For hackers of a certain age, the warbling of an analog modem remains something of a siren song. Even if you haven’t heard it in decades, the shrill tones and crunchy static are like a time machine that brings back memories of a bygone era. Alien to modern ears, in the 1980s and 90s, it was the harbinger of unlimited possibilities. An audible reminder that you were about to cross the threshold into cyberspace.
If you can still faintly hear those strangely comforting screeches in the back of your mind, the JawnCon 0x1 badge is for you. With a row of authentic vintage red LEDs and an impeccably designed 3D-printed enclosure, the badge is essentially a scaled-down replica of the Hayes SmartModem. But it doesn’t just look the part — powered by the ESP8266 and the open source RetroWiFiModem project, the badge will allow attendees to connect their modern computers to services from the early Internet via era-appropriate AT commands while they’re at the con.
Image by [ambrush] via Hackaday.IOOkay, so this isn’t a traditional keyboard, but you can probably figure out why the RuneRing is here. Because it’s awesome! Now, let me give you the finer points.
Hugely inspired by both ErgO and Somatic, RuneRing is a machine learning-equipped wearable mouse-keyboard that has a configurable, onboard ML database that can be set up to detect any gesture.
Inside the ring is a BMI160 6-axis IMU that sends gesture data to the Seeed Studio nRF52840 mounted on the wrist. Everything is powered with an 80mAh Li-Po lifted from a broken pair of earbuds.
Instead of using a classifier neural network, RuneRing converts IMU data to points in 24-dimensional space. Detecting shapes is done with a statistical check. The result is a fast and highly versatile system that can detect a new shape with as few as five samples.
Sometimes those moments arise when a new device comes on the market and hardware hackers immediately take to it. Over a few days, an observer can watch them reverse engineer it and have all sorts of fun making it do things it wasn’t intended to by the original manufacturer. We’re watching this happen in real time from afar this morning, as Dutch hackers are snapping up a promotional kids’ game from a supermarket (mixed Dutch/English, the site rejects Google Translate).
The Albert Heijn soundbox is a small handheld device with a barcode reader and a speaker, and as far as we can see it forms part of an animal identification card game. The cards have a barcode on the back, and sliding them through a reader causes a sample of that animal’s sound to be played. They’re attractively cheap, so of course someone had to take a look inside. So far the parts including the microcontroller have been identified, the ROM has been dumped and the audio reverse-engineered, and the barcode format has been cracked. Still to come are the insertion of custom audio or codes and arbitrary code execution, but knowing these hackers that won’t take long. If you’re Dutch, we suggest you head over to your local Albert Heijn with a few euros, and join in the fun.
A month ago, I’ve talked about using computers to hack on our day-to-day existence, specifically, augmenting my sense of time (or rather, lack thereof). Collecting data has been super helpful – and it’s best to automate it as much as possible. Furthermore, an augment can’t be annoying beyond the level you expect, and making it context-sensitive is important – the augment needs to understand whether it’s the right time to activate.
I want to talk about context sensitivity – it’s one of the aspects that brings us closest to the sci-fi future; currently, in some good ways and many bad ways. Your device needs to know what’s happening around it, which means that you need to give it data beyond what the augment itself is able to collect. Let me show you how you can extract fun insights from collecting data, with an example of a data source you can easily tap while on your computer, talk about implications of data collections, and why you should do it despite everything.
As we get older, our eyes get worse. That’s just a fact of life. It is a rite of passage the first time you leave the eye doctor with a script for “progressive” lenses which are just fancy bifocals. However, a new high-tech version of bifocals promises you better vision, but with a slight drawback, as [Sherri L. Smith] found.
Remember how users of Google Glass earned the nickname “glassholes?” Well, these new bifocals make Google Glass look like a fashion statement. If you are too young to need them, bifocals account for the fact that your eyes need different kinds of help when you look close up (like soldering) or far away (like at an antenna up on a roof). A true bifocal has two lenses and you quickly learn to look down at anything close up and up to see things far away. Progressives work the same, but they transition between the two settings instead of having a discrete mini lens at the bottom.
The new glasses, the ViXion01 change based on what you are looking for. They measure range and adjust accordingly. For $555, or a monthly rental, you can wear what looks like a prototype for a Star Trek visor and let it deduce what you are looking at and change its lenses accordingly.
Of course, this takes batteries that last about ten hours. It also requires medical approval to be real glasses and it doesn’t have that, yet. Honestly, if they worked well and didn’t look so dorky, the real use case might be allowing your eye doctor to immediately download a new setting as your vision changes. How about you? How much odd headgear are you willing to wear in public and why?
After previously working out a suitable approach to create a period-correct paper tape reader for his tube-based, MC14500B processor-inspired computer, [David Lovett] over at the Usagi Electric farm is back with a video on how he made a working tape reader.
The assembled paper tape reader as seen from the front with tape inserted. (Credit: David Lovett, Usage Electric, YouTube)
The tape reader’s purpose is to feed data into the tube-based computer, which for this computer system with its lack of storage memory means that the instructions are fed into the system directly, with the tape also providing the clock signal with a constant row of holes in the tape.
Starting the tape reader build, [David] opted to mill the structural part out of aluminum, which is where a lot of machining relearning takes place. Ultimately he got the parts machined to the paper design specs, with v-grooves for the photodiodes to fit into and a piece to clamp them down. On top of this is placed a part with holes that line up with the photodiodes.
Another alignment piece is added to hold the tape down on the reader while letting light through onto the tape via a slot. After a test assembly [David] was dismayed that due to tolerance issues he cracked two photodiodes within the v-groove clamp, which was a hard lesson with these expensive (and rare) photodiodes.
Although tolerances were somewhat off, [David] is confident that this aluminum machined reader will work once he has it mounted up. Feeding the tape is a problem that is still to be solved. [David] is looking for ideas and suggestions for a good approach within the limitations that he’s working with. At the video’s end, he mentions learning FreeCAD and 3D printing parts in the future. That would probably not be period-correct in this situation, but might be something he could get away with for some applications within the retrocomputing space.
We covered the first video and the thought process behind picking small (1.8 mm diameter) photodiodes as a period-correct tape hole sensor for a 1950s-era computing system, like the 1950s Bendix G-15 that [David] is currently restoring.
As a test artifact, 3DBenchy does a pretty good job of making sure your 3D printer is up to scratch. As an exemplar of naval architecture, though — well, let’s just say that if it weren’t for the trapped air in the infilled areas, most Benchy prints wouldn’t float at all. About the only way to make Benchy less seaworthy would be to make it out of cast iron. Challenge accepted.
We’ve grown accustomed to seeing [Denny] over at “Shake the Future” on YouTube using his microwave-powered kilns to cast all sorts of metal, but this time he puts his skill and experience to melting iron. For those not in the know, he uses standard consumer-grade microwave ovens to heat kilns made from ceramic fiber and lots of Kapton tape, which hold silicon carbide crucibles that get really, really hot under the RF onslaught. It works surprisingly well, especially considering he does it all on an apartment balcony.
For this casting job, he printed a Benchy model from PLA and made a casting mold from finely ground silicon carbide blasting medium mixed with a little sodium silicate, or water glass. His raw material was a busted-up barbell weight, which melted remarkably well in the kiln. The first pour appeared to go well, but the metal didn’t quite make it all the way to the tip of Benchy’s funnel. Round two was a little more exciting, with a cracked crucible and spilled molten metal. The third time was a charm, though, with a nice pour and complete mold filling thanks to the vibrations of a reciprocating saw.
After a little fettling and a saltwater bath to achieve the appropriate patina, [Denny] built a neat little Benchy tableau using microwave-melted blue glass as a stand-in for water. It highlights the versatility of his method, which really seems like a game-changer for anyone who wants to get into home forging without the overhead of a proper propane or oil-fired furnace. Continue reading “Microwave Forge Casts The Sinking-est Benchy Ever”→
