Author: Tyler August

335 Articles

Supersized Calculator Brings The Whole Intel 4004 Gang Together

November 16, 2025 by 23 Comments

Though mobile devices and Apple Silicon have seen ARM-64 explode across the world, there’s still decent odds you’re reading this on a device with an x86 processor — the direct descendant of the world’s first civilian microprocessor, the Intel 4004. The 4004 wasn’t much good on its own, however, which is why [Klaus Scheffler] and [Lajos Kintli] have produced super-sized discrete chips of the 4001 ROM, 4002 RAM, and 4003 shift register to replicate a 1970s calculator at 10x the size and double the speed, all in time for the 4004’s 50th anniversary.

We featured this project a couple of years back, when it was just a lonely microprocessor. Adding the other MSC-4 series chips enabled the pair to faithfully reproduce the logic of a Busicom 141-PF calculator, the very first to market with Intel’s now-legendary microprocessor. Indeed, this calculator is the raison d’etre for the 4004: Busicom commissioned the whole Micro-Computer System 4-bit (MCS-4) set of chips specifically for this calculator. Only later, once they realized what they had made, did Intel buy the rights back from the Japanese calculator company, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Continue reading “Supersized Calculator Brings The Whole Intel 4004 Gang Together” →

The Simplest Ultrasound Sensor Module, Minus The Module

November 16, 2025 by 5 Comments

Just about every “getting started with microcontrollers” kit, Arduino or otherwise, includes an ultrasonic distance sensor module. Given the power of microcontrollers these days, it was only a matter of time before someone asked: “Could I do better without the module?” Well, [Martin Pittermann] asked, and his answer, at least with the Pi Pico, is a resounding “Yes”. A micro and a couple of transducers can offer a better view of the world.

The project isn’t really about removing the extra circuitry on the SR-HC0, since there really isn’t that much to start. [Martin] wanted to know just how far he could push ultrasound scanning technology using RADAR signal processing techniques. Instead of bat-like chirps, [Martin] is using something called Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave, which comes from RADAR and is exactly what it sounds like. The transmitter emits a continuous carrier wave with a varying frequency modulation, and the received wave is compared to see when it must have been sent. That gives you the time of flight, and the usual math gives you a distance.

Continue reading “The Simplest Ultrasound Sensor Module, Minus The Module” →

The Fastest (68k) Macintosh Might Not Be An Amiga Anymore

November 15, 2025 by 19 Comments

Amiga and Atari fans used to lord over their Apple-eating brethren the fact that Cupertino never moved to the most advanced 68k processors — so for a while, thanks to 68060 accelerator cards, the fastest thing running Macintosh software was an Amiga (or Atari). After all these years, the Macintosh community is finally getting the last laugh, as [zigzagjoe] demonstrates an actual Macintosh booting with a 68060 CPU for the first time in a thread on 68KMLA. Video or it didn’t happen? Check it out below.

The Mac in question is a Quadra 650, which is a good choice since it was about the last thing Apple sold before switching to PowerPC, and ran the 68040 processor. [Reinauer] had already produced a 68040-to-68060 socket adapter (the two chips not being pinout compatible), so the hardware part of the battle was already set. Software, however? That was a different story, and where [zigzagjoe] put in the effort.

Continue reading “The Fastest (68k) Macintosh Might Not Be An Amiga Anymore” →

A closeup of a transparent-bodied example of the new Steam Frame VR headset

The Engineering Behind Valve’s New VR Headset

November 15, 2025 by 16 Comments

Valve’s new Steam Frame is what all the well-connected YouTubers are talking about, but most of them are talking about what it’s like to game on it. That’s great content if you’re into it, but not exactly fodder for Hackaday — with one exception. [Gamers Nexus] gives us a half hour of relatively-unedited footage of them just chatting with the engineers behind the hardware.

It’s great stuff right from the get-go: they start with how thermal management drove the PCB design, and put the SoC on the “back” of the chip, sandwiched betwixt heat pipes. We don’t usually think of taking heat through the PCB when building a board, so it’s a neat detail to learn about before these things get into the hands of the usual suspects who will doubtless give us teardown videos in a few months.

From there wanders to power delivery — getting the voltage regulators packaged properly was a challenge, since impedance requirements meant a very tight layout. Anyone who has worked on this kind of SBC might be familiar with that issue, but for those looking in from the outside, it’s a fascinating glimpse at electrical sausage being made. That’s just the first half.

The heat-regulation conversation is partially repeated the next conversation (which seems to have happened first) where they get into the cooling requirements of the LCD screens. This requires less than you might think, as they like to run warm for fast refresh. It’s really more about keeping your face cool. They also they discuss acoustic vibration — you don’t want your integrated audio shaking your IMUs apart — and why the prototype was being blasted with freakin’ laser beams to monitor it.

If you haven’t seen or read any other coverage on the Steam Frame, you’re going to miss some context here, but if you’ve not hid under a rock for that announcement, this is amazing detail to have. We’re hugely impressed that Valve let their engineers out of their cubicle-cave to talk to media.

Sure, it’s not an open-source VR headset, but compared to the deafening silence coming from the likes of Meta, this level of information is still awesome to have.

Continue reading “The Engineering Behind Valve’s New VR Headset” →

EVTOL For Everyone

November 15, 2025 by 14 Comments

While most of the world’s venture capital is off chasing anything with “AI” in the name in what many think looks increasingly like an inflated spherical film of soap molecules, in aviation all the hot money is betting on eVTOL: electric vertical take off and landing.

What if you want to get in on the eVTOL game but don’t have (or want) billionaire backing? Long-time contributor [spiritplumber] demonstrates how to do it on the cheap, with a low-cost quadcopter and a foam wing called Lift5. 

Most eVTOL isn’t just quadcopters, after all — multirotors are great for playing with in the back yard, but their thrust-based lift makes for short range, and the engine-out options are all bad. Add a wing, and you can get that sweet, sweet dynamic lift. Add an extra, forward facing motor, and you can get thrust in the direction you need it most. That’s what [spiritplumber] is doing here: strapping a foam wing to a cheap quadcopter. Specifically, his custom frame for an Eiele F120 drone kit.You can see it in action in the demo video embedded below.

The wing and its forward thrust motor are equipped with its own speed controller, so the concept should be adaptable to just about any little drone. Quadcopter flight computers are mostly going to be able to compensate for the added lift and thrust automatically, which is neat, considering that these forces would require some bizarre headwind/updraft very unlikely to be found in nature.

Now the wing does add a lot of drag during the lift phase, to be sure, so [spiritplumber] is working on folding or tilting it out of the way, but that version is apparently inordinately fond of trees. Once the control issues are worked out you’ll likely see it on his site and YouTube channel Robots Everywhere.

[spiritplumber] has been contributing hacks here at least since 2009, when he showed us how to make a Macbook right click.

Continue reading “EVTOL For Everyone” →

Intel GPUs On Raspberry Pi Is So Wrong It Feels Right

November 14, 2025 by 16 Comments

While you might not know it from their market share, Intel makes some fine GPUs. Putting one in a PC with an AMD processor already feels a bit naughty, but AMD’s x86 processors still ultimately trace their lineage all the way back to Intel’s original 4004. Putting that same Intel GPU into a system with an ARM processor, like a Raspberry Pi, or even better, a RISC V SBC? Why, that seems downright deviant, and absolutely hack-y. [Jeff Geerling] shares our love of the bizarre, and has been working tirelessly to get a solid how-to guide written so we can all flout the laws of god and man together.

According to [Jeff], all of Intel’s GPUs should work, though not yet flawlessly. In terms of 3D acceleration, OpenGL works well, but Vulkan renders are going to get texture artifacts if they get textures at all. The desktop has artifacts, and so do images; see for yourself in the video embedded below. Large language models are restricted to the not-so-large, due to memory addressing issues. ARM and RISC V both handle memory somewhat differently than x86 systems, and apparently the difference matters. Continue reading “Intel GPUs On Raspberry Pi Is So Wrong It Feels Right” →

An Improbable, Doomed Star System In A Clockwork Coffee Table

November 13, 2025 by 6 Comments

The major objects in our solar system orbit along the plane of the ecliptic, plus or minus few degrees, and it turns out most exoplanet systems are the same — pretty flat, with maybe one highly-inclined outlier. But at [The 5439 Workshop], they don’t care about these details: [5439] has come up with a mechanism to drive inclined orbits in an orrery, and he’s going to use it. The star is exploding, too, because why wouldn’t it be?

While the cinematography of this build video might not be to everyone’s taste, it’s worth watching to see the details of the project. The sliding mechanism to “explode” the star by sliding plates across each other is quite well-done, although perhaps not much not designed for assembly (we’re quite impressed he got it together). It isn’t quite the iris we had expected, as there’s a double-ratchet inside to drive the slow collapse/fast expansion dynamic [5439] is going for. It looks more like the breathing mode of a cepheid variable star than an explosion to us, but it’s still a fascinating piece of laser-sintered aluminum.

The driving mechanism for the inclined orbits is fairly simple, but also worth examining, as we’re not aware of anyone having used it before. The gear rings holding the planets are tilted, and are driven by straight vertical shafts via gears that pivot on knuckle joints. It’s not a revolutionary design, but it’s a big part of what makes this build unique. Since the solar system is very flat, clockwork orreries tend not to bother showing orbital inclination at all. Given the way planets are believed to form from a protoplanetary disk, a system with this many planets in such differing orbital planes seems unlikely to occur naturally, but it certainly adds visual interest.

We like model solar systems around here, be they made from brass and steel, molded plastic LEGO bits, or 3D printed and CNC routed aluminum like this one. That you can sit a coffee mug on it is just bonus. Continue reading “An Improbable, Doomed Star System In A Clockwork Coffee Table” →