UNIX For A Legacy TI

September 26, 2025 by 13 Comments

Although now mostly known as a company who cornered the market on graphing calculators while only updating them once a decade or so, there was a time when Texas Instruments was a major force in the computing world. In the late 70s and early 80s they released a line of computers called the TI-99 to compete (unsuccessfully) with various offerings from Commodore, and these machines were fairly robust for the time. They did have limited memory but offered a 16-bit CPU and plenty of peripherals, and now there’s even a UNIX-like OS that they can run.

This version of UNIX is called UNIX99 and is the brainchild of AtariAge forum member [mrvan] who originally wasn’t looking to develop a full operating system for this computer but rather a set of standard C libraries to help with other projects. Apparently the step from that to a UNIX-flavored OS wasn’t too big so this project was born. While the operating system doesn’t have a UNIX certification, it has most of the tools any of us would recognize on similar machines. The OS has support for most of the TI-99 hardware, file management, a basic user account system, and a command shell through which scripts can be written and executed.

That being said, the limitations of the hardware do come through in the operating system. There’s no multitasking, for example, and the small amount of memory is a major hurdle as well. But that’s what makes this project all the more impressive, and [mrvan] isn’t stopping here. He’s working on a few other improvements to this platform, and we look forward to seeing future releases. UNIX itself is extremely influential in the computing world, and has been used a the model for other homebrew UNIX-like operating systems on similar platforms of this era such as the Z80.

Thanks to [Stephen] for the tip!

Photo courtesy of Rama & Musée Bolo via Wikimedia Commons

The 19th Century Quantum Mechanics

September 26, 2025 by 18 Comments

While William Rowan Hamilton isn’t a household name like, say, Einstein or Hawking, he might have been. It turns out the Irish mathematician almost stumbled on quantum theory in the or around 1827. [Robyn Arianrhod] has the story in a post on The Conversation.

Famously, Newton worked out the rules for the motion of ordinary objects back in 1687. People like Euler and Lagrange kept improving on the ideas of what we call Newtonian physics. Hamilton produced an especially useful improvement by treating light rays and moving particles the same.

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Active Probe Reaches 3 GHz

September 26, 2025 by 6 Comments

When you think of a scope probe, you usually think of what is basically a wire with a spring hook and an attenuator. Those are passive probes. [Kerry Wong] shows off a pre-release active probe that sidesteps some problems with those ordinary passive probes.

The trick is that passive probes have input capacitance that interferes with very high-frequency signals. They also tend to have less noise. Although the probe isn’t on the market yet, it is set to debut at a price lower than competitive probes. Still, be warned. The reason you don’t see them more often is that $1,000 is relatively inexpensive for an active probe.

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Detecting Surveillance Cameras With The ESP32

September 26, 2025 by 34 Comments

These days, surveillance cameras are all around us, and they’re smarter than ever. In particular, many of them are running advanced algorithms to recognize faces and scan license plates, compiling ever-greater databases on the movements and lives of individuals. Flock You is a project that aims to, at the very least, catalogue this part of the surveillance state, by detecting these cameras out in the wild.

The system is most specifically set up to detect surveillance cameras from Flock Safety, though it’s worth noting a wide range of companies produce plate-reading cameras and associated surveillance systems these days. The device uses an ESP32 microcontroller to detect these devices, relying on the in-built wireless hardware to do the job. The project can be built on a Oui-Spy device from Colonel Panic, or just by using a standard Xiao ESP32 S3 if so desired. By looking at Wi-Fi probe requests and beacon frames, as well as Bluetooth advertisements, it’s possible for the device to pick up telltale transmissions from a range of these cameras, with various pattern-matching techniques and MAC addresses used to filter results in this regard. When the device finds a camera, it sounds a buzzer notifying the user of this fact.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested in just how prevalent plate-reading cameras really are, you might also find deflock.me interesting. It’s a map of ALPR camera locations all over the world,  and you can submit your own findings if so desired. The techniques used by in the Flock You project are based on learnings from the DeFlock project. Meanwhile, if you want to join the surveillance state on your own terms, you can always build your own license plate reader instead!

[Thanks to Eric for the tip!]

Robot Bartender Is The Life Of The Party

September 26, 2025 by 9 Comments

As the old saying goes, when the only tool you have is a 6 DOF industrial robotic arm, every problem looks like an opportunity to make it serve up adult beverages. [benkokes] found himself in this familiar predicament and did what any of us would do, but his process wasn’t without a few party fouls as well as a few head-scratchers.

One of the common problems that people who suddenly find themselves with an old industrial robot have is that there’s usually no documentation or instructions. This was true here with the added hiccup of the robot’s UI being set to Chinese. Luckily no one had changed the root password, and eventually he was able to get the robot up and working.

Getting it to make drinks was a different matter altogether. [benkokes] needed a custom tool to hold the cup as well as shake it, and 3D printed a claw-style end effector with a lid. Out of his multi-colored pack of party cups, however, the orange cups were different enough in dimension to cause problems for the shaking lid which was discovered when the robot spilled a drink all over the table.

Eventually, though, the robot was successfully serving drinks at a party. One of [benkokes]’s friends happened to be a puppet maker and was able to outfit it with a tailored tuxedo for the party as well, and he also programmed it to dance in between serving drinks, completing the AI revolution we have all been hoping for. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is a common project for people who suddenly come to posses a large general-purpose industrial robot, while others build robots specifically for this task alone.

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 339: The Vape Episode, A Flying DeLorean, And DIY Science

September 26, 2025 by 6 Comments

Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start this week’s episode off with an update on the rapidly approaching 2025 Supercon in Pasadena, California. From there they’ll talk about the surprisingly high-tech world of vapes, a flying DeLorean several years in the making, non-contact pulse monitoring, and the potential of backyard radio telescopes to do real astronomy. You’ll hear about a dodecahedron speaker, a page turning peripheral, and 3D printed tools for unfolding boxes. They’ll wrap things up by taking a look at the latest generation of wearable smart glasses, and wonder if putting a bank of batteries in your home is really with the hassle.

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!

Direct download in DRM-free MP3.

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Set Phone To… Hyperspectral

September 26, 2025 by 24 Comments

While our eyes are miraculous little devices, they aren’t very sensitive outside of the normal old red, green, and blue spectra. The camera in your phone is far more sensitive, and scientists want to use those sensors in place of expensive hyperspectral ones. Researchers at Purdue have a cunning plan: use a calibration card.

The idea is to take a snap of the special card and use it to understand the camera’s exact response to different colors in the current lighting conditions. Once calibrated to the card, they can detect differences as small as 1.6 nanometers in light wavelengths. That’s on par with commercial hyperspectral sensors, according to the post.

You may wonder why you would care. Sensors like this are useful for medical diagnostic equipment, analysis of artwork, monitoring air quality, and more. Apparently, high-end whisky has a distinctive color profile, so you can now use your phone to tell if you are getting the cheap stuff or not.

We also imagine you might find a use for this in phone-based spectrometers. There is plenty to see in the hyperspectral world.