Modular Keyboards For CAD, Gaming, And Video Editing

September 8, 2018 by Brian Benchoff 16 Comments

Of all the input devices, the keyboard is the greatest. This comes at a cost, though: there were times back in the Before Days, when video and music editing applications came with custom keyboards. There were Pro Tools keyboards, Final Cut keyboards, and innumerable Adobe keyboards. What’s the solution to this problem? More keyboards, obviously, and this time we’ll make them modular.

For his Hackaday Prize entry, [Cole B] is building modular, programmable USB keyboards. It’s got everything: a standard 3×3 keypad, a keyboard that’s just four potentiometers, a keyboard that’s a rotary encoder, and a keyboard that’s a set of faders.

The design of these keyboards is inherently modular, and that means there needs to be a way to connect all these modules together, preferably without a bunch of USB cables strewn about. Right now, the best idea [Cole] is working with is pogo pins and magnets. It’s a great idea although Apple Thinks Differently™ and probably wouldn’t be too keen on seeing the whole ‘magnets and pins’ idea stolen out from under them.

Nevertheless, it’s an excellent project that shows how far you can go with manufacturing on a limited budget. These are fantastic keyboard modules already, and the connector scheme already pushes this project into the upper echelon of keyboard hacks.

Pun Intended: Bare Metal Attracts Rust

September 8, 2018 by Sven Gregori 36 Comments

Programming languages tend to polarize, and Rust is by far no exception. Whether it will stick around and grow as an alternative for the lower levels or not — time will tell. In the meantime, if you’re curious about the language and its low-level abilities yourself, [phil-opp] has written a series of blog posts on building your own little bare metal kernel in Rust.

Starting from the basics, [phil-opp] describes in detail the set-up and build process to create a standalone executable that won’t be linked against the Rust standard library. From here he proceeds to build a simple operating system kernel that prints a good old Hello World via VGA output — QEMU emulation included. And of course, there is a GitHub repository with all of the source code.

[phil-opp] has been working on this for a while already, and he is currently writing the second edition of the series. Some content is therefore still missing, but you may find more of it in his first edition. And in case you know absolutely nothing about Rust in the first place, let’s just take a step back and start with the basics. After all, we might see more of it in the future.

SMART Response XE Gets Wireless Bootloader

September 8, 2018 by Tom Nardi 9 Comments

A few months back we first brought word of the progress being made in unlocking the SMART Response XE, an ATmega128RFA powered handheld computer that allowed teachers to create an interactive curriculum in the days before all the kids got Chromebooks. Featuring 2.4 Ghz wireless communication, a 384×160 LCD, and a full QWERTY keyboard, schools paid around $100 each for them 2010. Now selling for as little as $5 on eBay, these Arduino-compatible devices only need a little coaxing and an external programmer to get your own code running.

The previous post inspired [Larry Bank] to try his hand at hacking the SMART Response XE, and so far he’s made some very impressive progress. Not only has he come up with his own support library, but he’s also created a way to upload Arduino code to the devices through their integrated 802.15.4 radio. With his setup, you no longer need to open the SMART Response XE and attach a programmer, making it much easier to test and deploy software.

[Larry] has written up a very detailed account of his development process, and goes through the trouble of including his ideas that didn’t work. Getting reliable communication between two of these classroom gadgets proved a bit tricky, and it took a bit of circling around until he hit on a protocol that worked.

The trick is that you need to use one SMART Response XE attached to your computer as a “hub” to upload code to other XEs. But given how cheap they are this isn’t that big of a deal, especially considering the boost in productivity it will net you. [Larry] added a 5 x 2 female header to his “hub” XE so he could close the device back up, and also added a physical power switch. In the video after the break, you can see a demonstration of the setup sending a simple program to a nearby XE.

Between this wireless bootloader and the Arduboy compatibility covered previously, we’d suggest you get your SMART Response XE now. We wouldn’t be surprised if the prices of these things start going up like they did with the IM-ME. Continue reading “SMART Response XE Gets Wireless Bootloader” →

Cheap FPV Goggles Turned Pocket Sized Display

September 8, 2018 by Tom Nardi 10 Comments

Thanks to the exploding popularity of First Person View (FPV) RC flying over the last couple of years, the cost of the associated hardware has dropped rapidly. Today you can get entry-level FPV goggles for under $40 USD on various import sites. For the money you’re getting a 5.8 GHz receiver, battery, and an LCD display; even if the components themselves aren’t exactly high end, at that price it’s essentially an impulse buy.

[nomand] didn’t necessarily have a use for a cheap FPV headset, but he did like the idea of having a pocket sized display that he could pass off to others so they could see what he’s seeing during flights. So he harvested the principle components from a Eachine VR006 headset and designed a new 3D printed enclosure for them. The final result looks fantastic, and is much cheaper than commercial alternatives on the market.

He’s created an exceptionally detailed step-by-step guide on how you can perform the conversion yourself in the project’s GitHub repository, and has also put together a video where he goes over the modification and discusses the end result. [nomand] clearly intends for this to be a project for others to duplicate instead of a one-off build, and given the price and final results, we wouldn’t be surprised if this conversion becomes popular in FPV circles.

Perhaps the best part of this project is that it requires almost no modification of the original hardware; just soldering two wires because the original connector is too large. Otherwise just need to take the headset apart carefully, and transplant the components into the 3D-printed case [nomand] has meticulously designed. The case is so well designed it doesn’t even need any fasteners, it slides together and everything is held in with some strategically placed pieces of foam.

Between this modification and the custom built spectator display we covered recently, it looks like there’s a clear demand for sub-$50 portable FPV monitors. Seems odd that no manufacture is trying to fill this niche so far.

Continue reading “Cheap FPV Goggles Turned Pocket Sized Display” →

Electromagnetic Field: TIM, A Relay Computer

September 8, 2018 by Jenny List 12 Comments

We are probably all familiar with computing history to the extent that we know the earliest computers were surprisingly simple devices. While early electronic machines such as Colossus or ENIAC were hugely complex racks of tubes, once expressed as a schematic or as a network of logic gates they would be relatively straightforward for today’s electronic engineer to understand their operation. Those who have made an in-depth study of computing history may have heard of the work of Konrad Zuse in the mid-20th century, his relay-based machines predate their fully electronic cousins by several years.

A relay-based computer can be simple enough to be built by a home constructor, and at the recent Electromagnetic |Field hacker camp [Rory Mangles] outlined his TIM relay computer built while he was at school. It’s an engaging story starting from first principles and describing a series of TIM devices from a simple binary adder to the final fully Turing-complete computer. He describes the design process for his ALU, eventually going with a 1-bit serial design to economise on relays.

The machine has a Harvard architecture, with the program pathway consisting of a paper tape from which the code is run directly. The instruction set is called BLT, which of course means Basic Language of Tim, and there is a T++ assembly language. Loops and if statements are handled in a nod to the classical Turing machine by looping the paper tape. The original TIM is a few years old, but he reveals that he’s recently brought it out of storage and added a parallel port. Thus the finale of the talk is a demonstration, printing a “Hello World”.

We’ve placed the full video below the break, meanwhile we were lucky enough that [Rory] brought TIM along to the EMF Hackaday Readers village for our bring-a-hack, so the header image is from when we had a chance to examine it. If you’re curious to know more, he has a web site with some more TIM details.

Continue reading “Electromagnetic Field: TIM, A Relay Computer” →

CORDIC Brings Math To FPGA Designs

September 7, 2018 by Al Williams 12 Comments

We are always excited when we see [Hamster] post an FPGA project, because it is usually something good. His latest post doesn’t disappoint and shows how he uses the CORDIC algorithm to generate very precise sine and cosine waves in VHDL. CORDIC (Coordinate Rotation Digital Computer; sometimes known as Volder’s algorithm) is a standard way to compute hyperbolic and trigonometric functions. What’s nice is that the algorithm only requires addition, subtraction, bit shifts, and a lookup table with an entry for each bit of precision you want. Of course, if you have addition and negative numbers, you already have subtraction. This is perfect for simple CPUs and FPGAs.

[Hamster] not only has the VHDL code but also provides a C version if you find that easier to read. In either case, the angle is scaled so that 360 degrees is a full 24-bit word to allow the most precision. Although it is common to compute the result in a loop, with the FPGA, you can do all the math in parallel and generate a new sample on each clock cycle.

Continue reading “CORDIC Brings Math To FPGA Designs” →

Unmanned Sailboat Traverses The North Atlantic

September 7, 2018 by Bryan Cockfield 21 Comments

Sailboats have been traversing the Atlantic Ocean since before 1592, sailing through sunshine, wind, and rain. The one thing that they’ve all had in common has been a captain to pilot the ship across this vast watery expanse, at least until now. A company called Offshore Sensing has sailed an unmanned vessel all the way from Canada to Ireland.

The ship, called the Sailbuoy, attempted the journey last year as well but only made it about halfway before the mission was abandoned. This year, however, the voyage was finally completed, and this craft is officially the first unmanned ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The journey took about 80 days using sails and a small set of solar panels to drive the control electronics.

Using this technology, the company can investigate wave activity in specific areas of the ocean without having to send out a manned vessel to install a permanent buoy. The sailbuoy simply uses its autonomy to stay in a particular patch of ocean. There have been other missions that the sailbuoy has been tasked with as well, such as investigating the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. With a reliable craft like this, it becomes much easier, safer, and less expensive to explore the ocean’s surface.

Thanks to [Andy] for the tip!