Complete Hobo Stove Cooking System Could Get You Through The Apocalypse

December 7, 2021 by 70 Comments

Let’s face it, times are hard, and winter is imminent in the northern hemisphere. No matter how much you have to your name, there’s nothing like a cup of hot tea or a warm meal on a cold day. So if you need a snow day activity, consider preparing for whatever may come to pass by building yourself a complete hobo stove system out of empty cans.

[ElectroIntellect]’s stove consists of a 20oz can turned upside down with several holes made in the bottom for heat to rise. The smaller cans are used for cooking pots, and the smallest as a cup. The stove itself is meant to run on flaming twigs stuffed into the base, or a couple of tealight candles if you can only find green wood around.

This comprehensive guide covers everything from building the system to packing it up safely and taking it out to cook in the concrete wilderness. As a special bonus, [ElectroIntellect] brews up some hobo coffee on the stove using an old (clean) sock, and prepares a can of chili in under an hour with candle power.

Too much hardware for you? You can make a disposable rocket stove out of wood.

Marble-elevator dot-matric display

Simple Design Elevates This Mechanical Dot Matrix Display

December 7, 2021 by 11 Comments

Don’t get us wrong — we love unique displays as much as anyone. But sometimes we stumble across one that’s so unique that we lack the basic vocabulary to describe it. Such is the case with this marble-raising dot-matrix alphanumeric display. But it’s pretty cool, so we’ll give it a shot.

The core — literally — of [Shinsaku Hiura]’s design is a 3D-printed cylinder with a spiral groove in its outside circumference. The cylinder rotates inside a cage with vertical bars; the bars and the grooves are sized to trap 6-mm AirSoft BBs, which are fed into the groove by a port in the stationary base of the display. BBs are fed into the groove at the right position to form characters, which move upwards as the cylinder rotates. Just watch the video below — it explains it far better than words can.

The clever bit is how the BBs are fed into the groove. Rather than have a separate mechanism to gate the feed port, there’s a backlash mechanism that opens the port when the motor powering the drum runs in reverse for a bit. It’s a clever use of cams to get the job done without adding an extra servo, which sort of reminds us of the design parsimony exhibited in his one-servo seven-segment display.

It’s not clear that this would be a very practical display, but that doesn’t stop it from being cool. Although, [Shinsaku Hiura] just released a follow-up video showing a bigger version of this used to display upcoming events from Google Calendar, so perhaps we’re wrong. Continue reading “Simple Design Elevates This Mechanical Dot Matrix Display” →

Multimeters Go Big Screen

December 7, 2021 by 54 Comments

We’ve noticed lately that some cheap meters have gone to having big colorful screens. The screens aren’t dot matrix, but still have lots of graphics that could be useful or could be distracting eye candy, depending. The really cheap ones seem more like a gimmick, but [OM0ET] took a look at one that looked like a fair midrange instrument with some useful display features, the GVDA GD128.

A lot of the display shows the current function of the meter. No need for an expensive multiposition switch or rows of interlocking pushbuttons. Many of these new meters also have non-contact voltage sensors, which is handy. Otherwise, it looks like a pretty conventional cheap meter. Continue reading “Multimeters Go Big Screen” →

Spacing Out: Telescopes, Politics, And Spacecraft Design

December 7, 2021 by 9 Comments

Let’s launch into a round-up of stories that are out of this world, as we take a look at what’s happening in the realm of space exploration.

Ten Billion Dollars For A Telescope? Don’t Drop It!

Perhaps the most highly anticipated space mission of the moment is the James Webb Space Telescope, an infra-red telescope that will be placed in an orbit around the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point from which it will serve as the successor to the now long-in-the-tooth Hubble telescope. After many years of development the craft has been assembled and shipped to French Guiana for a scheduled Ariane 5 launch on the 22nd of December. We can only imagine what must have gone through the minds of the engineers and technicians working on the telescope when an unplanned release of a clamp band securing it to the launch vehicle adapter sent a vibration throughout the craft. Given the fragility of some of its components this could have jeopardised the mission, however after inspection it was found that no damage had occurred and that space-watchers and astronomers alike can breathe easy.

Continue reading “Spacing Out: Telescopes, Politics, And Spacecraft Design” →

Sol-20 reproduction

Retro Reproduction Captures The Style Of The Sol-20

December 7, 2021 by 26 Comments

In the early years of the computer revolution, a machine like the Sol-20 really stood out. Where most hobbyist machines had front panels that bristled with toggle switches and LEDs, the Sol-20 was a sleek, all-in-one that looked like an electric typewriter in a walnut-trimmed box. Unfortunately, it was also quite expensive, so not that many were sold. This makes them hard enough to find 40 years later that building his own reproduction Sol-20 is about the only way for [Michael Gardi] to have one of his own.

In a lot of ways, the Sol-20 anticipated many of the design elements that would come into play later. Like the Apple and Commodore machines that were coming down the pike, the Sol-20 was intended to be plug and play. [Mike] celebrates that design with a full-size reproduction of the original, concentrating on its unique aesthetic aspects. The reproduction mimics the striking blue case, with its acrylic front panel and walnut sides. The keyboard is also an exact match for the original, in looks if not in function — the capacitive mechanism proved too difficult to replicate, so he opted for a kit using Cherry switches and custom keycaps. [Mike] also used his proven technique for 3D-printing the memorable Sol-20 logo for the front panel, in the correct font and color.

Under the hood, a Raspberry Pi runs an 8080 emulator, which supports a range of virtual devices, including a cassette tape drive and the video output. For fun, [Mike] also imagined what a CRT display for the Sol-20 would have looked like, and added that to his build. It’s a great-looking machine that never was, and we appreciate the attention to detail. We’ve seen that before — his 2/3-scale VT-100 terminal comes to mind, as does his reproduction of a 1960s computer trainer.

Microsoft’s Minimal Mouse May Maximize Masochism

December 7, 2021 by 53 Comments

So it seems that Microsoft has a patent in process for a folding mouse.  It looks a whole lot like their Arc mouse, which is quite thin and already goes from curved to flat. But that’s apparently not good enough for Microsoft, who says mice in general are bulky and cumbersome to travel with. On the bright side, they do acknowledge the total lack of ergonomics in those tiny travel mice.

Microsoft filed this patent in March of 2021 and it was published in early November. The patent describes the use of an expandable shell on the top with these kerf cuts in the long sides like those used to bend wood — this is where the flexibility comes in. The patent also mentions a motion tracker, haptic feedback, and a wireless charging coil. Now remember, there’s no guarantee of this ever actually happening, and there was no comment from Microsoft about whether it will become a real rodent someday.

And now, the rant. Microsoft considers this mouse, which again is essentially an updated Arc that folds in half, to be ergonomic. Full disclosure: I’ve never used an Arc mouse. But I respectfully disagree with this assessment and believe that people should not prioritize portability when it comes to peripherals, especially those that are so small to begin with. Like, what’s the use? And by the way, isn’t anyone this concerned with portability just using the touch pad or steering stick on their laptop anyway?

Continue reading “Microsoft’s Minimal Mouse May Maximize Masochism” →

Six GameBoy Pokemon games

Bridging Game Worlds With The ‘Impossible’ Pokémon Trade

December 7, 2021 by 13 Comments

Transferring hard-earned Pokémon out of the second generation GameBoy game worlds into the ‘Advance Era’ cartridges (and vice versa) has never been officially supported by Nintendo, however [Goppier] has made these illicit trades slightly easier for budding Pokémon trainers by way of a custom PCB and a healthy dose of reverse engineering.

Changes to the data structure between Generation II on the original GameBoy (Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal) and Generation III on the GameBoy Advance (Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen and Emerald) meant that trades between these cartridges was never a possibility – at least not through any legitimate means. In contrast, Pokémon trades are possible between the first and second generation games, as well as from Generation III and beyond, leaving the leap from Gen II to Gen III as an obvious missing link.

Modern players have already overcome this limitation by dumping the cartridge save files onto a PC, at which point any Pokémon could be added or subtracted from the save. Thus, this method relies on self-control as well as the right hardware. [Goppier]’s solution is arguably far more elegant, and requires very little extra hardware. A simple PCB with ports for older and newer GameBoy Game Link Cables is the physical bridge between the generations. An ARM Cortex microcontroller sits between these connections and translates the game data between the old and the new.

The microcontroller is required to translate the data structure between the generations, and seems fit for purpose. Not only does the Pokémon data require conversion, but a few other hacks are needed before the two generations will talk nicely to each other. Pokémon on the GameBoy Advance brought in new features such as representing player movement in the trading rooms (i.e. you can see the other player moving on your screen), which also had to be addressed.

The concern over the legitimacy of trades within the Pokémon community is a curious, yet understandable, byproduct of the multiplayer experience. As an example, modern players have to be wary of ‘hacked’ Pokémon, which can often introduce glitches into their game world following a trade. Apart from these issues, some Pokémon players simply desire genuine Pokémon as part of fostering a fair and enjoyable gaming experience.

This literal bridge between Gen II and Gen III game worlds brings the community tantalizingly close to a ‘legitimate’ means of transferring their Pokémon out of ancient cartridges and into modern games. Could Nintendo one day officially sanction Gen II to Gen III trades with a similar device? Crazier things have happened.

We love our GameBoy hacks here on Hackaday, so why not check out this project that replaces the battery-backed SRAM in your GameBoy games with FRAM?

Continue reading “Bridging Game Worlds With The ‘Impossible’ Pokémon Trade” →