacturing equipment really leave you scratching your head for a while, as recently happened to [Chris Cecil] when the
belt on a reflow oven’s conveyer snapped
. Although the solution seems simple enough, getting a new belt on the thing would involve essentially taking the entire machine apart, before reassembling it again. Thus the frayed belt went through the oven over and over until during a recent production run of
Smoothieboard
controller boards until [Chris] heard a funny noise and the conveyer ground to a halt.
Moving the conveyer by hand kind of worked, but with a more permanent fix urgently needed to finish the production run, two stepper motors took the place of the belt, which just left driving these steppers to keep the conveyer moving in sync. Lacking a simple Arduino board to toss at it, and with a Smoothieboard being absolute overkill, [Chris] figured that a humble NE555 timer IC ought to do the job just as well.
Using a
project on Hackaday.io
by [KushagraK7] as the starting point, and a 1992-vintage NE555 IC harvested from an old project, [Chris] managed to put together a basic stepper driver that uses the NE555 to provide the timing signal. In addition to restoring basic functionality like starting and stopping the conveyer belt, [Chris] added a new feature with the reversing of the conveyer direction. Along with some cobbled together components to physically rotate the conveyer’s two rollers, it restored the reflow oven to working condition.
And one day the prototyped driver board will be updated to a proper PCB. It’s only temporary, after all :) | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6603584",
"author": "Ccecil",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T21:22:52",
"content": "Well…I had an arduino…but I didn’t have any DC motors with encoders. And this is way simpler :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6603691",
"... | 1,760,372,388.035896 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/23/sneaky-clock-displays-wrong-time-if-it-catches-you-looking/ | Sneaky Clock Displays Wrong Time If It Catches You Looking | Donald Papp | [
"Art",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"art",
"clock",
"ESP32",
"person sensor",
"useless machine"
] | We have a soft spot for devices that subvert purpose and expectation, and that definitely sums up [Guy Dupont]’s
Clock That Is Wrong
. It knows the correct time, but whether or not it
displays
the correct time is another story. That’s because nestled just above the 7-segment display is a
person sensor
module, and when it detects that a person is looking towards it, the clock will display an incorrect time, therefore self-defeating both the purpose and primary use case of a clock in one stroke.
The person sensor is a tiny board with tiny camera that constantly does its best to determine whether a person is in view, and whether they are looking towards the sensor. It’s a good fit for a project like this, and it means that one can look at the clock from an oblique angle (meaning one is out of view of the sensor) and see the correct time. But once one moves in front of it, the time changes. You can watch
a brief video of it in action in this Twitter thread
.
One interesting bit is that [Guy] uses an ESP32-based board to drive everything, but had some reservations about making a clock without an RTC. However, he found that simply syncing time over the network every 10 minutes or so using the board’s built-in WiFi was perfectly serviceable, at least for a device like this.
This reminds us a little of other clocks with subtly subversive elements, like
the Vetinari Clock
which keeps overall accurate time despite irregularly drifting in and out of sync. Intrigued by such ideas? You’re not alone, because there are even
DIY hobby options for non-standard clock movements
. Adding the ability to detect when someone is looking directly at such a device opens up possibilities, so keep it in mind if it’s time for a weekend project. | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6603531",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T20:08:14",
"content": "Granted nothing is completely secure, for those who are not a great fan of cloud based facial recognition, this device, locally processing the data and just giving out what’s required, seems like a nice st... | 1,760,372,388.199113 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/23/supercon-2022-tap-your-rich-uncle-to-fund-your-amateur-radio-dreams/ | Supercon 2022: Tap Your Rich Uncle To Fund Your Amateur Radio Dreams | Dan Maloney | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"ARDC",
"ARISS",
"class a",
"education",
"endowment",
"grant",
"outreach",
"scholarship",
"stem",
"Supercon 2022",
"supercon video"
] | Imagine you had a rich uncle who wanted to fund some of your projects. Like, seriously rich — thanks to shrewd investments, he’s sitting on a pile of cash and is now legally obligated to give away $5,000,000 a year to deserving recipients. That would be pretty cool indeed, but like anything else, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, right?
Well, maybe not. It turns out that we in the amateur radio community — and even amateur radio adjacent fields — have a rich uncle named
Amateur Radio Digital Communications
(ARDC), a foundation with a large endowment and a broad mission to “support amateur radio, funds scholarships and worthy educational programs, and financially support technically innovative amateur radio and digital communications projects.”
As the foundation’s Outreach Manager John Hayes (K7EV) explained at Supercon 2022
, ARDC is a California-based 501(c)3 non-profit organization that has been in the business of giving away money to worthy projects in the amateur radio space since 2021.
Early Adopter Indeed!
The group’s roots go back much further than that, though — into the 1980s — and explain its ample endowment. In a brilliantly visionary move, a ham named Hank Magnuski (KA6M) saw the potential for the new hotness of the Internet Protocol (IP) and asked
Jon Postel
, then the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) administrator and pretty much the guy you went to if you need an IP address in those wild and wooly early days of the Internet. Jon came through big time, with
a Class A block
of over 16 million IP addresses. Talk about getting in on the ground floor! Fast forward a few decades, and after giving away some of those Class A addresses to deserving amateur radio projects, ARDC decided it was time to cash in some of their largesse. And so in 2019, they sold four million addresses to someone with deep pockets, and they made a ton of money in the process.
The foundation is now legally required to give away at least 5% of its money a year to qualified applicants, and John’s talk
(slides
— PDF) ably covers exactly what that entails. Basically, anything that supports and grows amateur radio is at least in the right ballpark. Examples of past recipients include the University of Southern Florida’s amateur radio club (WB4USF) getting a $15,000 grant to buy equipment for their club station, $38,000 to build an emergency communication mesh network in Rhode Island, and $236,000 to the Kyushu Institute of Technology to build an open-source CubeSat network. Groups have used grant funds to make repairs and upgrades to storm-damaged repeater networks, build emergency comms trailers, and even $1.6 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to save their
famed rooftop radome
.
More Than Paying for Gear
Given their mission, a lot of grants go to educational outreach and scholarships. The scholarships include not just the usual post-secondary grants, but also a lot of STEM outreach. One of the first grants went to
ARISS
, or Amateur Radio on the International Space Station. That 2019 grant gave ARISS the funds necessary to design and build a custom amateur radio station for the ISS, with the aim of getting schoolkids interested in STEM by letting them talk directly to the hams aboard the ISS from a simple handy-talkie transceiver. The ARDC-funded station flew to the ISS on the SpaceX CRS-20 resupply mission in March 2020; the station has been used hundreds of times since and can be considered a smashing success in terms of outreach and engagement.
John’s talk was polished and professional — he’d already given it more than 40 times in 2022 by the time Supercon rolled around — and really gets the wheels turning. If you’re in a ham radio group, or even in an area that’s plausibly related, it probably makes sense to think about what your rich uncle can make possible. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6603473",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T18:41:08",
"content": "It’s just me, but amateur radio appealed to me because it was one of the last remaining spiritual, idealistic hobbys/movements.Amateur radio, to me, was all about tinkering, learning, helping people, fixin... | 1,760,372,388.242181 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/23/testing-the-raspberry-pi-debug-probe/ | Testing The Raspberry Pi Debug Probe | Jenny List | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi Debug Probe",
"rp2040",
"SWD"
] | We mentioned the Raspberry Pi Debug Probe when it was launched, a little RP2040-based board that provides both a USB-to-UART and an ARM SWD debug interface. [Jeff Geerling] was lucky enough to snag one, and
he’s put it through its paces in a handy blog post
.
The first question he poses is: why buy the Pi offering when cheaper boards can be found on AliExpress and the like? It’s easily answered by pointing to the ease of setting up, good documentation and support, as well as the device’s reasonable price compared to other commercial probes. It also answered a personal question here as he hooked it up to a Pico, why it has three jumpers and not the more usual multi-way header we’ve seen on other ARM platforms. We should have looked at a Pico more closely of course, because it matched neatly to the Pi product. On the Pico they’re at the edge, while on the Pico W they’re in the center.
No doubt if the latest addition to the Pi stable has any further revelations we’ll bring them to you. But it’s worth a quick look at this piece to see a real experience with their latest. Meanwhile,
take a quick look at our launch coverage. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6603449",
"author": "Pi Pico Enthusiast",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T18:01:29",
"content": "I always wondered why they didn’t release this alongside the Pi Pico. It’s such an obvious gizmo!Yes yes i know, just flash a picoprobe, it takes 2 seconds. but the *aesthetics* aren’t there. I... | 1,760,372,388.293094 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/23/keebin-with-kristina-the-one-where-shift-really-happens/ | Keebin’ With Kristina: The One Where Shift (Really) Happens | Kristina Panos | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"capacitive switch",
"capacitive switching",
"foam and foil switches",
"monoblock split",
"one-piece",
"one-piece split keyboard",
"Shift Happens",
"Sol-20",
"split keyboard"
] | Hooray, the system works! [Sasha K.] wrote to let me know about their
Thumbs Up!
keyboard, which is the culmination of
a long journey down the DIY rabbit hole
to end game. (Seriously, it’s kind of a wild ride, and there’s a ton of pictures).
Thumbs Up! comes in both monoblock and full split versions, but both are designed for Kailh chocs. Fans of the Kinesis Advantage will dig the key wells and possibly the thumb cluster, which in this case is raised up a bit from the mainlands. I’m pretty fond of the naked PCB approach to keyboard building, especially when they’re stacked and look as good as these do.
While the full split only comes in RP2040 (not that there’s anything wrong with that), the monoblock split is available in Pro Micro, ATmega Mini, and RP2040 versions. You can find the STL for the tilt stand and other goodies on
Thingiverse
.
The
Shift Happens
Campaign Is Live
They say everyone has a book in them, and they also say that you should write the book you want most to read. It has been a long time coming, but Marcin Wichary’s venerable 1200+ page tome entitled
Shift Happens
has
reached the Kickstarter stage
. I’m chuffed to see that it has already been funded 279% past the original $150K goal, which at $150 per handsome two-volume set, equaled out to only 1,000 copies. It would be a shame if the book turned out to be that rare.
So what will you find between the covers? Marcin spent six years researching the 150-year history of the keyboard, from the earliest typewriters to the hottest keyboards of today. He read books, conducted interviews, visited museums, and typed on countless keyboards. (Although let’s face it, he probably has the number stored somewhere.) Far from simply being top-shelf keyboard porn,
Shift Happens
is full of stories from the great battle for QWERTY to Typewriter Row in NYC to why there are so many versions of Enter.
While $150 may sound like a lot to spend on reading material, this is no mere set of books.
Shift Happens
represents all things keyboard, and quite indulgently so — just
look
at the photographs and imagine having those beauties on paper, in your home. Whether you’re into typewriters, mechanical keyboards, or just like industrial design and tech history, this is the labor of love we’ve been waiting for.
The Centerfold: Clavert 1873
I’m not sure what it is I like most about
Clavert
, which is a portmanteau of
clavier
and
vertical
. It has some really nice curves going on, which are uninterrupted by any keys larger than 1u. Even the encoder fits nicely with the 1u scheme, and the whole colorway is also fantastic. About the only thing we don’t like is [stvneads] aka [thlintw]’s assessment that handwiring is lame. Never! Handwiring is freedom!
Via
KBD #112
Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad?
Send a picture to Damn Fine Keyboards
along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured there and here!
Or send it to me directly!
Historical Clackers: The World Index Typewriter
Image via
Antikey Chop
Index typewriters, which print one character at a time in the manner of an old embossing label maker, were once great competitors of two-handed typewriters.
In the late 1880s, few people could touch-type anyway, and the World 1 index typewriter was a cheap and cheerful substitute that was quite small and portable to boot. With only 30 pieces to them, they weren’t too complicated to fix, either.
Two models were sold by a string of manufacturers — the No. 1, which produced only uppercase, and the No. 2 which stamped out both. A gushing article from 1887 stated that a skilled user could reach upwards of 80 WPM, which is hilarious to think about. Could anyone do anywhere near 80 WPM on a label maker? I think not.
ICYMI: Sol-20 Keyboard Repair
Here’s one you actually may have missed as
it was couched within an entire teardown
of a 70s computer that is capable of becoming a terminal in software. About halfway through the video, [Action Retro] advises that the foam in the foam-foil capacitive switches have turned to black dust, and as a result, the thing just doesn’t keyboard anymore.
The solution? After using bare fingers to verify the PCB pads still sent key presses, they resolved to remove the remaining foam dust and glue from every key and replace it all with the foam-foil bits from a Sun 4 keyboard. But given that those switches aren’t that much younger, [Action Retro] was pleased to discover that there’s a company out there making brand new foam-and-foil replacement pads. However, it wasn’t a 100% drop-in fix — many keys repeated, and several didn’t work at all. After removing a bodge wire from an old key-repeat mod and cleaning the pads thoroughly, they got most of the way there. Check out
the entire video
, or
jump right into the keyboard repair
.
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
. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6603396",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T16:47:19",
"content": "Absolutely love this series.Thanks.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6603483",
"author": "piachoo",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T18:57:57",
"con... | 1,760,372,388.466411 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/23/nasa-help-wanted-ham-radio-operators-please-apply/ | NASA Help Wanted: Ham Radio Operators Please Apply | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"citizen science",
"ham radio",
"nasa"
] | NASA’s been recruiting citizen scientists lately, and their latest call is looking for help from ham radio operators. They want you to
make and report radio contacts
during the 2023 and 2024 North American eclipses. From their website:
Communication is possible due to interactions between our Sun and the ionosphere, the ionized region of the Earth’s atmosphere located roughly 80 to 1000 km overhead. The upcoming eclipses (October 14, 2023, and April 8, 2024) provide unique opportunities to study these interactions. As you and other HamSCI members transmit, receive, and record signals across the radio spectrum during the eclipse, you will create valuable data to test computer models of the ionosphere.
The upcoming eclipses are in October of this year and in April 2024, so you have some time to get your station in order. According to NASA, “It will be a fun, friendly event with a competitive element.” So if you like science, space, or contesting, it sounds like you’ll be interested. Right now, the big event is the Solar Eclipse QSO Party. There will also be a signal spotting challenge and some measurements of WWV, CHU, AM broadcast stations, and measurements of the ionosphere height. There will also be some sort of very low-frequency event. Details on many of these events are still pending.
Hams, of course, have a long history of experimenting with space. They routinely
bounce signals off the moon
. They also let radio signals bounce off the
trails of ionized gas
behind meteors using special computer programs. | 42 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "6603376",
"author": "Michael",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T16:26:18",
"content": "KN4ZDQ how do you sign up ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6603418",
"author": "Al Williams",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T17:12:32",
... | 1,760,372,388.540088 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/23/a-linux-distro-for-all-your-ham-needs/ | A Linux Distro For All Your Ham Needs | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"AHRL",
"amateur",
"andy",
"ham",
"linux",
"radio",
"sdr",
"tools",
"xubuntu"
] | For anyone new to the world of ham radio, one of the things that takes a little getting used to is visiting the websites of authoritative experts in various fields and feeling like you’ve traveled back to the Internet of 1999. As a hobby that lends itself to extremely utilitarian amateurs, the software side can feel a little left behind like that. [Andy] aka [KB1OIQ], on the other hand, is also a Linux enthusiast and has been putting together
a complete Linux distribution with everything needed to operate a radio in the modern era
.
While most ham radio software seems to be developed for Windows, there is a lot available for Linux. It just takes a bit of tinkering and experimentation to get everything configured just right. Andy’s Ham Radio Linux, or AHRL, takes a lot of the guesswork out of this. The distribution includes everything from contact logging software to antenna modeling, propagation forecasting, and electronic design. While tools like this are largely optional for operating radios themselves, there are also tools included to allow the user to operate various digital modes as well, which require some sort of computer interface to use.
The other design consideration [Andy] made was something that most hams consider when choosing software, which is that it should be able to run on extremely modest hardware. To that end, the distribution is based around Xubuntu and can run on ten-year-old machines with as little as 2 GB of RAM. And, for those interested more in software-defined radio specifically, there is another
Debian-based Linux distribution called DragonOS
that we’ve featured a few other times as well which is also worth checking out. | 29 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6603033",
"author": "MmmDee",
"timestamp": "2023-02-23T09:29:47",
"content": "I applaud Andy’s efforts, maybe this will be the incentive to get some of my fellow hams finally off of Windows 3.1 and floppy disks :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,388.601752 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/21/youtube-as-infinite-file-storage/ | YouTube As Infinite File Storage | Jenny List | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"cloud storage",
"video",
"video compression",
"youtube"
] | Anyone who was lucky enough to secure a Gmail invite back in early 2004 would have gasped in wonder at the storage on offer, a
whole gigabyte
! Nearly two decades later there’s more storage to be had for free from Google and its competitors, but it’s still relatively easy to hit the paid tier. Consider this though,
how about YouTube as an infinite cloud storage medium
?
The proof of concept code from [
DvorakDwarf
] works by encoding binary files into video files which can then be uploaded to the video sharing service. It’s hardly a new idea as there were clever boxes back in the 16-bit era that would do the same with a VHS video recorder, but it seems that for the moment it does what it says, and turns YouTube into an infinite cloud file store.
The README goes into a bit of detail about how the code tries to avoid the effects of YouTube’s compression algorithm. It eschews RGB colour for black and white pixels, and each displayed pixel in the video is made of a block of the real pixels. The final video comes in at around four times the size of the original file, and looks like noise on the screen. There’s an example video, which we’ve placed below the break.
Whether this is against YouTube’s TOS is probably open for interpretation, but we’re guessing that the video site could spot these uploads with relative ease and apply a stronger compression algorithm which would corrupt them. As an alternate approach, we recommend
hiding all your important data in podcast episodes
. | 132 | 42 | [
{
"comment_id": "6601884",
"author": "come2",
"timestamp": "2023-02-21T19:39:29",
"content": "I’ve been waiting for this for so long. I knew it was possible, but I didn’t know how. Google Drive has been abused enough as it is.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,389.041537 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/21/retro-gadgets-make-your-scope-dual-channel/ | Retro Gadgets: Make Your Scope Dual Channel | Al Williams | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Interest",
"Slider",
"Teardown"
] | [
"heathkit",
"oscilloscope",
"vintage"
] | We live in a time when having an oscilloscope is only a minor luxury. But for many decades, a good scope was a major expense, and almost no hobbyist had a brand new one unless it was of very poor quality. Scopes were big and heavy and, at the price most people were willing to pay, only had a single channel. Granted, having one channel is better than having nothing. But if the relative benefit of having a single channel scope is 10 points, the benefit of having two channels is easily at least 100 points. So what was a poor hacker to do when a dual-trace or higher scope cost too much? Why, hack, of course. There were many designs that would convert a single trace scope into a poor-quality multichannel scope. Heathkit made several of these over the years like the ID-22, the ID-101, and the ID-4101. They called them “electronic switches.” The S-2 and S-3 were even earlier models, but the idea wasn’t unique to Heathkit and had been around for some time.
For $25, you could change your scope to dual trace!
There were two common approaches. With alternative or alt mode, you could trigger a sync pulse and draw one trace. Then trigger again and draw the second trace with a fixed voltage offset. If you do this fast enough, it looks like there are two traces on the screen at one time. The other way is to rapidly switch between voltages during the sweep and use the scope’s Z input to blank the trace when it is between signals. This requires a Z input, of course, and a fast switching clock. This is sometimes called “chopper mode” or, simply, chop. This wasn’t just the realm of adapters, though. Even “real” analog scopes that did dual channels used the same methods, although generally with the benefit of being integrated with the scope’s electronics.
Insides
The old ID-22 was tube-based and quite simple. The S-3’s internal design was almost exactly the same.
The ID-22 used 11 tubes and a rectifier
Heathkit wasn’t the only source of these electronic switches. We saw one from Sylvania in
a [Mr. Carlson] teardown
.
[Jeff] has a look at an old S-3 in another video.
One trace, 8 knobs, and 16 pounds.
Why Bother?
It is hard to remember just how unaffordable scopes were in the past. In 1969, for example, you could get a single channel 3″ screen scope with a 5 MHz bandwidth that you had to build — from Heathkit, of course, for about $80. Adjusted for inflation, that is over $650 today, and keep in mind, this is for a scope with crazy low specs. It didn’t even have a probe connector. The scope’s inputs were binding posts. You could, however, pay $8 a month for some period of time if you couldn’t find $80 all at one time.
A better scope — still single channel — but with a 5-inch screen and 8 MHz along with things we take for granted today like external sync inputs cost $259 as a kit ($399 ready-to-go; the equivalent of $2,000 and about $3,330, respectively). Keep in mind that the average salary in 1969 was about $500 a month. So a $250 scope was two weeks’ pay — more if you look at take-home pay.
If you think about it, that’s $283 per trace!
If you wanted a real dual-trace scope from Heathkit, you had to wait for 1971. The EU-70A cost $565 and was all solid-state (except, of course, for the CRT). It had a relatively tiny screen (about 4″x3″) and a 15 MHz bandwidth. It supported both alt and chop modes. You didn’t even have to build it! In 1981, a 15 MHz dual-trace Tektronix T922 retailed for $1,090! Depending on the year, you could get a 10 MHz scope from a brand like B+K, Leader, Eico, or Conar for a little less.
In Operation
[KB9RLW] has a good video about the ID-4101 in use that you can see below. Granted, since his Dad’s old scope blew up, he hooked it to a modern scope, but you can still see how it worked.
DIY
There were plenty of designs for similar adapters published. [Leslie Solomon] of Popular Electronics fame used four standard CMOS ICs to display four traces simultaneously. The schematic below doesn’t show the trigger generation, which required a 4009 or a transistor.
Simple circuit from April 1974 Popular Electronics to get four traces on a single trace scope
When you think of a
$60 scope these days
, you might think it isn’t very good, but consider what $60 bought in 1969, and you’ll appreciate the cheap scope of today. If you want to practice your scope abilities, dust off an Arduino and check out
this trainer from [Bald Engineer]
. | 32 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6601912",
"author": "wibble",
"timestamp": "2023-02-21T20:25:11",
"content": "I have a 5″ 8Mhz Heathkit scope. How many internets do I get?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6601933",
"author": "Wells Campbell",
... | 1,760,372,388.686985 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/21/3d-printing-antennas-with-dielectric-resin/ | 3D Printing Antennas With Dielectric Resin | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed antenna",
"antennas",
"resin 3d printer"
] | [Machining and Microwaves] has long wanted to use a 3D printer to print RF components for antennas and microwave lenses. He heard that Rogers — the company known for making PCB substrates, among other things — had a dielectric resin available and asked them if he could try some. They agreed, with some stipulations, including that he had to visit their facility and
show his designs in a video
. Because of that, the video seems a little bit like a commercial, but we think he is genuinely excited about the possibility of the resin.
Since he was in their facility, he was able to interview several of the people behind the resin, and they had some interesting observations about keeping resin consistent during printing and how the moonbounce feed he wanted to print would work.
Some of the exotic RF test equipment was interesting to see, too. The microwave lenses look like some kind of modern art. According to the Roger’s
website
:
Radix Printable Dielectric materials are a ceramic-filled, UV-curable polymer designed for use with photopolymer 3D-printing processes like sterolithography (SLA) and digital light processing (DLP) printing. These materials and printing processes enable the use of high-resolution, scalable 3D-printing for complex RF dielectric components such as gradient index (GRIN) lenses or three-dimensional circuits. The 2.8Dk printable dielectric is designed to have low loss characteristics through millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies and low moisture absorption for end-use applications.
It isn’t clear to us that you could use this resin in your own printers, but they did look pretty similar to what we have hanging around except, perhaps, for the continuous circulation of the resin pool. We figured the resin wasn’t inexpensive. In fact, we found a liter online for $1,863. We don’t know if that’s the suggested retail price or not, but we also suppose if you need this material, you won’t be that surprised at the cost.
If you don’t need microwave frequencies, you might be able to get by with some
easier techniques
. Or, you can even do
something slightly more difficult
but probably a lot cheaper. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6601845",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2023-02-21T17:11:46",
"content": "Interesting.High performance plastics like PEEK and Ultem have similar dielectric constant and loss tangent as that magic goo, and are available in filaments for FDM. Tough temperature requirements though (... | 1,760,372,388.756592 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/21/supercon-2022-kuba-tyszko-cracks-encrypted-software/ | SUPERCON 2022: Kuba Tyszko Cracks Encrypted Software | Dave Rowntree | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Supercon",
"aes",
"encryption",
"openssl"
] | [Kuba Tyszko] like many of us, has been hacking things from a young age. An early attempt at hacking around with grandpa’s tractor might have been swiftly quashed by his father, but likely this was not the last such incident. With a more recent interest in cracking encrypted applications, [Kuba] gives us some insights into some of the tools at your disposal for reading out the encrypted secrets of applications that have something worth hiding. (
Slides here
, PDF.)
There may be all sorts of reasons for such applications to have an encrypted portion, and that’s not really the focus. One such application that [Kuba] describes was a pre-trained machine-learning model written in the R scripting language. If you’re not familiar with R, it is commonly used for ‘data science’ type tasks and has a big fan base. It’s worth checking out. Anyway, the application binary took two command line arguments, one was the encrypted blob of the model, and the second was the path to the test data set for model verification.
The first thing [Kuba] suggests is to disable network access, just in case the application wants to ‘dial home.’ We don’t want that. The application was intended for Linux, so the first port of call was to see what libraries it was linked against using the
ldd
command. This indicated that it was linked against
OpenSSL
, so that was a likely candidate for encryption support. Next up, running
objdump
gave some clues as to the various components of the binary. It was determined that it was doing something with 256-bit AES encryption. Now after applying a little experience (or educated guesswork, if you prefer), the likely scenario is that the binary yanks the private key from somewhere within itself reads the encrypted blob file, and passes this over to
libssl
. Then the plaintext R script is passed off to the R runtime, the model executes against the test data, and results are collated.
[Kuba]’s first attack method was to grab the OpenSSL source code and drop in some strategic printf() function calls into the target functions. Next, using the
LD_PRELOAD
‘trick’ the standard system OpenSSL library was substituted with the ‘fake’ version with the trojan
printf
s. The result of this was the decryption function gleefully sending the plaintext R script direct to the terminal. No need to even locate the private key!
Next [Kuba] outlines the ‘easy way’ which is to freeze the binary, just like we could with a whole machine in years gone b, by having it read from a FIFO instead of a file but never place data on the other end. Then, with the
read()
call blocked, the binary is frozen, and hopefully, the private key is in memory already. Next, we use
gcore
to create a core dump of the running application, which only requires knowledge of the process PID. Since the binary has already accessed the key and decrypted the secret model data, which it is held in memory, the plaintext contents will be in the core file, and easily visible by just opening it as a text file! After a bit of searching around, the R script code was visible. No special libraries are needed, just a handful of standard Linux commands.
With the shoe on the other foot, how can you protect your application against such a simple hacking process?
Roll you own crypto
? That is a dangerous proposition and the consensus is to not do this. Preventing the FIFO attack could be as simple as using
stat
() to check the file presented is an actual file. You could also statically link certain critical libraries, to prevent the LD_PRELOAD attack, if that is possible. [Kuba] also suggests that the application could inspect any loaded shared objects using callbacks, to verify the libraries are the expected ones.
The only way to be sure (and you can never be 100%) is to enumerate all the possible attack methods and mitigate each one accordingly. There is no hack-proof method, you just have to make it as hard as possible. | 5 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6601813",
"author": "Andrzej",
"timestamp": "2023-02-21T15:56:12",
"content": "“With the shoe on the other foot, how can you protect your application against such a simple hacking process?”You can’t. You can only make it more cumbersome/entertaining for the attacker. Yet some people... | 1,760,372,388.793878 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/21/new-product-the-raspberry-pi-debug-probe/ | New Product: The Raspberry Pi Debug Probe | Jenny List | [
"ARM",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"new product",
"raspberry pi",
"rp2040",
"SWD"
] | It’s fair to say that among the new product launches we see all the time, anything new from the folks at Raspberry Pi claims our attention. It’s not that their signature Linux single-board computers (SBCs) are necessarily the best or the fastest hardware on paper, but that they’re the ones with meaningful decade-plus support. Add to that their RP2040 microcontroller and its associated Pico boards, and they’re the one to watch.
Today we’ve got news of a new Pi, not a general purpose computer, but useful nevertheless.
The Raspberry Pi Debug Probe
is a small RP2040-based board that provides a SWD interface for debugging any ARM microcontroller as well as a more generic USB to UART interface.
The article sums up nicely what this board does — it’s for bare metal ARM coders, and it uses ARM’s built-in debugging infrastructure. It’s something that away from Hackaday we’ve seen friends using the 2040 for as one of the few readily available chips in the shortage, and it’s thus extremely convenient to have readily available as a product.
So if you’re a high level programmer it’s not essential, but if you’re really getting down to the nuts-and-bolts of an ARM microcontroller then you’ll want one of these. Of course, it’s by no means the first SWD interface we’ve seen,
here’s one using an ESP32
. | 35 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6601746",
"author": "CJay",
"timestamp": "2023-02-21T12:54:39",
"content": "Functionally, yes, it’s “just” a Pico running Picoprobe, but did you see the picture of the board?It’s really rather different to a regular Pico, check the schematics too, there’s extra components including ... | 1,760,372,388.860853 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/21/exploring-the-history-of-eprom-in-the-soviet-union/ | Exploring The History Of EPROM In The Soviet Union | Chris Lott | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"eprom",
"history",
"Soviet Union"
] | An
article on the history of EPROMs in the Soviet Union
by [Vladimir Yakovlev] over at
The CPU Shack Museum
caught our attention. It is part one of a series on the topic, and walks you through the earliest Soviet EPROMs families.
Early EPROM programmer using punched paper tape (Intel, Electronics Magazine 1971)
The first of which, from the 1970s, is the K505RR1 developed and manufactured in Kyiv, equivalent to the first-generation Intel 1702A. It could hold 2048 bits, organized as 256×8, and offered a whopping 20 reprogramming cycles and data retention of 5000 hours.
The narrative proceeds to introduce several subsequent generations, design facilities, manufacturing techniques, and representative chip examples. A few tidbits — unlike Western EPROMs, the Soviets managed to put quartz windows in plastic packages (see the KP573 family).
In addition to the common gray or white, they also used different terracotta colored ceramic packages. An odd ceramic flat-pack EPROM is shown, and also some EPROMs whose dies have been painted over and re-badged as OTP chips.
Intel began producing EPROMs in 1971 as reported by the inventor, Intel’s Dov Frohman-Bentchkowsky, in
Electronics Magazine’s 10 May edition
(pg 91). We learned, amongst other things, that the 1701 did not have a quartz window, but could still be erased by exposure to X-rays. A friendly word of warning — browsing electronics advertisements from 50 years ago can easily consume your entire morning.
Once the package is sealed, information can still be erased by exposing it to X radiation in excess of 5×10
4
rads, a dose which is easily attainable with commercial X-ray generators.
To dig deeper, check out the
CPU Shack’s
write-up on the history of EPROMs in general
, and a piece we wrote in 2014 about the
history of home computers behind the Iron Curtain
. | 17 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6601691",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-02-21T10:01:27",
"content": "In Soviet Russia, UV erases you!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6601787",
"author": "TimMcN",
"timestamp": "2023-02-21T14:54:36",
... | 1,760,372,389.098574 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/20/tidy-breadboard-uses-banana-bread/ | Tidy Breadboard Uses Banana Bread | Chris Lott | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"banana jack",
"breadboard"
] | Self-described passionate maker in the electronics and 3D printing world, [Jakob], aka [testudor], was getting frustrated trying to connect banana plugs to solderless breadboards.
Project Banana Bread
was born — small banana jack adaptors and a companion tray with pockets to hold up to six modules.
The base in the photo is made from 5083 aluminum, machined on a homemade CNC router. But design files for a yet-to-be-tested 3D printer version are available as well. As can happen, he strayed from the original goal of solving the banana jack issue, and also cranked out a USB-serial port and a blank template module for any custom interfaces folks may want to implement.
If it is only power connections you are interested in, we covered the
Open Power project
back in 2019. And also don’t forget the mother of all breadboards,
this 1960s behemoth
we wrote about last year. What kinds of breadboard interface modules do you find most useful? Let us know in the comments below. | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6601614",
"author": "Marcus",
"timestamp": "2023-02-21T06:16:00",
"content": "Love the quality of both the banana plug adapter board as well as the machined aluminium base (repo:https://github.com/testudor/modular-breadboard-base; @Chris Lott/editors: I think this would have been th... | 1,760,372,389.427813 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/22/all-about-usb-c-replying-low-level-pd/ | All About USB-C: Replying Low-Level PD | Arya Voronova | [
"Featured",
"how-to",
"Interest",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"Type-C",
"USB C",
"USB Type-C",
"USB-C PD"
] | Last time,
we configured the FUSB302 to receive USB PD messages
, and successfully received a “capability advertisement” message from a USB-C PSU. Now we crack the PD specification open, parse the message, and then craft a reply that makes the PSU give us the highest voltage available.
How did the buffer contents look, again?
>>> b
b'\xe0\xa1a,\x91\x01\x08,\xd1\x02\x00\x13\xc1\x03\x00\xdc\xb0\x04\x00\xa5@\x06\x00<!\xdc\xc0H\xc6\xe7\xc6\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00'
The zeroes at the end might look non-significant, and they indeed are not with 99.99% certainty – that said, don’t just discard the entire tail end; one of the bytes in the beginning encodes the length of the message. We’ll read those bytes first, and then read only exactly as much as we need, making sure we aren’t reading two messages and interpreting it as one, and that we’re not discarding zeroes that are part of the message.
Today, we will write code that parses messages right after reading them from the FIFO buffer – however, keep this message handy for reference, still; and if you don’t have the hardware, you can use it to try your hand at decoding nevertheless. If you wanna jump in, you can find today’s
full code
here!
Header Parsing
The first byte in the buffer is
0xe0
, and it’s not actually part of a PD message that we need to parse – it’s a “start of a message” token, and you can find it in the “RX tokens” section in the FUSB302 datasheet page 29. If you’re looking there and don’t know what SOP is – for our purposes,
SOP
(without
'
or
"
at the end) means “this packet is for a device at the end of the cable, and not inside of the cable”; we are, indeed, at the end of a cable and not inside one. Further bytes are, however, a meaningful part of a USB-C packet, and that’s where you want to open the PD specification.
The header is described in the PD 3.0 specification section 6.2.1.1 – page 109. It’s two bytes: in our case, it’s the
\xa1a
part of the Python’s bytearray representation,
0xa1 0x61
in hexadecimal and
0b10100001 0b1100001
in binary. The first byte contains bits 7-0 and the second byte contains bits 15-8 – you could say, each part of a PD message comes in backwards. The main part we care about is bits 14-12 – take the second byte, shift it right by 4, and mask it with
0b111
to get the message length. In our case,
(0x61 >> 4) & 0b111
equals 6.
If the message length equals zero, we have received a control message – those are described in section 6.3, on page 119 of the specification. In the example message, the length is 6. This is not an number of bytes – this is the count of PD data objects, also known as PDOs (Power Data Object). Each of them is four bytes long, and in our case, each of them corresponds to a PD profile. Plus, there’s a CRC at the end of the message, which is four bytes. Thankfully, we don’t need to verify the CRC – the FUSB302 has verified the CRC for us; if the CRC weren’t correct, it wouldn’t put the message into the FIFO for us to read in the first place.
How many more bytes do we need to read, then? We’ve already read three bytes, determining that we have to read six four-byte data objects, and then a four-byte CRC. In total, this message is 31 bytes long. Let’s read the objects first, then read the CRC and discard it. The easiest would probably be reading out of the FIFO four bytes at a time – I’ve read the entire PDO and then split it into messages afterwards in
my own implementation.
Getting The Power Profiles
pdo_count = 6
pdos = []
for i in range(pdo_count):
pdo = i2c.readfrom_mem(0x22, 0x43, 4)
pdos.append(pdo)
_ = i2c.readfrom_mem(0x22, 0x43, 4) # discarding the CRC
Now, we have a list of not-yet-parsed power profiles in
pdos
– I’ll refer to them as PDOs for brevity. Here, you would do good writing
a separate function
to parse a PDO, if not for readability reasons alone.
The data message format is described in section 6.4 of the specification, page 129. The first thing you check with a PDO is the data type, bits 30-31, or bits 7-6 of the last byte in the PDO as we receive it. There are four types possible – fixed (the most popular one), battery and variable supply, and the augmented PDO type. We can limit ourselves to processing fixed PDOs for now, and safely ignore the other types.
If you start parsing the PDOs already, you’ll notice that we have five fixed PDOs and one extended PDO. I’ll say that this does match the marking on the USB-C power supply I received this message with! Let’s go through the PDO – see page 132 for the table 6-9; it is a very nice table and it has everything you could need. Let’s parse it for the first PDO.
00101100 10010001 00000001 00001000
Maximum current is bits 0-9 – so, the two last bits of byte 1, and then the entire byte 0. Voltage is bits 19-10 – four last bits of byte 2, and six first bits of the byte 1. If this is painful to read, refer to this piece of code that parses PDOs in Python. After getting the voltage and current numbers, multiply the voltage by 50 and current by 10, to get millivolts and milliamps respectively.
>>> 0b0100101100 * 10
3000
>>> 0b0001100100 * 50
5000
Oh would you look at that – we’ve got 3000 and 5000, which, as you might’ve guessed, means 5 V at 3 A. PDO parsing function for this part
can be found here.
Requesting A Power Profile
Now, we have the PDOs – from 5 V all the way up to 20 V. To ask the PSU for one of them, we need to craft a Request message. And remember – to actually get the PSU to provide a higher voltage to us, we need to send our response fast, before the PSU timeouts waiting for a response. Let’s, then, write a function that crafts a response and can automatically reply with it. It’s a four-byte message, with a two-byte header – let’s make a list of six zeroes, modify them in place, and then send them out. Something quick and dirty like
pdo = [0 for i in range(6)]
will do wonders.
For a start, let’s refer to the header specification – now we actually have to read through fields in the message header and set the ones we need. Again, section 6.2.1.1, page 109! For bits 15-8 (
pdo[1]
), we only need to change the number of data objects. In our case, it’s 1 – we’re sending a data message with a single PDO request message inside of it. For bits 7-0 (
pdo[0]
), we need to set the specification revision (bytes 7-6) to 0b11. We also need to set the data message type in bytes 4-0: see the table 6-6 at page 128 for that; in our case, it’s a Request message, with code
0b00010
. Oh, and there’s a “Message ID” field that we can now leave at 0, but that you’ll want to increment for subsequent messages. This is all we need out of the header – now, let’s craft the actual request in the four remaining bytes.
Request messages are described in section 6.4.2, page 141 – you’ll want the table 6-21. In order to request a PDO, we need to know its index – and increment it by 1 before sending. So, 5 V @ 3 A is PDO 1, 9 V @ 3 A is PDO 2, and so on. Let’s go for the 9 V PDO and put
0b010
into bits 31-28. The USB-C PSU will also want to know the maximum and average current we actually plan to consume. Since we’re experimenting, let’s ask for something like 1 A, setting both maximum current (bits 9-0) and operating current (bits 19-10) to
0b1100100
. You will also do good setting bit 24 (bit 0 of
pdo[5]
) to disable USB suspend – just in case.
Now, we have a message! However, we can’t just stuff it into the FIFO. We need to prepend and append two byte sequences that let the FUSB302 know what’s up, known as SOP and EOP sequences (Start and End Of Packet respectively) – consult the FUSB302 datasheet page 29, again. The SOP sequence is five tokens long and essentially transmits a message preamble – three SOP1 tokens, one SOP2 token, and one PACKSYM token; we need to OR the PACKSYM token with our message length in bytes, six in our case, making it 0x86. The EOP sequence is JAM_CRC, EOP (token), TXOFF and TXON. Why these exact sequences, I don’t quite understand, but I’m quite glad I have some open-source PD stacks that I could copy this behaviour from. So,
0x12 0x12 0x12 0x13 0x86
before the packet, and
0xff 0x14 0xfe 0xa1
after.
SOP sequence, packet, EOP sequence –
put them all into a FIFO,
and we’ll have sent a Request message. The overall worfklow is simple – get capabilities, parse capabilities, pick the one you like, create a Request message, send it, get your voltage. The payoff? You get the voltage of your choice.
A Smidgen Of Debugging
If we didn’t miss anything, probing VBUS will show that you’ve successfully extracted the 9 V profile we agreed to try. If you’re experiencing any hiccups, again,
here’s reference code in Python
that you can use, and here’s an
I2C transmission reference
for the Pinecil. Having problems? Here are a few tips.
As is usual with debugging,
print()
statements will help you quite a bit, until a certain point. On one hand, they’re indispensable, especially if you’re meticulous about converting data to binary or hex representations depending on which one is the most helpful at any debugging point. For instance, you can print the entire packet in hexadecimal, and then print PDOs in binary so that you can check your parsing code.
It doesn’t take many prints in a loop to delay the communications significantly
On the other hand,
print()
statements will interfere with the timing requirements to a surprising degree. Sending data over the console takes a whole ton of time – even if it’s a virtual console, as is the case with the RP2040’s virtual UART over USB-CDC. I’ve spent about two hours debugging this code on a RP2040 and hitting the timeout window all the time, only to find out that I had twenty print statements, and they singlehandedly brought my code from “really fast” to “too slow to respond”. After I commented out the
print()
statements, my code started working on every PSU I tried it with, and I tacked on a whole ton of custom voltage and current selection logic without any problems.
Checking the receive buffer contents is also useful. After you’ve sent your request, check the receive buffer state – just like in the end of the last article. Is there some data waiting? Read the message out of it, and check the header – is it an Accept message? Refer to page 119 for the code for that one. Nothing in the buffer after a request message? You’ve likely violated the timing requirements.
On the other hand, it’s pretty hard to write MicroPython that is slow enough to violate the timing requirements here. As you make the script more complex, it might be that you spend too much things between receiving the PDOs and sending back a response. Or, perhaps, you get a different kind of message in your receive buffer? Your PSU might be sending out some other message that requires a quick response – perhaps, you’re working with a laptop’s USB-C port, and it wants something else.
9 Volts Reached – What’s Next?
What we’ve done here rivals a PD trigger board in price, it’s way more customizable, likely as cheap if not cheaper than a PD trigger IC, and undeniably way cooler. Oh, and we’ve learned to read and send PD messages – which can and will help you if you’re ever interested in creating anything out-of-ordinary with USB-C. All you need is a FUSB302 chip (about 50 cents apiece), paired with a microcontroller that’s dedicated enough to the task of talking PD – you might already have such a MCU in your project doing something else.
The code
is in MicroPython; that said, it’s pseudocode-y enough that it’s easy to port it to a different language from here. If you’re running C++ or C, check
the IronOS stack;
there’s
a STM32 HAL-suited one
, an
Arduino-suited one,
and there’s a decent
stack from Microchip
. I’ve only seen the former in action; yet, if you don’t feel like MicroPython, I’d wager one of them will be right for you.
Something that you might’ve noticed – at no point did I have to refer to the spooky USB-C state machine diagrams. There are a few states in this code, technically, and state machines are great enough that this code would be improved with one if it were to grow more complex; however, you really don’t need one if all you want is 9 V from a USB-C power supply. The spooky diagrams can, however help you debug things like the 500 ms advertisement-to-response timeout – in other words, don’t be afraid.
From here, you can do a lot of things USB-C. You can turn your barrel jack power supplies into USB-C ones with a bit of extra circuitry, make a supply with wacky custom profiles, explore hidden capabilities of PD controllers, get DisplayPort out of USB-C ports – hell, if you’re pentesting-inclined, you can even create malicious USB-C gadgets.
Here’s my personal simple hack –
a short algorithm
that picks the best PDO for a static resistance value while keeping maximum current values in mind; solving exactly the scenario where a trigger board fails us. It ties perfectly into the code we’ve written so far, and if you want to develop a high-power USB-C device that does something similar, it might be of interest to you.
You can, and should approach USB-C in a hacker way, and this article is a great example that you don’t need the entire complexity of USB-C PD standard if you want to do useful things with PD – all you need out is ten pages out of eight hundred, and a hundred lines of code. | 31 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6602302",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2023-02-22T15:17:54",
"content": "It’s a barrel jack and buck converter life for me.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6602316",
"author": "Dan (No, the OTHER one)",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,372,389.182238 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/22/reverse-engineering-the-apple-lightning-connector/ | Reverse Engineering The Apple Lightning Connector | Chris Lott | [
"iphone hacks",
"ipod hacks",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"1-wire",
"apple",
"Apple Lightning Connector",
"logic analyzer",
"protocol",
"reverse engineering"
] | A frequent contributor to the hacker community, [stacksmashing] has prepared an excellent
instructional video on reverse engineering Apple’s Lighting connector
proprietary protocol. The video begins by showing how to gain physical access to the signals and hooking them up to a logic analyzer. He then notes that the handshaking uses only a single signal and proposes that Apple isn’t going to re-invent the wheel (perhaps a risky assumption). Using a ChatGPT search, obligatory these days, we learn that Dallas Semiconductor / Microchip 1-wire is probably the protocol employed.
Which embedded single-wire busses exist that encode bits with different lengths of low and high signals?
At the basic level, 1-wire and protocols like Texas Instruments SDQ operate in a similar manner. It turns out that [stacksmashing] already wrote a
SDQ analyzer module
for the Saleae logic analyzer. Aided by this tool, he digs deeper and learns more about the kinds of messages and their contents. For example, upon being plugged in, the host system queries the accessory’s serial number, manufacturer, model number, and product description. Finally, he introduces the
CRC reverse engineering tool reveng
to determine which CRC polynomial and algorithm the protocol uses to frame each packet.
Even if you have no interest in Lightning cables, this video is a great tutorial on the types of things you need to do in order to make sense of an unknown communications protocol. Gather what information you can, make some educated guesses, observe the signals, revise your guesses, and repeat. In part two, [stacksmashing] will show how to build a homemade iPhone JTAG cable.
We wrote in more detail about
cracking the Lightning interface back in 2015
. The Lightning interface may have been a good solution in its day, foreshadowing some of the features we now have in USB-C. But its proprietary and closed nature meant it wasn’t used outside of the Apple ecosystem. With the
proliferation and capabilities of USB-C
, not to mention various legislative edicts, Lightning’s days seem numbered. Is the industry finally settling on one interface? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6602299",
"author": "Target Disk",
"timestamp": "2023-02-22T15:14:31",
"content": "Can’t wait to hook up my Lightning AV adapter to my Linux box using things I learn from this video!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6602309",
... | 1,760,372,389.229069 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/22/electromagnetic-mechanism-makes-reconfigurable-antenna/ | Electromagnetic Mechanism Makes Reconfigurable Antenna | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"compliant mechanism"
] | Antennas are a key component to any RF gadget. But antennas often only perform well over a narrow band of frequencies. For some applications, this is acceptable, but often you would like to reconfigure an antenna for different bands. Researchers at Penn State say they’ve
developed a tunable antenna
using compliant mechanisms and electromagnets. The new scalable design could work in small areas to provide frequency agility or beamforming.
The prototype is a circular patch antenna made with 3D printing. If you want to read the actual paper, you can find it on
Nature Communications
.
A compliant mechanism is one that achieves force and motion through elastic body deformation. Think of a binder clip. There’s no hinge or bearing. Yet the part moves in a useful way, using its own deformation to open up or grip papers tightly. That’s an example of a compliant mechanism. This isn’t a new idea — the bow and arrow are another example. However, because 3D printing offers many opportunities to build and refine devices like this, interest in them have increased in recent years.
We couldn’t help but notice that the antenna is a variation of a “compliant iris” like the one in the video below. You can find
designs
for these online for 3D printing, so if you wanted to experiment, you might think about starting there.
We’ve looked at
compliant mechanisms
before. Why would you want better chip-scale antennas?
Why, indeed
. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6602223",
"author": "alialiali",
"timestamp": "2023-02-22T12:05:34",
"content": "Looks like you need to adjust by hand.Impractical but could they have hooked up a servo and a VNA to tune in the fly?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,372,389.275894 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/21/let-machine-learning-code-an-infinite-variety-of-pong-games/ | Let Machine Learning Code An Infinite Variety OfPongGames | Dan Maloney | [
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"ai",
"generative",
"micropython",
"openai",
"OpenAI Codex",
"pong",
"prompt",
"Raspbery Pi Pico W'"
] | In a very real way,
Pong
started the video game revolution. You wouldn’t have thought so at the time, with its simple gameplay, rudimentary controls, some very low-end sounds, and a cannibalized TV for a display, but the legendarily stuffed coinboxes tell the tale. Fast forward 50 years or so, and
Pong
has been largely reduced to a programmer’s exercise to see how few lines of code can stand in for what [Ted Dabney] and [Allan Alcorn] accomplished. But now even that’s too much, as
OpenAI Codex can generate a playable
Pong
from just a few prompts
, at least most of the time.
This endless loop of Pong is the handiwork of [
Jose Antonio Garcia Peiro
], who wanted to explore the possibilities of on-the-fly AI-generated code.
Pong
seemed like a good choice, so he whipped up a handheld console with a Raspberry Pi Pico W and a 240×135-px LCD display. [Jose] chose MicroPython for the code, since an interpreted language means the output from the AI would be directly useable. To actually generate the code he chose OpenAI Codex, an API that’s designed to translate natural language to code.
All that was left was to come up with the prompt that will generate the code for the game. The prompt has the merest skeleton of code for the game, specifying things like the libraries needed and how to read the Pico’s buttons, along with comments that direct Codex on the classes needed for the basic game elements — ball, paddle, and a unifying Pong class. And that’s it, really — push a button, the AI generates about 300 new lines of code, and about 80% of the time, you get a playable game.
The point of all this isn’t to play a half-century-old video game, of course, but to see how AI can generate code. [Jose] has a detailed analysis of the various differences from run to run and what they mean. It seems like it would be fun to play with something like this, maybe taking it a little further into generative
Tetris
. Or, dare we ask: can it write
DOOM
?
[via
IEEE Spectrum
] | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6602120",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-02-22T06:21:37",
"content": "“In a very real way, Pong started the video game revolution.”No MUDS.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6602357",
"author": "irox",
... | 1,760,372,389.469294 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/21/tiny11-makes-windows-11-small/ | Tiny11 Makes Windows 11 Small | Al Williams | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"virtual machine",
"Windows 11"
] | If you often spin up a virtual machine just to run Windows, you might be sad that you have to allocate so much space for it. The
Tiny11
project provides a Windows 11 installer that strips and compresses a bare minimum system do under 8GB of space. We aren’t sure what the licensing aspects of it all mean, but there are a few things you need to know. You can see a video about the project below.
The installer requires you to activate Windows, so that’s probably a good thing from a legal standpoint. Besides being compressed, the installer, based on Window 11 Pro 22H2, removes sponsored applications and Teams. It does, however, have the component installer and the Microsoft store, so you can add back things you want that aren’t in the default install.
The total install is under 7GB compared to over 20GB for a full retail install. It also removes some compatibility checks, so it will run on machines with less memory — 2GB, for example — another plus for a virtual machine. The operating system uses a local account by default, but you can log in with your Microsoft account if you wish. Be sure to set up 2 CPUs in the virtual machine or the installer won’t like it. We also couldn’t get the “b2” version installer to realize that the VirtualBox machine was able to handle Tiny11. The “b1” version installed fine with the exact same configuration.
Of course, you might be suspicious that something like this could be harvesting account data, and we can’t say if it is or isn’t. However, we doubt it is a problem, and for a throwaway VM, it might be just the thing. Downloading from archive.org is slow, though, so maybe try the torrent.
If you don’t want to run Windows 11 on a Linux virtual machine, you can go
the other way around
. There is more than
one way to do that
. | 81 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6602072",
"author": "James",
"timestamp": "2023-02-22T03:12:48",
"content": "7GB is “Tiny” now./me remembers wistfully the full multi tasking OS on a single Amiga 3.5″ Floppy Disk.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6602078",
... | 1,760,372,389.587338 |
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