A Commodore Boombox: The 1350 As You’ve Never Heard It Before

June 23, 2026 by No comments

No, this isn’t another product from [PeriFractic]’s revived company, though we hope he’s taking notes. This is, in fact, a hack on the beloved 1530 Datasette, using the tape mechanism and case to create a portable audio device for your precious remaining mix tapes. Well, [Jan Derogee]’s precious mix tapes, at any rate; we aren’t the government, we don’t know if you have any tapes, mixed or otherwise.

[Jan] started, obviously enough, with a Datasette, but they key was apparently to use a Made-in-Japan model–  the Made-in-Taiwan units are a later development and victims of the old Commodore’s infamous obsession with cost-cutting. The main difference is that the Japanese-built Datasettes have two sets of screws: one to hold the tape mechanism in place, and the other to hold two halves of the case together. The Taiwanese units make one set do double duty. Doubtless more was saved through streamlining assembly than the cost of four screws, but either way it made those models difficult to work with for [Jan]’s purposes.

As you likely can tell from the photo, he simply splits the case, allowing the tape transport to remain in place with those  Japanese screws, and inserts a 3D printed spacer to hold speakers, audio amplifiers, and a bay for AA batteries. For the people who really care about such things, the mod appears to be fully reversible, though you won’t be able to use it as data entry for your C64 until you do reverse it. Given how slow and dodgy tape loads could be, though, that’s not likely to bother many people, since it’s so much easier to load media onto the old breadbox from an emulated tapedeck.

If, on the other hand, you can’t stand the idea of using a Datasette for anything but data storage, maybe you should try connecting yours to a modern PC to remind yourself what it was really like. In either case, you can check out the 1530 Boombox at the link above or the video embedded below. For the actual Commodore product we didn’t see coming, click here for the phone. 

Reviving MSN Messenger’s I-Buddy USB Accessory

June 23, 2026 by 2 Comments

Some of our esteemed readers were not yet out of diapers back in 2013 when Microsoft decided to put MSN Messenger out to pasture, but the memories that this instant messenger’s (IM) interface and notification sounds have left are hard to erase. This also includes some of the weirdest accessories that this IM spawned, such as the USB-connected i-Buddy. Recently [Rayly Retro] got his mittens on a new-in-box one to revive alongside an era-appropriate Windows 7 PC.

What the i-Buddy gets you is the ability to light up the head in seven different colors, twist the torso and flap the butterfly wings, all of which can correspond to certain events in the MSN IM or for more general notifications, as set by software running on the connected PC. Interestingly, this i-Buddy is recognized by Windows as a USB HID, so no special driver is needed. A range of ways to program it exist too, including a .NET-based library from back when it was still being sold for around $20.

Although the MSN Messenger network’s servers have long since been dumped into an e-waste dumpster over at Microsoft HQ, an alternative exists in the form of the Escargot service using which a range of official clients can work again.

In the video it’s demonstrated how to create a user account with the Escargot site and how to patch the messenger – here Window Live Messenger 2009 – before signing in. With that step completed, getting the i-Buddy up and running is next. This took a lot of struggling, since the version of the i-Buddy software that comes with the device didn’t like Windows 7 much. Fortunately an old forum post led to a download of version 2.10, using which the gadget jumped to life, happily lighting up and flapping its wings.

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A BIOS For Your ESP32-C6

June 23, 2026 by 7 Comments

An old-style PC BIOS served the function of a bootloader in loading the operating system kernel, and of an API in providing a set of standard system calls through which software could interact with the hardware. Though it as been long-ago superseded by operating system level calls and UEFI bootloaders, it was a simple and easy-to-understand firmware for the PCs of the day.

Microcontrollers usually don’t have anything quite like a BIOS because their software is more often compiled as-is without the need for one. But here’s [Rompass] who has bucked that trend, with a BIOS for the ESP32-C6.

Of course this isn’t the PC BIOS we all know, and you’ll not be running DOS on it. Instead it’s a subsystem that serves the purposes outlined above and provides an environment for dynamically loaded executables from RAM rather than an operating system kernel. The executables are compiled in the normal way for the ESP32, and can be loaded over the network if necessary.

We don’t know how popular a firmware like this one will become, but for us it’s symptomatic of how the line between a microcontroller and a microprocessor is becoming blurred. The next few years are going to continue this trend, as inexpensive microcontroller application processors such as the C6’s P4 bigger brother move into the mainstream.

Header image: Popolon, CC BY-SA 4.0.

A Custom PCB For The Casio G-Shock

June 23, 2026 by 5 Comments

With the PCB fabrication services available to the modern hobbyist, it’s become increasingly common to see replacement boards designed for all sorts of devices. Even so, it’s sometimes still a little difficult to believe that we’re at the point where hardware hackers are now producing advanced replacement PCBs for commercial wristwatches such as this drop-in upgrade for the iconic Casio G-Shock by [David Volovskiy].

Honestly, we’d have been impressed if the thing could just tell the time. But the replacement board combined with the open source firmware brings new capabilities that far exceed anything the G-Shock was capable of originally. The upgraded watch now offers several applications, such as a pedometer and a number of games including simplified versions of Blackjack and Wordle. The watch can tell you the phase of the Moon, calculate sunrise and sunset, and display values pulled from the internal thermometer.

Even if you don’t have a G-Shock in need of a new PCB, [David] has put together a web-based emulator that lets you play around with the firmware. The online tool that lets you visualize how the watch’s LCD is mapped is also very slick. For those interested in getting a board of their own, you can join the project’s Discord server and get your name on the list for an upcoming production run.

If some of this sounds familiar, it’s because [David] based his project on [Joey Castillo]’s Sensor Watch, which is a replacement PCB for the Casio F-91W. With these two projects available for others to build from, one wonders how many other Casio watches might get their own upgraded hardware in the future.

Linux Fu: Upcycling An Old Router

June 23, 2026 by 13 Comments

You’re wandering through a thrift store and spot an old router for ten bucks. Worthless, right? But in this case, it was a Google OnHub, which, at the time, was pretty premium and still isn’t anything to sneeze at. Of course, Google abandoned it long ago, and it runs Chrome, so pass, right? Of course I didn’t. In fact, I bought two for less than $20. The question is always the same: what do you do with it?

OpenWrt will run on the device. That’s a good start, but merely replacing the firmware isn’t much of a project. The more interesting question is whether the hardware can still do something useful. I had a specific need: connect a wired workstation to a reasonably distant Wi-Fi network without running cable and without suffering the usual double-NAT headaches that come from turning the router into yet another subnet. For this, the OnHub turned out to be nearly perfect.

The Hardware

The OnHub was Google’s first Wi-Fi router, built by TP-Link and ASUS in different versions. Mine was the TP-Link model, and one was missing a bit of plastic cowl trim. Under the hood, it has a Qualcomm IPQ8064 dual-core processor — a dual-core ARMv7 — multiple radios, gigabit Ethernet, and enough memory to run OpenWrt comfortably: 1 GB of RAM and 4 GB of flash. The processor also has two network offload processors, but it isn’t clear to me that the stock OpenWrt build uses them.

These devices were expensive when new, but now show up regularly at thrift stores and surplus sales. Installing OpenWrt was straightforward. You do need to remove a screw that covers the magic switch at the bottom, but that’s not a big problem. You can just peel the rubber foot back if you don’t want to remove it. However, the interesting part came afterward.

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Status Display Keeps Eye On Your Prusa Fleet

June 23, 2026 by No comments

Whether you’ve been dragging an old MK2 or MK3 kicking and screaming into the present through the available upgrade paths, or recently picked up a CORE One, pretty much any of the 3D printers still being actively supported by Prusa are able to connect to the network for the purposes of remote monitoring and control. Although their printers can work entirely offline, Prusa offers a smartphone application as well as web interface that makes it easy to keep tabs on all the hot plastic action.

If you’ve got a few Prusa printers on the net and would like a dedicated interface for controlling them, check out this custom firmware for the BigTreeTech K-Touch and Panda Touch devices. These touch screen gadgets were originally intended for controlling printers running Klipper, but thanks to [Nomads Galaxy], they can now talk to Prusa printers either directly over the local network or through the Prusa Connect cloud API with a user interface that mimics the aesthetics of the official offerings.

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Long-Theorized GPS Weakness Exploited On Large Scale

June 23, 2026 by 27 Comments

GPS has become fairly common in our everyday lives, not only able to pinpoint our locations on Earth but also as an incredibly accurate timekeeping method. But since these satellites are around 20,000 km above Earth, the received signals on the surface of the planet can be incredibly weak. This makes them prone to jamming and spoofing, a weakness of the technology that has long been known. Although attempts to mitigate these problems have been ongoing, there has recently been a large-scale attempt to interfere with these signals that put all mitigation efforts to the test.

One proposed way to improve resilience is to supplement existing GNSS systems with low-Earth-orbit navigation satellites. In this example, a company called Xona is using a satellite called Pulsar-0 that operates in low-Earth orbit (LEO) and provides positioning and timing signals that are around 100 times stronger than standard signals from GPS/GNSS satellites. It is able to receive GPS signals as well, ensuring the two systems agree on one another. And, because Pulsar’s navigation signals originate from LEO and are much stronger than conventional GNSS signals, Xona expects them to be significantly more resistant to jamming.

Beyond geopolitics, spoofing GPS has some applications in finding legendaries in Pokemon Go as well as making it fairly trivial to steal GPS-guided drones.