Hack In Style With This Fallout Cyberdeck

April 28, 2024 by 15 Comments

There’s always an appeal to a cool-looking computer case or cyberdeck – and with authentic-looking Vault-Tec style, [Eric B] and [kc9psw]’s fallout-themed cyberdeck is no exception.

The case looks like it came straight out of one of the Fallout games and acts the part: while (obviously) not capable of withstanding a direct nuclear bomb impact, it can protect the sensitive electronics inside from the electromagnetic pulse and shockwave that follows – if you keep it closed.

And it’s not just the case that’s cool: This cyberdeck is packed full of goodies like long-range radios, SDRs, ADSB receivers, a Teensy 4.1, and dual Raspberry Pis. But that’s just the hardware! It also comes with gigabytes upon gigabytes of Wikipedia, Wikihow, TED talks, and other information/entertainment, for the less eventful days in the wastelands.

If you, too, would like to have one, fret not! The parts list and design files are public, even though some assembly is required.

Retrotechtacular: The Other Kind Of Fallout Show

April 16, 2024 by 28 Comments

Thanks to the newly released Amazon Prime series, not to mention nearly 30 years as a wildly successful gaming franchise, Fallout is very much in the zeitgeist these days. But before all that, small-F fallout was on the minds of people living in countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain who would have to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear exchange.

“Uwaga! Pył promieniotwórczy“  (“Beware! Radioactive Dust”) is a 1965 Polish civil defense film from film studio Wytwórnia Filmów Oświatowych. While the Cold War turning hot was not likely to leave any corner of the planet unscathed, Poland was certainly destined to bear the early brunt of a nuclear exchange between the superpowers, and it was clear that the powers that be wanted to equip any surviving Polish people with the tools needed to deal with their sudden change in circumstances.

The film, narrated in Polish but with subtitles in English, seems mainly aimed at rural populations and is mercifully free of the details of both fallout formation and the potential effects of contact with radioactive dust, save for a couple of shots of what looks like a pretty mild case of cutaneous radiation syndrome.

Defense against fallout seems focused on not inhaling radioactive dust with either respirators or expedient facemasks, and keeping particles outside the house by wearing raincoats and boots, which can be easily cleaned with water. The fact that nowhere in the film is it mentioned that getting fallout on your clothes or in your lungs could be largely avoided by not going outside is telling; farmers really can’t keep things running from the basement.

A lot of time in this brief film is dedicated to preventing food and water from becoming contaminated, and cleaning it off if it does happen to get exposed. We thought the little tin enclosures over the wells were quite clever, as were the ways to transfer water from the well to the house without picking up any contamination. The pros and cons of different foods are covered too — basically, canned foods dobry, boxed foods zły. So, thumbs up for Cram, but you might want to skip the YumYum deviled eggs.

Dealing with the potential for a nuclear apocalypse is necessarily an unpleasant subject, and it’s easy to dismiss the advice of the filmmakers as quaint and outdated, or just an attempt to give the Polish people a sense of false hope. And that may well be, but then again, giving people solid, practical steps they can take will at least give them some agency, and that’s rarely a bad thing.

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Building Fallout’s Super Sledge

May 31, 2021 by 7 Comments

The Fallout series of games has a variety of ridiculous weapons, not least the Super Sledge — a rocket propelled sledgehammer that looks about as dangerous for the wielder as it does for the opponent. [JAIRUS OF ALL] decided he had to recreate this build in real life, risks be damned.

Unwilling to go the single-use, solid rocket route for his build, [JAIRUS] instead elected to go with an electric ducted fan, supplemented with a propane supply for added flames. It’s not really a rocket of any form, and it’s unlikely the burning propane adds any real thrust, but it does shoot huge flames out the back and it is terrifying. The EDF idle speed can be set by a potentiometer on a servo tester hooked up to a speed controller, while there’s a valve for adjusting propane flow. A switch can then be used to boost the EDF speed higher and increase the propane flow, increasing the violence of the flow out the back of the hammer.

Notably, [JAIRUS] doesn’t actually demonstrate swinging the hammer at anything in particular. We’re kind of glad, as we suspect it might end with a sizable explosion, or burns at the very least. Nonetheless, it would easily be the most terrifying prop weapon at most any Halloween party you took it to. It’s in a similar vein to the fire vortex cannon [JAIRUS] also designed. Video after the break.

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Breathtaking Alarm Clock Looks Like It Came From A 1960 Fallout Shelter

August 10, 2020 by 23 Comments

All the hardcore geeks have alarm clocks where the bell striker is a hard disk read head… or at least they’ll be building them after seeing this. [Senile Data Systems] created an industrial voltage alarm clock out of decade counters that looks like it was unearthed from a fallout shelter (machine translation).

At first glace you might mistake this for a binary clock since it uses a column of LEDs to indicate each digit of 24-hour time. It’s not, as each row corresponds to a pin on the CD4017 decade counters that make up the timekeeping circuit inside.

Thumbscrew wheel switches at the top of the bulky handheld unit are how the alarm time is set, triggering a bell along the top edge. The clock is driven by the 50 Hz line voltage and [SDS] tried using that AC to drive a solenoid as the striker on the prototype unit but it performed poorly. The use of a hard disk read head turns out to be the perfect striker, as heard in the video after the break. As for triggering from the decade counters, here’s what [SDS] told us about the design:

The switches’ outputs gets ANDed with a 10 Hz signal (on a 60 Hz grid it will become 12 Hz). This drives a slightly beefy transistor which in turn drives an electromagnet to hammer a bell which broke off my bicycle. Yes. This is a digital analog alarm clock. The clock portion is digital but the bell is analog and sounds like Grampa’s old wind up alarm clock.

The build came about when a cache of over 600 industrial LEDs (24 V – 48 V) fell into his lap. This makes the insides of the clock something to behold as point-to-point soldering connects the panel mount lights and all nine logic chips. Add in that transformer for getting the line voltage and we imagine this thing has quite a bit of heft to it.

If you’ve ever had an alarm with a wind-up bell you know there’s no better way to jolt yourself out of a peaceful slumber and into the chaos of the real world. If the gentle tinkle of the hard drive head isn’t enough for you, this fire bell alarm clock will certainly do the trick.

 

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Fallout-Inspired Clock Radio Helps You Party Like It’s 2077

February 6, 2020 by 20 Comments

Since its first release seven years ago, Raspberry Pi single-board computers have become notoriously ubiquitous in compact and portable builds. They’re used in many different applications, but one of the most interesting has got to be how it can turn just about any old thing into a Linux computer. [xito666] writes in with his own build, a portable retro computer inspired by the retro-futuristic stylings of the Fallout games.

For true aesthetic accuracy, [xito666] used an old discarded Crown 5TV-65R portable TV and radio combo. The unit hails from the 1970s, so a bit newer than Vault technology, but it still gives off a great retro charm with its CRT screen and knobs. Sadly, the original components couldn’t be reused, and the shell was stripped empty so that the new hardware could take its place. This includes an off-the-shelf HDMI LCD screen with resistive touchscreen and new potentiometers and knobs that still fit in with the overall look of the machine.

What makes this build unique, however, is that it also includes custom software to turn it into a clock and music player, with the deliciously Pip Boy-like UI being controlled entirely with the front buttons and knobs. The whole project is well written up in the Reddit post, in it [xito666] explains some of their choices and planned improvements. One that we would suggest ourselves is replacing the menu scrolling selector dial with a rotary encoder rather than a potentiometer, for that added knob feel. We also think that with the addition of a keyboard, it would easily pass for one of those luggables from the 1980s, a style of project we’ve featured once or twice here before.

Fallout Inspired Display Is Ready For The Apocalypse

May 18, 2019 by 9 Comments

We’ve seen more projects based on books, TV shows, movies, and video games than we could ever hope to count. Hackers and makers derive inspiration from what they see around them, and it turns out there’s considerable overlap between the folks who sit in their labs building stuff all day and the ones who spend their free time playing games or watching movies. Big surprise, right? But among them, few can match the influence of the Fallout franchise.

As the latest entry in a long line of incredible Fallout-inspired builds, we present the Octoglow VFD by [Michał Słomkowski]. While this build isn’t trying to replicate anything directly from the games, it captures all the hallmarks that make up the game’s distinctive post-apocalyptic chic : antiquated vintage components, exposed internals, and above all, a dirty, industrial look. It’s supposed to look like somebody built the stuff out of parts they found in the trash, primarily because that’s exactly what they would’ve needed to do.

So what is it? Well, that’s a little hard to nail down. Frankly we’d say it’s a little more like art than anything, but it does have some useful functions. Currently it shows the time, date, weather information, and various RSS feeds on its dual vacuum fluorescent displays. There’s also a real-life Geiger-Müller counter onboard, because what says Fallout more than a little radiation?

The build itself is absolutely fascinating, and [Michał] leaves no stone unturned in his comprehensive write-up. Every module of the Octoglow has its own page on his site, and each one is bristling with hardware details, schematics, and firmware documentation. Reading along you’ll run into all sorts of interesting side notes: like how he reverse engineered a wireless temperature sensor with his sound card, or devised his own ten-pin bus to interconnect all the modules.

If the Octoglow doesn’t quite scratch that Vault-Tec itch, there’s plenty more where that came from. How about this replica of the wall terminals from Fallout 4, or this radiation monitor perfect for roaming the wastelands? Don’t forget to bring along this 3D printed Thirst Zapper for protection.

A Raspberry Pi Terminal Fit For Fallout 76

March 19, 2019 by 26 Comments

The Fallout series of video games provide a wonderful alternative history that answers the question of what might have happened had the microchip never been invented. Yes, most things run on tubes, and apparently you can implement an AI that passes a Turing test in tubes (does the Turing test apply if you’re comparing it against NPCs?). Of course, as with all of computer history, the coolest parts of Fallout are the computer terminals, so [Pigeonaut] decided to build one. All the files are available, and if you have a Pi sitting around this is a good weekend project.

This terminal has a host of features that are well-suited for the modern vault dweller. Of note, the entire case is 3D printed, in multiple pieces. Sure, considering the display is an LCD it’s a tiny bit thick, but you don’t get the Atomic age aesthetic without a big CRT, do you? The keyboard is a standard, off-the-shelf mechanical keyboard for clicky goodness with vintage-style keycaps. There’s a 3.5″ USB floppy drive, because there’s nothing that will survive a nuclear holocaust like magnetic media. The rest of the build is a Raspberry Pi 3B+, which is more than enough compute power to open a door shaped like a gear.

As for what you would do with a retro-inspired Pi terminal, well, it would make a good computer for the workbench, and since the case is already designed for a 3.5″ drive, you could use this to archive some old media. If there’s one thing the apocalypse tells us, it’s that these old terminals will still be kicking after a few hundred years.