Poking Around Inside A Pair Of Classic Gaming Gifts

January 7, 2020 by Tom Nardi 5 Comments

Retro gaming is huge right now, and like probably millions of other people, [wrongbaud] found himself taking possession of a couple faux-classic gaming gadgets over the holidays. But unlike most people, who are now using said devices to replay games from their youth, he decided to tear into his new toys to see how they work.

The first to get pulled apart is a handheld The Oregon Trail game, which Hackaday readers may recall from a teardown we did back when it was first released. His work continues right where our teardown left off, by pulling the game’s two EEPROM chips out and dumping their contents. As expected, [wrongbaud] found that the I2C connected chip contained the game save information, and the SPI flash chip stored the actual game files.

Next up was an HDMI “stick” from Bandai Namco that allows the user to play a selection of NES games. Here again [wrongbaud] liberates the flash chip and dumps it for examination, this time using an ESP32 tool of his own creation. Inside the firmware image he’s able to identify several elements with the help of binwalk, such as splash screen graphics and text strings.

But perhaps most interestingly, he found that binwalk was able to automatically extract the NES ROMs themselves. After verifying they were standard ROMs with an NES emulator, he theorizes that repacking the firmware with different ROMs should be possible should anyone feel so inclined.

Both of these hacks are fantastic examples of how you can reverse engineer a device’s firmware with low cost hardware, open source tools, and a healthy dose of patience. Even if you aren’t interested in fiddling with The Oregon Trail or swapping out the Mappy ROM for Contra, this write-up is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to do their own firmware analysis.

This isn’t the first time [wrongbaud] has hacked around inside these extremely popular retro games, either. Just last month we covered some of his previous exploits with the re-released versions of Rampage and Mortal Kombat.

A Homebrew Weller RT Soldering Station

January 6, 2020 by Tom Nardi 15 Comments

Like a number of hackers before him, [MarcelMG] was impressed with Weller’s RT soldering iron tips, but considerably less enthused about the high purchase price on the station they’re designed to go into. Inspired by similar projects, he decided to try his hand at building his own soldering station which reaps the benefits of these active tips without the sticker shock.

The station’s user interface was kept intentionally simple, with little more than a four digit LED display to show the temperature and a rotary encoder to set it. The display alternates between the current temperature and the set temperature every few seconds while the knob is being turned, and if you push it in, the set temperature will be saved as the default for next time.

[MarcelMG] also included a feature that drops the iron’s temperature when it’s sitting in the holder, reducing tip wear and energy consumption. He originally planned on using a Hall effect sensor to detect when the iron was holstered without needing to physically interface with it, but in the end he realized the easiest approach was to simply connect one of the input pins on the microcontroller to the metal holder. Since the tip is grounded, he could easily detect if it was in place with a couple lines of code.

Speaking of which, the station is powered by an ATtiny24A with firmware written in C using the Atmel Studio IDE. [MarcelMG] mentions that the limited storage on the 24A was a bit of a challenge to work around, and suggests that anyone looking to follow in his footsteps uses something with a bit more flash under the hood. The LED display is a very common TM1637 type, the rotary encoder was salvaged from a radio, and the power supply was from an old laptop. All told, this looks like a very economical build.

Depending on your needs, a DIY soldering station can either have features to rival the commercial models or be exceedingly simplistic. In either case, the advent of low-voltage irons and active tips have made self-built soldering stations much more approachable. Attempts without the use of these modern niceties tended to be somewhat less glamorous.

Unique 3D Printer Turned CNC Engraver

January 3, 2020 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

As we’ve said in the past, one of the most exciting things about the proliferation of low-cost desktop 3D printers (beyond all the little boats we get to see on Reddit), is the fact that their motion control systems are ripe for repurposing. Outfitting a cheap 3D printer with a drag knife, pen holder, or even a solid-state laser module, are all very common ways of squeezing even more functionality out of these machines.

But thanks to the somewhat unusual nature of his printer, [Hammad Nasir] was able to take this concept a bit farther. Being considerably more rigid than the $99 acrylic-framed box of bolts we’ve become accustomed to, he was able to fit it with a basic spindle and use it for CNC engraving. He won’t be milling any steel on this rig, but judging by the pictures on the Hackaday.io page for the project, it does a respectable job cutting designs into plastic at least.

The IdeaWerk 3D printer that [Hammad] used for this project is phenomenally overbuilt. We don’t know whether the designers simply wanted to make it look futuristic and high-tech (admittedly, it does look like it could double as a movie prop) or they thought there was a chance it might get thrown down the stairs occasionally. In either event, it’s built like an absolute tank.

While the frame on lesser printers would likely flex as soon as the bit started moving across the workpiece, this thing isn’t going anywhere. Of course this machine is presumably still running on the standard GT2 belt and NEMA 17 arrangement that has been used in desktop 3D printers since the first wooden machines clattered to life. So while the frame might be ready to take some punishment, the drive system could respectfully disagree once the pressure is on.

Modification was simplified by the fact that the hotend and extruder assembly on the IdeaWerk is mounted to the X axis with just a single bolt. This makes it exceptionally easy to design alternate tool mounts, though arguably the 3D printed motor holder [Hammad] is using here is the weak link in the entire system; if it’s going to flex anywhere, it’s going to be there.

If you’re more photonically inclined, you might be interested in this similarly straightforward project that sees a 2.5 W laser module get bolted onto an entry level 3D printer.

HoloLens Brings Video Game Kart Racing To Life

January 3, 2020 by Tom Nardi 12 Comments

There aren’t a lot of video game experiences we can easily recreate in the physical realm. You’ll quickly find that jumping on mushrooms in the real world doesn’t have nearly the same appeal as it does in Super Mario, and we won’t even get into the dangers of trying to recreate Frogger on your local multi-lane. But video game style go-kart racing? We have all the technology to pull that off, somebody just has to put all the pieces together.

Which is precisely what [Ian Charnas] is trying to do with his latest project. Using Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality headset, electric go-karts, 433 MHz wireless transceivers, and some Arduinos sprinkled in, he’s created the closest thing to Mario Kart that us flesh and blood mortals are likely to experience anytime soon.

The HoloLens headset worn by each driver overlays the necessary graphical elements like pickups and weapon effects, as well as puts over-the-top cartoon heads on the other racers. But of course, that’s only half of the story. Seeing the pickups and gadgets doesn’t do you any good if they don’t have any effect on the actual race.

To that end, [Ian] has come up with a way to control the performance of the go-karts using an electronic “backpack” that mounts to each kart. So speed boosting pickups actually make the kart go faster, and if a driver gets hit with a weapon fired at them, they get slowed down.

That’s the high-level version, anyway. There’s obviously a lot going on behind the scenes, some of which are detailed on the Hackaday.io page. One of the interesting notes is that the HoloLens needs visual markers to orient itself, which in the video after the break can be seen as black and white posters dotting the walls alongside the track. As the project progresses, [Ian] is hoping that these can be camouflaged in creative ways (such as being made to look like audience members or checkered flags) to make the overall experience more immersive.

According to [Ian], the next step is to find partners who want to help elevate this from a one-off project to something that you might actually see at an amusement park. We wish him luck, if for no other reason than we really want to play the thing ourselves. In the meantime, we’ll have to settle for racing hacked Power Wheels.

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Unlocking SIM Cards With A Logic Analyzer

January 2, 2020 by Tom Nardi 20 Comments

[Jason Gin] wanted to reuse the SIM card that came with a ZTE WF721 wireless terminal he got from AT&T, but as he expected, it was locked to the device. Unfortunately, the terminal has no function to change the PIN and none of the defaults he tried seemed to work. The only thing left to do was crack it open and sniff the PIN with a logic analyzer.

This project is a fantastic example of the kind of reverse engineering you can pull off with even a cheap logic analyzer and a keen eye, but also perfectly illustrates the fact that having physical access to a device largely negates any security measures the manufacturer tries to implement. [Jason] already knew what the SIM unlock command would look like; he just needed to capture the exchange between the WF721 and SIM card, find the correct byte sequence, and look at the bytes directly after it.

Finding the test pads on the rear of the SIM slot, he wired his DSLogic Plus logic analyzer up to the VCC, CLK, RST, and I/O pins, then found a convenient place to attach his ground wire. After a bit of fiddling, he determined the SIM card was being run at 4 MHz, so he needed to configure a baud rate of 250 kbit/s to read the UART messages passing between the devices.

Once he found the bytes that signified successful unlocking, he was able to work his way backwards and determine the unlock command and its PIN code. It turns out the PIN was even being sent over the wire in plain text, though with the way security is often handled these days, we can’t say it surprises us. All [Jason] had to do then was put the SIM in his phone and punch in the sniffed PIN when prompted.

Could [Jason] have just run out to the store and picked up a prepaid SIM instead of cracking open this wireless terminal and sniffing its communications with a logic analyzer? Of course. But where’s the fun in that?

Jeremy Cook Is Living His Strandbeest Dream

December 30, 2019 by Tom Nardi 5 Comments

The first thing Jeremy Cook thought when he saw a video of Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest walking across the beach was how incredible the machine looked. His second thought was that there was no way he’d ever be able to build something like that himself. It’s a feeling that most of us have had at one time or another, especially when starting down a path we’ve never been on before.

But those doubts didn’t keep him from researching how the Strandbeest worked, or stop him from taking the first tentative steps towards building his own version. It certainly didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen over a month or even a year, either.

ClearCrawler at the 2019 Hackaday Superconference

For those keeping score, his talk at the 2019 Hackaday Superconference, “Strandbeests: From Impossible Build to Dominating My Garage” is the culmination of over six years of experimentation and iteration.

His first builds could barely move, and when they did, it wasn’t for long. But the latest version, which he demonstrated live in front of a packed audience at the LA College of Music, trotted across the stage with an almost otherworldly smoothness. To say that he’s gotten good at building these machines would be something of an understatement.

Jeremy’s talk is primarily focused on his Strandbeest creations, but it’s also a fascinating look at how a person can gradually move from inspiration to mastery through incremental improvements. He could have stopped after the first, second, or even third failure. But instead he persisted to the point he’s an expert at something he once believed was out of his reach.

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A Pocket-Sized Terminal For Mobile Python Hacking

December 28, 2019 by Tom Nardi 14 Comments

Inspired by the good old days when your computer would boot directly into BASIC, [Le Roux Bodenstein] has created a handheld device he calls “DumbDumb” that can drop you into a MicroPython environment at a moment’s notice. If that doesn’t interest you, think of it this way: it’s a (relatively) VT100 compatible serial terminal with a physical keyboard that can fit in your pocket.

Being essentially just a dumb terminal (hence the name), there’s actually not a lot of hardware on the board. Beyond the 320×240 NewHaven 2.4 inch LCD, there’s just an STM32G071R8 microcontroller and a handful of passives. Plus the 57 tactile buttons that make up the keyboard, of course.

The MicroPython part comes in thanks to the spot on the back of the board that accepts an Adafruit Feather Wing. In this case, it’s the HUZZAH32 with an ESP32 on board, but it could work with other variants as well. With the wide array of Feather boards available, this terminal could actually be used for an array of applications.

So even if fiddling around with MicroPython isn’t your idea of a good time, there’s almost certainly some interesting software you could come up with for a tiny network-attached terminal like this. For example, it might be just what you need to start working on that LoRa pager system.