Dial-up Internet Using The Viking DLE-200B Telephone Line Simulator

November 19, 2024 by 27 Comments

Who doesn’t like dial-up internet? Even if those who survived the dial-up years are happy to be on broadband, and those who are still on dial-up wish that they weren’t, there’s definitely a nostalgic factor to the experience. Yet recreating the experience can be a hassle, with signing up for a dial-up ISP or jumping through many (POTS) hoops to get a dial-up server up and running. An easier way is demonstrated by [Minh Danh] with a Viking DLE-200B telephone line simulator in a recent blog post.

This little device does all the work of making two telephones (or modems) think that they’re communicating via a regular old POTS network. After picking up one of these puppies for a mere $5 at a flea market, [Minh Danh] tested it first with two landline phones to confirm that yes, you can call one phone from the other and hold a conversation. The next step was thus to connect two PCs via their modems, with the other side of the line receiving the ‘call’. In this case a Windows XP system was configured to be the dial-up server, passing through its internet connection via the modem.

With this done, a 33.6 kbps dial-up connection was successfully established on the client Windows XP system, with a blistering 3.8 kB/s download speed. The reason for 33.6 kbps is because the DLE-200B does not support 56K, and according to the manual doesn’t even support higher than 28.8 kbps, so even reaching these speeds was lucky.

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Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 Seen In The Wild

November 19, 2024 by 23 Comments

Last Thursday we were at Electronica, which is billed as the world’s largest electronics trade show, and it probably is! It fills up twenty airplane-hangar-sized halls in Munich, and only takes place every two years.

And what did we see on the wall in the Raspberry Pi department? One of the relatively new AI-enabled cameras running a real-time pose estimation demo, powered by nothing less than a brand-new Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5. And it seemed happy to be running without a heatsink, but we don’t know how much load it was put under – most of the AI processing is done in the camera module.

We haven’t heard anything about the CM5 yet from the Raspberry folks, but we can’t imagine there’s all that much to say except that they’re getting ready to start production soon. If you look really carefully, this CM5 seems to have mouse bites on it that haven’t been ground off, so we’re speculating that this is still a pre-production unit, but feel free to generate wild rumors in the comment section.

The test board looks very similar to the RP4 CM demo board, so we imagine that the footprint hasn’t changed. (Edit: Oh wait, check out the M2 slot on the right-hand side!)

The CM4 was a real change for the compute module series, coming with a brand-new pinout that enabled them to break out more PCIe lanes. Despite the special connectors, it wasn’t all that hard to work with if you’re dedicated. So if you need more computing power in that smaller form factor, we’re guessing that you won’t have to wait all that much longer!

Thanks [kuro] for the tip, and for walking around Electronica with me.

Supercon 2024 SAO Petal KiCad Redrawing Project

November 19, 2024 by 5 Comments

Last week I completed the SAO flower badge redrawing task, making a complete KiCad project. Most of the SAO petals are already released as KiCad projects, except for the Petal Matrix. The design features 56 LEDs arranged in eight spiral arms radiating from the center. What it does not feature are straight lines, right angles, nor parts placed on a regular grid.

Importing into KiCad

Circuit Notes for LEDs, Thanks to [spereinabox]
I followed the same procedures as the main flower badge with no major hiccups. This design didn’t have any released schematics, but backing out the circuits was straightforward. It also helped that user [sphereinabox] over on the Hackaday Discord server had rung out the LED matrix connections and gave me his notes.

Grep Those Positons

I first wanted to only read the data from the LEDs for analysis, and I didn’t need the full Kicad + Python scripting for that. Using grep on the PCB file, you get a text file that can be easily parsed to get the numbers. I confirmed that the LED placements were truly as irregular as they looked.

My biggest worry was how obtain and re-apply the positions and angles of the LEDs, given the irregular layout of the spiral arms. Just like the random angles of six SAO connector on the badge board, [Voja] doesn’t disappoint on this board, either. I fired up Python and used Matplotlib to get a visual perspective of the randomness of the placements, as one does. Due to the overall shape of the arms, there is a general trend to the numbers. But no obvious equation is discernable.

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The Vecdec Cyberdeck Is More Than A Pretty Case

November 19, 2024 by 30 Comments

A common criticism we hear of cyberdecks is that functionality too often takes a backseat to aesthetics — in other words, they might look awesome, but they aren’t the kind of thing you’re likely to use a daily driver. It’s not an assessment that we necessarily disagree with, though we also don’t hold it against anyone if they’re more interested in honing their build’s retro-futuristic looks than its computational potential.

That said, when a build comes along that manages to strike a balance between style and function, we certainly take notice. The vecdec, built by [svenscore] is a perfect example. We actually came across this one in the Desert of the Real, also known as the outskirts of Philadelphia, while we stalked the chillout room at JawnCon 0x1. When everyone else in the room is using a gleaming MacBook or a beat-up ThinkPad, its wildly unconventional design certainly grabs your attention. But spend a bit of time checking the hardware out and chatting with its creator, and you realize it’s not just some cyberpunk prop.

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The Great Redbox Cleanup: One Company Is Hauling Away America’s Last DVD Kiosks

November 19, 2024 by 91 Comments

Remember Redbox? Those bright red DVD vending machines that dotted every strip mall and supermarket in America, offering cheap rentals when Netflix was still stuffing discs into paper envelopes? After streaming finally delivered the killing blow to physical rentals, Redbox threw in the towel in June 2024, leaving around 34,000 kiosks standing as silent monuments to yet another dead media format.

Last month, we reported that these machines were still out there, barely functional and clinging to life. Now, a company called The Junkluggers has been tasked with the massive undertaking of clearing these mechanical movie dispensers from the American retail landscape, and they’re doing it in a surprisingly thoughtful way. I chatted to them to find out how it’s going.

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Power Supply With Benchtop Features Fits In Your Pocket

November 19, 2024 by 42 Comments

[CentyLab]’s PocketPD isn’t just adorably tiny — it also boasts some pretty useful features. It offers a lightweight way to get a precisely adjustable output of 0 to 20 V at up to 5 A with banana jack output, integrating a rotary encoder and OLED display for ease of use.

PocketPD leverages USB-C Power Delivery (PD), a technology with capabilities our own [Arya Voronova] has summarized nicely. In particular, PocketPD makes use of the Programmable Power Supply (PPS) functionality to precisely set and control voltage and current. Doing this does require a compatible USB-C charger or power bank, but that’s not too big of an ask these days.

Even if an attached charger doesn’t support PPS, PocketPD can still be useful. The device interrogates the attached charger on every bootup, and displays available options. By default PocketPD selects the first available 5 V output mode with chargers that don’t support PPS.

The latest hardware version is still in development and the GitHub repository has all the firmware, which is aimed at making it easy to modify or customize. Interested in some hardware? There’s a pre-launch crowdfunding campaign you can watch.

The Barcode Beast Likes Your CDs

November 19, 2024 by 44 Comments

Over the years we’ve featured many projects which attempt to replicate the feel of physical media when playing music. Usually this involves some kind of token representation of the media, but here’s [Bas] with a different twist (Dutch language, Google Translate link). He’s using the CDs themselves in their cases, identifying them by their barcodes.

At its heart is a Raspberry Pi Pico W and a barcode scanner — after reading the barcode, the Pi calls Discogs to find the tracks, and then uses the Spotify API to find the appropriate links. From there, Home Assistant forwards them along to a smart speaker for playback. As a nice touch, [Bas] designed a 3D printed holder for the electronics which makes the whole thing a bit neater to use.

We this approach for its relative simplicity, and because the real CDs ad the retro touch it’s a real winner. You can find all the resources in a GitHub repository, should you wish to make your own. Meanwhile, it’s certainly not the first barcode scanner we’ve seen.