It’s easy to think of online console gaming as an invention of the 2000s. Microsoft made waves when Xbox Live dropped in 2002, with Nintendo and Sony scrambling to catch up with their own offerings that were neither as sleek or well-integrated.
However, if you were around a decade earlier, you might have experienced online console gaming much closer to the dawn of the Internet era. As far back as 1990, you could jump online with your Sega Mega Drive. But what did an online console feel like in the dial-up era?
If you’re an American and you use the Internet at home, it seems probable that routers are going to be in short supply. The US government recently mandated all such devices be home grown for security reasons, which would be fine were it not that the US has next-to-no consumer-grade router manufacturing industry.
The piece is really a guide to setting up a Linux router, which he does on a small form factor PC and a hacked-together assembly of old laptop, PCI-express extender, and scrap network kit. In its most basic form a router doesn’t need the latest and greatest hardware, so there exists we’re guessing almost two decades of old PCs just waiting to be pressed into service. Perhaps it won’t help the non-technical Man In The Street much, but maybe it’ll inspire a few people to save themselves a hefty bill when they need to connect.
Over the history of this business, a lot of people have foreseen limits that look rather silly in hindsight– in 1943, IBM President Thomas Watson declared that “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” That was more than a little wrong. Depending on the definition of computers– particularly if you include microcontrollers, there’s probably trillions of the things.
We might as well include microcontrollers, considering how often we see projects replicating retrocomputers on them. The RP2350 can do a Mac 128k, and the ESP32-P4 gets you into the Quadra era. Which, honestly, covers the majority of daily tasks most people use computers for.
The RP2350 and ESP32-P4 both have more than 640kB of RAM, so that famous Bill Gates quote obviously didn’t age any better than Thomas Watson’s prediction. As Yogi Berra once said: predictions are hard, especially about the future. Continue reading “Ask Hackaday: How Much Compute Is Enough?”→
Some things have an undeniable appeal, and lo-fi, pixelated Game Boy-camera-like images are one of them. In service of this, [Raul Zanardo] created his handheld pixel camera that goes the extra mile. It implements slick real-time pixel art filters and a number of other useful features.
A live preview with real-time filters makes capturing just the right image easy.
For hardware, [Raul] uses a LilyGo T-Display S3 Pro which is an ESP32-based development board, camera, and color touchscreen display in a handheld form factor that vaguely resembles a chunky smartphone. The only change is swapping the stock camera for an OV3660-based camera module. It’s a drop-in replacement, but necessary because some of the features and settings his software uses are not available on the stock camera.
The camera captures 240 x 176 images, but the really neat part is the real-time filter pipeline. There are many configurable choices to play with, including pixelation, dithering, edge detection, CRT scanline effect, and color palette presets. Captures are saved to a local micro SD card and there’s all kinds of handy features like a photo gallery that takes full advantage of the color touchscreen. There’s also USB Mass Storage functionality, so downloading photos is as simple as plugging in a USB cable.
The Game Boy camera’s charming lo-fi imagery has inspired many pixel-camera projects, and this one makes great use of an inexpensive handheld development board and includes truly useful features.
Do you have your own pixel-art inspired camera project? Hit up our tips line and tell us all about it!
Recently [Kerry Wong] had one of his Cyclenbatt LiFePO4 batteries die after only a few dozen cycles, with a normal voltage still present on the terminals. One of the symptoms was that as soon as you try to charge it, the voltage goes up very rapidly to above 14 V due to what appears to be high internal resistance, and vice versa for discharging. In addition, the Bluetooth feature of the BMS appeared to have died as well, making non-invasive diagnostics somewhat tricky.
Close-up of the BMS. (Credit: Kerry Wong, YouTube)
After gently cutting open the plastic case, [Kerry] was greeted by the happily blinking blue LED of the Bluetooth module and deepening the mystery. Overall the build quality looks to be pretty good, with no loose cables as seen with certain other LFP batteries.
Cell voltages measured normal, with no significant imbalance. Next was measuring the internal resistance, which showed a clear issue. One of the cells was reading over 3 Ohms, whereas the others were in the milli-Ohm range. This would definitely explain the issues with charging and discharging, with a single bad cell causing most of the issues.
Of course, why the Bluetooth feature failed remains a mystery, and there’s still a lingering question on whether the BMS practiced proper balancing between the cells, as this can also cause issues over time.
For those of us who hack old cameras, the 3D printer has undoubtedly been a boon. High precision, or at least consistent precision, lightproof enclosures can be easily made and reproduced for others. As a result there are quite a few printable cameras out there, and we’ve featured our share here. We didn’t realize just how many there are without the work of [Sebastian] though, as he’s gathered together every one he can find in a glorious catalog of homemade photographic construction.
As a snapshot of the world of home made cameras it’s refreshing to see such a wide range of designs. There are pinholes aplenty as well as cameras using lenses from scavanged point and shoots through 35mm SLR, medium format, and even one using a Micro Four Thirds compact digital camera lens. For film there’s 35mm and 120 as well as large format, but we’re pleased to see a few instant cameras in there. Some of the models in the list are paid-for designs but most of them are free, so you probably won’t need any encouragement to make yourself a camera!
Unless we missed something, we didn’t see any movie cameras in the list. With 35mm and 16mm models to be found, we hope some of them make it.
Electro-permanent magnets (EPMs) are pretty nifty concepts, and if you aren’t familiar with them, they are permanent magnets with the ability to be electrically switched on or off. Unlike an electromagnet — which maintains a magnetic field only while power is applied — an EPM can remain “on” even when power is removed. Want to see one work? There’s a video embedded below that shows one off, but if you’d like to know how they work, we have you covered.
Inside are two types of magnet, one of which is permanent and the other being a semi-hard magnet paired with an electromagnetic coil. A semi-hard magnet’s flux can be changed by exposing it to a strong enough magnetic field, and that’s the key to making it work.
Being able to electrically switch a permanent magnet on or off is a neat trick.
When both magnets work together, the EPM is “on” and acts like a permanent magnet. To turn the EPM off, the polarity of the semi-hard magnet is flipped with a short and powerful electromagnetic pulse, after which the two magnets oppose one another and more or less cancel each other out. So rather than generating a magnetic field, an EPM more accurately reconfigures it.
As intriguing as EPMs are, we haven’t really seen one properly in action until it was brought to our attention that [Dave Jones] of EEVblog tried one out last year. He received a Zubax FluxGrip EPM, which is intended for drone and robotic applications and can hold up to 25 kg. Watch [Dave] fire it up in the video (link is cued up to the 7:30 mark), it’s pretty interesting to see one of these actually work.
EPMs are not prohibitively expensive but they are not exactly cheap, either. But if a switchable magnet sounds up your alley and you can’t afford an EPM, consider an alternative “switchable” magnet design that works by momentarily canceling out a permanent magnet with a paired electromagnet. Unlike an EPM, it’s not a permanent switch but it would be enough to drop a payload.
