Two-wire serial backpack for GLCD screens

2-wire-serial-backpack-for-glcd

[Debraj] wrote in about his 2-wire serial backpack he developed for a Graphic LCD screen. It's build on a hunk of protoboard and uses a pair of 595 shift registers to translate incoming serial data to the parallel interface which is used by the LCD screen. It takes more time to push commands this way, but the interface is still quite snappy as you can see in the clip after the jump. The real … [Read more...]

Pocket Serial Host acts as an Apple II disk drive

apple-II-pocket-serial-host

[Osgeld] is showing off what he calls a sanity check. It's the first non-breadboard version of his Pocket Serial Host. He's been working on the project as a way to simplify getting programs onto the Apple II he has on his "retro bench". When plugged in, the computer sees it as a disk drive. The storage is provided by an SD card which is hidden on the underside of that protoboard. This makes it … [Read more...]

Type4me is a hardware clipboard for your digital copy and paste needs

type4me-hardware-clipboard

It doesn't happen often, but every now and again we find ourselves wanting for a more extensible cut and paste experience. Most notably we've searched for something that makes is very easy to keep multiple things in the clipboard and paste them as needed. Although we've tried several software offerings nothing really made it up to grade, but this hardware clipboard looks very promising. [Luca … [Read more...]

USB to Serial adapter tells you what COM port you’re on

xser

Since most of us are long past the days of hardware serial ports, the USB to serial adapter has become a mainstay on the hacker's tool belt. While they're cheap and convenient, USB to serial adapters aren't always the easiest thing to use: there's always the issue of what COM port Windows is calling your USB to serial adapter, or what TTY device it is in Linux/OS X. [Avishay] has a very, very … [Read more...]

Inventing networking protocols for dozens of Arduinos

chain

When you don't want to use I2C or SPI, and MIDI and DMX are old hat, [Scott] comes along and invents a very strange networking protocol that is just daisy chaining a few Arduinos together with serial connections. Strange as it may seem, this networking protocol actually makes a whole lot of sense. [Scott] is working on an animatronic birdhouse in the vein of Disney's Imagineers and needed to … [Read more...]

Python script lets you monitor multiple serial devices at once

debugging-with-multiple-serial-devices

Not knowing what's going on inside of your electronics projects can make it quite difficult to get the bugs out. [John] was bumping up against this problem when working on wireless communications between several devices. At just about the same time his friend came up with a script with lets you monitor multiple serial devices in one terminal window. We're used to using minicom, a Linux … [Read more...]

iOS terminal debugging tool

ios-terminal-debugging-tool

This is a simple iOS debugging tool that will take no time to solder together. There's even a chance that you already have everything you need on hand. The hack simply connects an RS232-to-USB converter to a breakout board for an iPod connector. The hardware is aimed not at stock iOS systems, but as an aid to those who wish to run alternative operating systems on them. When the OpeniBoot … [Read more...]