Mouse And Keyboard Controls On The N64

October 1, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 11 Comments

The Nintendo 64 was one of the consoles that properly heralded in the era of 3D gaming. However, its controller is of a design we wouldn’t consider ideal today. For the FPS games that were so popular on the N64, a mouse and keyboard could do much better. [The Hypocaust] set out to make it happen.

The N64 polls the controller and receives button and analog stick data in return. Four bytes are sent by the controller, with 14 bits covering the buttons and 8 bits covering the horizontal and vertical axes of the analog stick, respectively. Thus, if keyboard presses and mouse movements from a PC could be pumped to a microcontroller which reformatted the data into signals the N64 could understand, everything would work nicely.

Initial attempts to get things working with code borrowed from a [James Read] faced an issue of a 3-second lag between keypresses and actions reaching the N64. Upgrading to a faster microcontroller only made things worse, taking the lag out to a full 16 seconds. The problem? The code borrowed for the project was storing keypresses in a buffer that was creating the delay. Once eliminated, the system worked.

An installer for the software is available, but you’ll have to be comfortable with running a strange executable if you want to use it. We’ve seen similar work before too, such as the USB64 project. Video after the break.

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Secret Keychain Safe Looks Just Like A Bolt

October 1, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 23 Comments

While conventional safes can be a good place to put valuables, sometimes it’s even better to hide your things where nobody will even look in the first place. [Wesley Treat] has a build that will allow you to do just that, which secrets away papers, money, or small items within the body of a bolt.

There’s a surprising amount of room inside.

The build starts in a proper hacker fashion, using a power drill to turn an aluminium blank against a power sander creating an ersatz lathing setup. The outside of the blank is then threaded with the aid of a socket wrench and die, to great success. A cavity is created inside and threaded internally, and a separate head is then machined to screw on top. It’s all achieved without the use of a real lathe, with [Wesley]’s power drill doing most of the heavy lifting instead. It’s great stuff.

The end result has the appearance of a socket-head cap screw, while being lighter than a typical example due to the aluminium construction. Inside, there’s room for money, matches, and more, and [Wesley] even put in a small hole so the bolt can be used as an attractive keychain.

It’s a neat build, and one that we’d love to have as part of our own everyday carry. Video after the break.

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Flaw In AMD Platform Security Processor Affects Millions Of Computers

October 1, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 30 Comments

Another day, another vulnerability. This time, it’s AMD’s turn, with a broad swathe of its modern CPU lines falling victim to a dangerous driver vulnerability that could leave PCs open to all manner of attacks.

As reported by TechSpot, the flaw is in the driver for AMD Platform Security Processor (PSP), and could leave systems vulnerable by allowing attackers to steal encryption keys, passwords, or other data from memory. Today, we’ll take a look at what the role of the PSP is, and how this vulnerability can be used against affected machines.

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Robust I2C And SPI In Space Thanks To Bus Isolation

September 29, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 28 Comments

Imagine you’re sending a piece of hardware to space on a satellite. Unless you’re buddy-buddy with NASA, it’s pretty unlikely you’ll ever be able to head up there and fix something if it goes wrong once it’s launched. Robust design is key, so that even in the event of a failure in one component, the rest of the hardware can keep working.

The example I2C isolation circuit from [Max’s] paper. The SPI implementation is even simpler.

[Max Holliday] found himself in this exact situation, running 69 I2C and SPI devices in a single satellite. Thus, he came up with circuits to auto-isolate devices from these buses in the event of an issue. That work is the subject of a research paper now available on the TechRxiv Preprint Server.

The problem is that these simple buses aren’t always the most robust, being vulnerable to single-point failures where one bad part takes down other parts of the bus. [Max] notes that vast numbers of sensors and devices rely on these standards, and it can be difficult or prohibitively expensive to design without them, so a solution was needed.

To fix this, [Max] developed a simple external circuit that could be placed on each node of a I2C or SPI communication bus. In the event of malfunction, that node can be cut off from the bus by this circuit, allowing the rest of the system to go on functioning.

With little more than a few transistors, MOSFETs and passives, you too could protect your buses from malfunctions using these techniques. [Max] did just that on the NASA V-R3x mission which flew successfully in January 2021 if you needed any further confirmation of the value of this technique.

It’s something that won’t bother the home hobbyist building a garage door opener, but it could be of great value to those designing systems that must fail gracefully if they fail at all. Be sure to share your best tips and tricks for robust SPI and I2C buses in the comments below!

Put A Landscape Scanner On Your Bike And Ride

September 27, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 33 Comments

Google have a fleet of cars travelling the roads of the world taking images for their online StreetView service. You could do much the same thing pedalling on two wheels, with the help of this landscape scanner from [Celian_31].

The basic concept is simple. A powerbank on the bike runs a Raspberry Pi, kitted out with its typical Pi Camera within a 3D-printed housing. A reed switch on the bike’s frame detects pulses from a magnet attached to the valve stem of one tire, and this is used to trigger the taking of photos at regular intervals with the aid of a Python script. Further scripts are then used to knit all the photos taken on a ride together into one contiguous image.

It’s unlikely you’ll recreate Google’s entire StreetView in this fashion. You’d probably want a spherical camera anyway. However, if you wish to undertake regular static surveillance of your local area in an inconspicuous fashion, this would be a great way to do it while also staying in shape. If you do that, please don’t tell us as it would be a major violation of operational security. We’d love to hear about any other projects, though! Video after the break.

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Project HERMITS Robots Mimic Crabs With Mechanical Shells

September 27, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 1 Comment

Hermit crabs are famous for being small critters that, from time to time throughout their lives, abandon one shell carried on their back to pick up a new one. Project HERMITS by [Ken Nakagaki] is inspired by this very concept, and involves table-top robots that dock with a variety of modules with different mechanical mechanisms.

As shown in the project video, the small robots augment themselves by interfacing with attachments referred to as “mechanical shells.” They variously allow the robot to move differently or interact in a new way with the world.

One shell allows the robot to activate a small fan, while another lets it rotate arrows in various directions. others let robots work together to actuate a bigger mechanical assembly like a gripper or a haptic feedback joystick.

A particularly cute example is the “lift shell” which allows one little robot give another one a boost in height. Another series of shells allows the robots to play the role of various characters in a performance of Alice in Wonderland.

The technology is all built around Sony’s tiny two-wheeled toio robots, but adds a vertical actuator to the platform that lets the robots actively dock with a variety of shell designs. It’s an involved hack, but key to the whole enterprise. The individual bots are all controlled by Raspberry Pis communicating over Bluetooth.

We always love to see cute robots working together. Video after the break.

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DuoLux Is A Stylish Lamp And You Should Definitely Print Your Own

September 27, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 7 Comments

Lamps are interesting pieces of homeware. They can be purely functional, but often they become expressions of the true vibrancy of industrial design. The “DuoLux” from [seabirdhh] may not yet have graced the cover of prestigious European design journals, but this folding lamp does have some great style for a 3D-printed design.

The lenses themselves are cut from scrap polycarbonate twin-wall sheet with a linear pattern which does much to add some art-deco flair. They’re placed inside a pair of 3D-printed tubes mounted on a zig-zag arm, with the tubes themselves carrying G4 lamp sockets for use with compact plug-in LED modules. 3D-printed knurled knobs allow the easy adjustment and aiming of the lamp as required. Power is from a 12 V DC adapter as you might expect, and everything is mounted upon a simple round base.

It’s a tidy build, and one that could be improved further by adding a weighted base for more flexibility in aiming the lights. It’s something we’d love to have on our own desk given the clean geometric style and presumably great light output from the LEDs. Alternatively, consider modelling your lamp on Earth’s very own moon itself!