Mini Vectrex Prototype Restored By National Videogame Museum

November 28, 2018 by Drew Littrell 15 Comments

The crash of the videogame market in 1983 struck down a slew of victims, and unique products such as the Vectrex were not immune to its destructive ways. The all-in-one console featured a monochromatic vector display and offered an arcade-like experience at home complete with an analog joystick controller. It sadly never made it to its second birthday before being axed in early 1984, however, thanks to the [National Videogame Museum] we now how a glimpse of an alternate history for the Vectrex. They posted some photos of an unreleased Vectrex prototype that was restored to working order.

Little was known about this “Mini version” of the Vectrex as its very existence was called into question. The console came into and left the videogame market in such short order that its distributor, Milton Bradley, would have killed any additional model posthaste. Little thought was given to the idea, though a rumor appeared in Edge magazine issue 122. The article detailed a fan’s memory of seeing a Vectrex shaped “like a shoebox” on the president’s desk.

Seven years after the publication of that story, photos of the Vectrex design revision were posted by one of the Vectrex designer’s sons on Flickr. These photos served as the only concrete evidence as to the existence of the machine that were widely available for some time. That was until the [National Videogame Museum] managed to acquire the actual prototype as part of the museum’s collection in Frisco, TX. So for those without plans to swing through the DFW area in the near future, there is the video of the mini Vectrex in action below.

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9 Planes Combine To Make One Giant Flexible Flier

November 28, 2018 by Adam Fabio 18 Comments

[Ran D. St. Clair] has created a unique flying machine in the Flex 9. It’s not every day that you see a completely new and unusual aircraft, but the Flex 9 definitely fits the bill. [Ran] took 9 radio controlled planes, connected them together, and made one giant plane — and with an 18-foot wingspan, giant isn’t a misnomer.

The planes that make up the Flex 9 are simple aircraft – foamboard wings, a boom, and a basic tail. The individual planes only have elevator control – no rudder, no ailerons. Power comes from a standard LiPo battery, ESC and brushless outrunner motor. The control system is interesting – every plane has a KK board flight controller running OpenAeroVTOL firmware. The center plane has a radio receiver and communicates to the other KK boards over standard servo wires. Rudder (yaw) and aileron (bank) control are achieved through mixing handled by flight controllers.

Even the couplings between the planes were carefully designed. [Ran] used an EPP foam core as a rubbery dampener, with plywood to strengthen the joint. Each joint is mounted at a 20-degree angle. As the planes bank relative to each other, the angle forces the airframe to twist, which should help the whole system stay level.

Check out the videos below for an explanation and a flight test. The Flex 9 launch isn’t exactly stable – there’s some crazy sinusoidal wobbling going on. But the mechanical and electronic dampeners quickly spring into action smoothing the flight out.

If you’d like to know more about the KK board, you can read about right here.

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Pedal Far With A Solar Powered Tricycle

November 28, 2018 by Bryan Cockfield 23 Comments

More and more electric bikes have been rolling out into the streets lately as people realize how inexpensive and easy they are to ride and use when compared to cars. They can also be pedaled like a normal bike, so it’s still possible to get some exercise with them too. Most have a range somewhere around 10-30 miles depending on battery size, weight, and aerodynamics, but with a few upgrades such as solar panels it’s possible to go much, much further on a charge.

[The Rambling Shepherd] had a tricycle (in the US, generally still considered a bicycle from a legal standpoint) that he had already converted to electric with a hub motor and battery, and was getting incredible range when using it to supplement his manual pedaling. He wanted to do better, though, and decided to add a few solar panels to his build. His first attempt didn’t fare so well as the 3D-printed mounts for the panel failed, but with a quick revision his second attempt survived a 50-mile trip. Even more impressive, he only had his battery half charged at the beginning of the journey but was still able to make it thanks to the added energy from the panels.

If you’re thinking that this looks familiar, we recently featured a tandem tricycle that was making a solar-powered trip from Europe to China with a similar design. It has the advantage of allowing the rider to pedal in the shade, and in a relatively comfortable riding position compared to a normal bike. Future planned upgrades include an MPPT charge controller to improve the efficiency of the panels.

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Sniffing RFID Readers With A Piece Of Paper

November 28, 2018 by Tom Nardi 17 Comments

We feature plenty of printed projects here on Hackaday, though they tend to be of the three dimensional type thanks to the proliferation of affordable 3D printers. But in this case, [Milosch Meriac] has managed to put together a printable design that’s not only a very cool hack, but is made up of a scant two dimensions. His creation, which could perhaps be considered something of an interactive circuit diagram, allows anyone with a paper printer and a few passive components to make a functional low-frequency RFID sniffer.

[Milosch] tells us the goal of the project is to lower the barrier for experimenting with the RFID technology that’s increasingly part of our everyday lives. Rather than having to use something expensive and complicated such as an oscilloscope, experimenters can simply plug their DIY RFID sniffer into their computer’s line-in jack and explore the produced waveform with open source tools.

To create a paper RFID sniffer, you start by printing the image out on a thick piece of paper, like card stock. You then apply foil tape where indicated to serve as traces in this makeshift PCB, and start soldering on the components as described in the text. [Milosch] says the assembly procedure is so simple even a kid can do it, and the total cost of each assembled sniffer is literally pennies; making this an excellent project for schools or really any large group.

If you want to play it safe the sniffer can be connected to a USB sound card rather than your machine’s primary sound hardware, and still come in dirt cheap. [Milosch] stops short of explaining the software side of things in this particular project, but any tool which can use input from the sound card as a makeshift oscilloscope should be a good start.

In the past we’ve seen [Milosch] perform low frequency RFID sniffing through the sound card with the powerful baudline tool, but if you want a little more capable hardware, we can point you in the right direction.

Homebrew Battery Discharger

November 28, 2018 by Lewin Day 13 Comments

Rechargable batteries are great – they save money and hassle when using portable devices. It’s pretty common to want to recharge a battery, but less common to intentionally discharge one. Regardless, [Pawel Spychalski] is working on a device to do just that – in a controlled fashion, of course.

[Pawel] himself notes that the device isn’t something the average person would necessarily need, but it does have its applications. There are times when working with various battery chemistries that it is desired to have them held at a certain state of charge. Also, such devices can be used to measure the capacity of batteries by timing how long they take to discharge when placed under a given load.

The build is one that takes advantage of the available parts of the modern hacker’s junkbox. An Arduino is used with an N-channel MOSFET to switch a resistive load. That load consists of load resistors designed for automotive use, to allow cars originally designed for filament bulbs to use LED indicator lights without the flash frequency speeding up. The resistors are 10 ohms and rated at 50 W, so they’re just about right for ganging up to discharge small LiPo batteries in a short period of time.

[Pawel] has tested the basic concept, and has things working. Next on the agenda is to find a way to get rid of the excess heat, as the current design has the resistors reaching temperatures of 158 °F (70 °C) in just a few minutes. Use some of that power to drive a fan?

Perhaps you’re working with lead acid batteries, though – in which chase, you might want to consider blasting away the sulphates?

Linux Fu: Controlling The Terminal

November 28, 2018 by Al Williams 17 Comments

A Linux terminal has a lot more features than the TeleType of yore. On a TeleType, text spews out and scrolls up and is gone forever. A real terminal can use escape characters to do navigate around and emulate most of what you like about GUIs. However, doing this at the lowest level is a chore and limits portability. Luckily, all the hard work has already been done.

First, there’s a large database of terminal capabilities available for you to use: terminfo. And in addition, there’s a high-level library called curses or ncurses that simplifies writing programs to control the terminal display. Digging deep into every nook and cranny of ncurses could take years. Instead, I’m going to talk about using a program that comes with ncurses to control the terminal, called tput. Using these two commands, you can figure out what kind of terminal you’re dealing with, and then manipulate it nearly to your heart’s content. Let’s get started!

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Xbox One X Gets Aluminum Laptop Makeover

November 28, 2018 by Tom Nardi 26 Comments

While many a gamer was willing to brave hand-to-hand combat this Black Friday just to get a few bucks off of Microsoft’s premium-tier game console, [jomega] was already cutting his to pieces from the comfort of his own home. Not dissuaded by the system’s fairly high sticker price or relatively limited modding scene, he decided to transplant his Xbox One X into an incredibly slick laptop-style aluminum enclosure.

Turning a game console into a “laptop” is hardly new, Ben Heck has been doing it for over a decade now, but in general they tend to look pretty clunky. With a few exceptions, the builder’s goal is not so much to make the final result look sleek and professional, but simply to take their favorite games on the go. But from the start [jomega] wanted something that would not only allow him to take long walks in the park with Master Chief, but look gorgeous doing it.

One of his goals was to make the final device thinner than the original system, so the first step was to assemble virtual representations of the Xbox’s principal components in CAD to find the most efficient placement for everything. Long before the first pieces of aluminum were cut, [jomega] already knew where each part and screw was going to end up. The time he invested in planning out the build in CAD more than made up for itself when it came time to assemble the final product, and also means this design is highly reproducible should he decide to build another one on commission.

Even though the final system seems impossibly thin, no hardware or functionality had to be left out. Even the optical drive, which on the stock console is something of an afterthought to begin with in an era of digital downloads (rumor has it the next Xbox will drop optical discs entirely), has been retained. Special consideration did need to be given to cooling the 4K powerhouse though, and [jomega] warns that running the system with the case open or the fans off can have dangerous consequences.

Thanks to the Xbox One’s wireless capabilities (for both Internet connection and controllers), there’s a notable lack of ports on the case. This made the design a bit easier, as [jomega] really only needed to have a connector for the AC power cord in the back and a couple of holes for the system’s power, eject, and controller sync buttons. He did add in a USB port for convenience, but even that could be skipped to make things easier.

In the past we’ve seen some rather husky Xbox 360 laptop builds, and at least one attempt to build a more slimline version, but this latest entry in the long line of portable-ized Xboxen has set the bar very high.

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