Pi Compute Modules Make For Compact Cluster

November 12, 2025 by No comments

Raspberry Pi clusters have been a favorite project of homelabbers and distributed computing enthusiasts since the platform first launched over a decade ago, and for good reason. For an extremely low price this hardware makes it possible to experiment with parallel computing — something that otherwise isn’t easily accessible without lots of time, money, and hardware. This is even more true with the compute modules, as their size and cost makes some staggering builds possible like this cluster sporting 112 GB of RAM.

The project is based on the NanoCluster, a board that can hold seven compute modules in a form factor which, as [Christian] describes it, is about the size of a coffee mug. That means not only does it have a fairly staggering amount of RAM but also 28 processor cores to work with. Putting the hardware together is the easy part, though; [Christian] wanted to find the absolute easiest way of managing a system like this and decided on gitops, which is a method of maintaining a server where the desired system state is stored in Git, and automation continuously ensures the running environment on the hardware matches what’s in the repository.

For this cluster, it means that the nodes themselves can be swapped in and out, with new nodes automatically receiving instructions and then configuring themselves automatically. Updates and changes made on Git are pushed to the nodes automatically as well and there’s not much that needs to be done manually at all. In much the same way that immutable Linux distributions move all of the hassle of administering a system to something like a config file, tools like gitops do the same for servers and clusters like this, and it’s worth checking out [Christian]’s project to get an idea of just how straightforward it can be now.

Join The The Newest Social Network And Party Like Its 1987

November 12, 2025 by 3 Comments

Algorithms? Datamining? Brainrot? You don’t need those things to have a social network. As we knew back in the BBS days, long before anyone coined the phrase “social network”, all you need is a place for people to make text posts. [euklides] is providing just such a place, at cyberspace.online.

It’s a great mix of old and new — the IRC inspired chatrooms, e-mail inspired DMs (“cybermail”) make it feel like the good old days, while a sprinkling of more modern concepts such as friends lists, a real-time feed, and even the late-lamented “poke” feature (from before Facebook took over the world) provide some welcome conveniences.

The pursuit of retro goes further through the themed web interface, as well. Sure, there’s light mode and dark mode, but that’s de rigueur. Threads might not offer a blue-and-white Commodore 64 theme, and you’d have little luck getting Bluesky to mimic the soothing amber glow of a VT-230, but Cyberspace offers that and more.

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Resurrecting Conquer: A Game From The 1980s

November 11, 2025 by 3 Comments

[Juan] describes himself as a software engineer, a lover of absurd humor, and, among other things, a player of Nethack. We think he should add computer game archaeologist to that list. In the 1990s, he played a game that had first appeared on USENET in 1987. Initially called “Middle-earth multiplayer game,” it was soon rebranded with the catchier moniker, Conquer.

It may not seem like a big thing today, but writing multiplayer software and distributing it widely was pretty rare stuff in the late 1980s or early 1990s. In 2006, [Juan] realized that this game, an intellectual predecessor to so many later games, was in danger of being lost forever. The source code was scattered around different archives, and it wasn’t clear what rights anyone had to the source code.

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Wayland’s Never-Ending Opposition To Multi-Window Positioning

November 11, 2025 by 29 Comments

There are many applications out there that use more than one window, with every modern-day platform and GUI toolkit offering the means for said application to position each of its windows exactly where it wants, and to restore these exactly in the configuration and location where the user saved it for that particular session. All toolkits but one, that is, for the Wayland project keeps shooting down proposals. Most recently merge request #264 for the ext-zones protocol by [Matthias Klumpp] as it descended into a 600+ comments spree.

This follows on an attempt two years prior with MR#247, which was rejected despite laying out sound reasons why the session protocol of Wayland does not cover many situations. In the breakdown video of the new ext-zones protocol discussion by [Brodie Robertson] the sheer absurdity of this whole situation becomes apparent, especially since KDE and others are already working around the Wayland project with their own extensions such as via KWin, which is being used commercially in e.g. the automotive world.

In a January 2024 blog post [Matthias] lays out many of his reasonings and views regarding the topic, with a focus on Linux desktop application usage from a scientific application perspective. When porting a Windows-, X11- or MacOS application to Wayland runs into compatibility issues that may necessitate a complete rewrite or dropping of features, the developer is more likely to stick to X11, to not port to Linux at all, or to use what eventually will amount to Wayland forks that patch around these missing API features.

Meanwhile X11 is definitely getting very long in the tooth, yet without it being a clean drop-in replacement it leaves many developers and end-users less than impressed. Perhaps the Wayland project should focus more on the needs of developers and end-users, and less about what it deems to be the One True Way?

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[Gerry] holding up a DIP IC

Emulating A 74LS48 BCD-to-7-Segment Decoder/Driver With An Altera MAX 7000 “S” Series Complex Programmable Logic Device

November 11, 2025 by 13 Comments

Over on the [Behind The Code with Gerry] YouTube channel our hacker [Gerry] shows us how to emulate a 74LS48 BCD-to-7-segment decoder/driver using an Altera CPLD Logic Chip From 1998.

This is very much a das blinkenlights kind of project. The goal is to get a 7-segment display to count from 0 to 9, and that’s it. [Gerry] has a 74LS193 Up/Down Binary Counter, a 74LS42 BCD to Decimal Decoder, and some 74LS00 NAND gates, but he “doesn’t have” an 74LS48 to drive the 7-segment display so he emulates one with an old Altera CPLD model EPM7064SLC44 which dates back to the late nineties. A CPLD is a Complex Programmable Logic Device which is a kind of precursor to FPGA technology.

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Have A Slice Of Bumble Berry Pi

November 11, 2025 by 6 Comments

[Samcervantes] wanted a cyberdeck. Specifically, he wanted a Clockwork Pi uConsole, but didn’t want to wait three months for it. There are plenty of DIY options, but many of them are difficult to build. So [Sam] did the logical thing: he designed his own. The Bumble Berry Pi is the result.

The design criteria? A tactile keyboard was a big item. Small enough to fit in a pants pocket, but big enough to be useful. What’s more is he wanted to recycle some old Pi 3Bs instead of buying new hardware.

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2025 Component Abuse Challenge: The Slip Ring In Your Parts Bin

November 11, 2025 by 28 Comments

If you’re familiar with electrical slip rings as found in motors and the like you’ll know them as robust assemblies using carefully chosen alloys and sintered brushes, able to take the load at high RPM for a long time. But not all slip ring applications need this performance. For something requiring a lot less rotational ability, [Luke J. Barker] has something from his parts bin, and probably yours too. It’s an audio jack.

On the face of it, a 1/4″ jack might seem unsuitable for this task, being largely a small-signal audio connector. But when you consider its origins in the world of telephones it becomes apparent that perhaps it could do so much more. It works for him, but we’d suggest if you’d like to follow his example, to use decent quality plugs and sockets.

This is an entry in our 2025 Component Abuse Challenge, and we like it for thinking in terms of the physical rather than the electrical. The entry period for this contest will have just closed by the time you read this, so keep an eye out for the official results soon.

2025 Hackaday Component Abuse Challenge