Author: Tom Nardi

2488 Articles

This Weekend: VCF Swap Meet In Wall, NJ

June 9, 2023 by 4 Comments

There was a time where you could regularly find local swap meets to pick up computer hardware, ham radios, and other tech gear at the sort of cut-rate prices so often produced by a sense of camaraderie. But with the rise of websites like Craigslist and eBay, meeting up in person to buy and sell used hardware started to fall out of style. The fact that the prices had to go up due to the considerable cost of shipping such large and heavy objects was an unfortunate side-effect, but it wasn’t enough to stem the tide.

It’s unlikely that we’ll ever truly return to those early days. But if you’re within driving distance of Wall, New Jersey, you can take a step back in time on Saturday and experience a proper swap meet in all its glory. Hosted by the Vintage Computer Federation, the modest $5 entry fee goes to help support their worthy goal of preserving vintage computing history. After the swap meet officially wraps up at 2 PM, a short walk will take you over to their permanent exhibit located within the sprawling InfoAge Science and History Museum.

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Chatting About The State Of Hacker-Friendly AR Gear

June 2, 2023 by 13 Comments

There are many in the hacker community who would love to experiment with augmented reality (AR), but the hardware landscape isn’t exactly overflowing with options that align with our goals and priorities. Commercial offerings, from Google’s Glass to the Microsoft HoloLens and Magic Leap 2 are largely targeting medical and aerospace customers, and have price tags to match. On the hobbyist side of the budgetary spectrum we’re left with various headsets that let you slot in a standard smartphone, but like their virtual reality (VR) counterparts, they can hardly compare with purpose-built gear.

But there’s hope — Brilliant Labs are working on AR devices that tick all of our boxes: affordable, easy to interface with, and best of all, developed to be as open as possible from the start. Admittedly their first product, Monocle, it somewhat simplistic compared to what the Big Players are offering. But for our money, we’d much rather have something that’s built to be hacked and experimented with. What good is all the latest features and capabilities when you can’t even get your hands on the official SDK?

This week we invited Brilliant Lab’s Head of Engineering Raj Nakaraja to the Hack Chat to talk about AR, Monocle, and the future of open source in this space that’s dominated by proprietary hardware and software.

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Hackaday Podcast 221: The Future Of The Raspberry Pi, Sniffing A Toothbrush, Your Tactical Tool Threshold

June 2, 2023 by 2 Comments

Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi are back in the (virtual) podcast studio to talk the latest phase of the 2023 Hackaday Prize, the past, present, and future of single-board computers, and a modern reincarnation of the Blackberry designed by hardware hackers. They’ll also cover the current state of toothbrush NFC hacking, the possibilities of electric farm equipment, and a privately funded satellite designed to sniff out methane. Stick around till the end to find out if there really is such a thing as having too many tools.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

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Learning 3D Printing Best Practices From A Pro

May 26, 2023 by 13 Comments

It might seem like 3D printing is a thoroughly modern technology, but the fact is, it’s been used in the industry for decades. The only thing that’s really new is that the printers have become cheap and small enough for folks like us to buy one and plop it on our workbench. So why not take advantage of all that knowledge accumulated by those who’ve been working in the 3D printing field, more accurately referred to as additive manufacturing, since before MakerBot stopped making wooden printers?

That’s why we asked Eric Utley, an applications engineer with Protolabs, to stop by the Hack Chat this week. With over 15 years of experience in additive manufacturing, it’s fair to say he’s seen the technology go through some pretty big changes. Hes worked on everything from the classic stereolithography (SLA) to the newer Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) printers, with a recent focus on printing in metals such as Inconel and aluminum. Compared to the sort of 3D printers he’s worked with, we’re basically playing with hot, semi-melted, LEGOs — but that doesn’t mean some of the lessons he’s learned can’t be applied at the hobbyist level. Continue reading “Learning 3D Printing Best Practices From A Pro” →

3D Model Subscriptions Are Coming, But Who’s Buying?

May 25, 2023 by 51 Comments

We’ve all been there before — you need some 3D printable design that you figure must be common enough that somebody has already designed it, so you point your browser to Thingiverse or Printables, and in a few minutes you’ve got STL in hand and are ready to slice and print. If the design worked for you, perhaps you’ll go back and post an image of your print and leave a word of thanks to the designer.

Afterwards, you’ll probably never give that person a second thought for the rest of your life. Within a day or two, there’s a good chance you won’t even remember their username. It’s why most of the model sharing sites will present you with a list of your recently downloaded models when you want to upload a picture of your print, otherwise there’s a good chance you wouldn’t be able to find the thing.

Now if you really liked the model, you might go as far as following the designer. But even then, there would likely be some extenuating circumstances. After all, even the most expertly designed widget is still just a widget, and the chances of that person creating another one that you’d also happen to need seems exceedingly slim. Most of the interactions on these model sharing sites are like two ships passing in the night; it so happened that you and the creator had similar enough needs that you could both use the same printable object, but there’s no telling if you’ll ever cross paths with them again.

Which is why the recent announcements, dropped just hours from each other, that both Thangs and Printables would be rolling out paid subscription services seems so odd. Both sites claim that not only is there a demand for a service that would allow users to pay designers monthly for their designs, but that existing services such as Patreon are unable to meet the unique challenges involved.

Both sites say they have the solution, and can help creators turn their passion for 3D design into a regular revenue stream — as long as they get their piece of the action, that is.

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Bankruptcy Sale Scatters Virgin Orbit To The Winds

May 25, 2023 by 19 Comments

When Virgin Orbit filed for bankruptcy in April, it was clear the commercial launch provider was in serious trouble. Despite successfully putting four payloads into low Earth orbit, the spin-off of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space tourism company had struggled to achieve a high enough launch cadence to become profitable, and had recently suffered a highly-publicized failure when their first launch from the UK from the newly-completed Spaceport Cornwall ended in a complete loss of the vehicle.

There was some hope that a buyer would swoop in and save them at the last minute, but now that the bankruptcy auction has spread out the company’s assets among several other players in the commercial launch industry, Virgin Orbital is officially no more. With future launches now off the table, the company’s remaining employees are set to be let go as operations wind down over the coming weeks.

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Supercon 2022: Andy Geppert Is Bringing Core Memory Back

May 18, 2023 by 22 Comments

Many Hackaday readers will be familiar with the term “core memory”, likely thanks to its close association with the Apollo Guidance Computer. But knowing that the technology existed at one point and actually understanding how it worked is another thing entirely. It’s a bit like electronic equivalent to the butter churn — you’ve heard of it, you could probably even identify an image of one — but should somebody hand you one and ask you to operate it, the result probably won’t be too appetizing.

That’s where Andy Geppert comes in. He’s turned his own personal interest into magnetic core memory into a quest to introduce this fascinating technology to a whole new generation thanks to some modern enhancements through his Core64 project. By mating the antiquated storage technology with a modern microcontroller and LEDs, it’s transformed into an interactive visual experience. Against all odds, he’s managed to turned a technology that helped put boots on the Moon half a century ago into a gadget that fascinates both young and old.

In this talk at the 2022 Hackaday Supercon, Andy first talks the audience through the basics of magnetic core memory as it was originally implemented. From there, he explains the chain of events that lead to the development of the Core64 project, and talks a bit about where he hopes it can go in the future.

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