Day: January 31, 2023

A New Analog And CRT Neck Board For The MacIntosh SE

January 31, 2023 by 13 Comments

Keeping a 35-year old system like the MacIntosh SE and its successor, the SE/30, up and running requires the occasional replacement parts. As an all-in-one system, the analog board that provides the power for not only the system but also the 9″ (23 cm) built-in CRT is a common failure location, whether it is due to damaged traces, broken parts or worse. For this purpose [Kay Koba] designed a replacement analog board, providing it with a BOM of replacement components. This also includes the neck board, which is the part that the CRT itself connects to.

As [Kay] notes in the project log, the design was inspired after building [Kai Robinson]’s Classic Reloaded logic board, which we covered previously. After a few revisions, [Kay] has now begun selling the PCBs for $42. The product page also links to BOMs for both the analog board and the neck board, with most of the parts simple through-hole parts. If the board’s fancy styling and LEDs compared to the original board isn’t your cup of tea, it does look like there exists interest in a more subdued version as well.

SteamDeck connected to a laptop with a USB cable, showing the 'printed-out' document on its screen inside a PDF reader

SteamDeck: Become Printer

January 31, 2023 by 9 Comments

Wonderful things happen when we read the documentation. For instance, we’ve all seen a Raspberry Pi work as an Ethernet adapter over USB, or a ESP32-S2 presenting as a storage device. Well, [parkerlreed] has made his Steam Deck work as a USB printer after reading the Linux kernel docs on the USB gadget configuration, and all it took was some C code and a BIOS setting change.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if our USB tablets exposed a fake printer interface and saved the received documents as PDF?” With a SteamDeck, you can do just that – thanks to the g_printer kernel module. The C code is fairly straightforward, and even lets you configure some aspects of the printer device.

Of course, there’s gotta be a cherry on the cake, and [parkerlreed]’s shell script hides an addition that makes your PDF printing experience all that more realistic! Not to spoil it too much – you should watch the video of the script in action, showcasing both the ease of use and the added realism.

Jokes aside, the usefulness of this script is undeniable, and owners of USB-device-capable portable Linux devices will find this script a must-have. It’s seriously cool when someone dives into documentation and pulls out a clever solution to a “wouldn’t it be cool” idea – fundamentally, it is the same mindset that gave us the venerable RTL-SDR. What’s your favourite ‘dig into docs and figure out a clever feature’ hack?

We thank [Myself] for sharing this with us on the Hackaday Discord!

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A ginger cat, wearing a blue harness with a brass and wooden box on its back

Handmade GPS Tracker Keeps An Eye On Adventurous Cats

January 31, 2023 by 27 Comments

One of the most convenient things about having cats is their independent lifestyle: most are happy to enjoy themselves outside all day, only coming back home when it’s time for dinner and a nap. What your cat gets up to during the day remains a mystery, unless you fit it with a GPS collar. When [Sahas Chitlange] went searching for a GPS tracker for his beloved Pumpkin, he found that none were exactly to his liking: too slow, too big, or simply unreliable. This led him to design and build his own, called Find My Cat.

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Showing KiCanvas board viewer component inside a browser window, with a board being displayed and toggleable layers

KiCanvas Helps Teach And Share KiCad Projects In Browsers

January 31, 2023 by 27 Comments

KiCad is undeniably the hacker favourite when it comes to PCB design, and we’ve built a large amount of infrastructure around it – plugins, integrations, exporters, viewers, and much more. Now, [Stargirl Flowers] is working on what we could call a web viewer for KiCad files – though calling the KiCanvas project a “KiCad viewer” would be an understatement, given everything it aims to let you do. It will help you do exciting things like copy-pasting circuits between KiCad and browser windows, embed circuits into your blog and show component properties/part numbers interactively, and of course, it will work as a standalone online viewer for KiCad files!

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The hack's author performing the operation described at his workdesk, with a separate camera window showing the acupuncture needles being used to touch the board points

Find SWD Points Quickly, No Extra Hardware Needed

January 31, 2023 by 9 Comments

Say you’re tinkering with a smart device powered by a CPU that uses Serial Wire Debug (SWD), but doesn’t mark the testpoints. Finding SWD on a board — how hard could it be? With [Aaron Christophel]’s method, you can find the SWD interface on a PCB within a few minutes’ time. All you need is two needles, a known-to-be-ground connection, an SWD dongle of some kind, and a computer with an audio output. What’s best — you could easily transfer the gist of this method to other programming interface types!

The idea is simple: you wire the ground up, connect the needles to SWDIO and SWCLK, launch [Aaron]’s Python script, then start poking around all the unnamed test points. The script runs JLink software to probe for SWD devices attached to the probes — if an SWD interface isn’t found, it beeps idly, but as soon as the device is detected, your computer will start beeping at you in a lively manner. In this way, you don’t have to re-scan devices manually, solder to any test points except the GND one, or try and hold both probes on test points with one hand – the scanning process itself is hands-free.

Depending on how many points your board has and whether you try to optimize the process by probing points closest to the SWD pins on the CPU, you might hit the jackpot immediately, or you might have to poke around for a minute-two. That said, [Aaron]’s method seems to be the best you can do while remaining relatively extra-hardware-free, and if you want to make it a tinge more permanent, clothespins are there for you.

In case you don’t mind extra hardware – could we interest you in some 3D printed needle probe desks? There’s a wide variety of those, whether you’d like some tentacle-like ones, or ones that make your desk look like like an acupuncture table. Or, say, would you like a more automatic method of finding all kinds of debug interfaces? Then JTAGulator might be what you’re looking for.

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Driverless Buses Take To The Road In Scotland

January 31, 2023 by 70 Comments

Scotland! It’s the land of tartans, haggis, and surprisingly-warm kilts. It’s also ground zero for the first trial of full-sized driverless buses in the United Kingdom.

It’s not just automakers developing driverless technologies. Transit companies are desperate to get in on the action because it would completely upend their entire existing business structure. Now that self-driving buses are finally approaching a basic level of competence, they’re starting to head out to haul passengers from A to B. Let’s look at how the UK’s first driverless bus project is getting on out in the real world. 

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A grey smartphone sits inside a sleeve made of light brown wood veneer and a black felt interior.

Wooden Smartphone Sleeve Keeps You On Task

January 31, 2023 by 2 Comments

Smartphones are amazing tools, but sometimes they can be an equally amazing time suck. In an effort to minimize how much precious time goes down the drain, [Lance Pan and Zeynep Kirmiziyesil] decided to make a functional and beautiful smartphone sleeve to keep you on task.

Most modern smartphones have some form of Do Not Disturb mode available, but having the phone visible can still be an invitation for distraction. By tucking the phone into an accessible but less visible sleeve, one can reduce the visual trigger to be on the phone while keeping it handy in the even of an emergency.

Once in the sleeve, the NFC tag sandwiched between the felt and wood veneer triggers an automation to put the phone into Do Not Disturb mode. This hack looks like something that you could easily pull off in an afternoon and looks great which is always a winning combination in our book.

To see some more focus-oriented hacks, checkout the Pomodachi or this Offline E-Paper Typewriter.