When [Ben Eater] talks, hackers everywhere listen. In his latest video [Ben] shows us how to make computer noises using square waves and a 6502 microprocessor.
[Ben] uses the timer in the W65C22 Versatile Interface Adapter to generate the square waves which generate a tone. He then adds support for a new BEEP command into his MS BASIC interpreter. We covered [Ben Eater]’s MS BASIC here at Hackaday back in April, so definitely check that out if you missed it.
When we were kids, it was a rite of passage to read the newly arrived Edmund catalog and dream of building our own telescope. One of our friends lived near a University, and they even had a summer program that would help you measure your mirrors and ensure you had a successful build. But most of us never ground mirrors from glass blanks and did all the other arcane steps required to make a working telescope. However, [La3emedimension] wants to tempt us again with a 3D-printable telescope kit.
Before you fire up the 3D printer, be aware that PLA is not recommended, and, of course, you are going to need some extra parts. There is supposed to be a README with a bill of parts, but we didn’t see it. However, there is a support page in French and a Discord server, so we have no doubt it can be found.
We’ve seen a lot of projects based on the Pi Pico, but a nuclear reactor simulation is a new one. This project was created by [Andrew Shim], [Tyler Wisniewski] and another group member for Cornell’s ECE 4760 class on embedded design (which should silence naysayers who think the Pi Pico can’t be a “serious” microcontroller), and simulates the infamous soviet RMBK reactor of Chernobyl fame.
The simulation uses a 4-bit color VGA model. The fission model includes uranium fuel, water, graphite moderator, control rods and neutrons. To simplify the math, all decayed materials are treated identically as non-fissile, so no xenon poisoning is going to show up, for example. You can, however, take manual control to both scram the reactor and set it up to melt down with the hardware controller.
The RP2040’s dual-core nature comes in handy here: one core runs the main simulation loop, and the main graphic on the top of the VGA output; the other core generates the plots on the bottom half of the screen, and the Geiger-counter sound effect, and polls the buttons and encoders for user input. This is an interesting spread compared to the more usual GPU/CPU split we see on projects that use the RP2040 with VGA output.
An interesting wrinkle that has been declared a feature, not a bug, by the students behind this project, is that the framebuffer cannot keep up with all the neutrons in a meltdown simulation. Apparently the flickering and stuttering of frame-rate issues is “befitting of the meltdown scenario”. The idea that ones microcontroller melts down along with the simulated reactor is rather fitting, we agree. Check it out in a full walkthrough in the video below, or enjoy the student’s full writeup at the link above.
This project comes to us via Cornell University’s ECE 4760 course, which we’ve mentioned before. Thanks to [Hunter Adams] for the tipoff. You may see more student projects in the coming weeks.
It’s sometimes useful for a system to not just have a flat 2D camera view of things, but to have an understanding of the depth of a scene. Dual RGB cameras can be used to sense depth by contrasting the two slightly different views, in much the same way that our own eyes work. It’s considered an economical but limited method of depth sensing, or at least it was before FoundationStereo came along and blew previous results out of the water. That link has a load of interactive comparisons to play with and see for yourself, so check it out.
The FoundationStereo paper explains how researchers leveraged machine learning to create a system that can not only outperform existing dual RGB camera setups, but even active depth-sensing cameras such as the Intel RealSense.
FoundationStereo is specifically designed for strong zero-shot performance, meaning it delivers useful general results with no additional training needed to handle any particular scene or environment. The framework and models are available from the project’s GitHub repository.
While products like Microsoft’s Kinect have struggled to keep the consumer’s attention, depth sensing remains an enabling technology that opens possibilities and gives rise to interesting projects, like a headset that allows one to see the world through the eyes of a depth sensor.
The ability to easily and quickly gain an understanding of the physical layout of a space is a powerful tool, and if a system like this one can deliver such fantastic results with nothing more than two RGB cameras, that’s a great sign. Watch it in action in the video below.
Continue reading “Dual RGB Cameras Get Depth Sensing Powerup”
A hacker’s view on ESD protection can tell you a lot about them. I’ve seen a good few categories of hackers neglecting ESD protection – there’s the yet-inexperienced ones, ones with a devil-may-care attitude, or simply those of us lucky to live in a reasonably humid climate. But until we’re able to control the global weather, your best bet is to befriend some ESD diodes before you get stuck having to replace a microcontroller board firmly soldered into your PCB with help of 40 through-hole pin headers.
Humans are pretty good at generating electric shocks, and oftentimes, you’ll shock your hardware without even feeling the shock yourself. Your GPIOs will feel it, though, and it can propagate beyond just the input/output pins inside your chip. ESD events can be a cause of “weird malfunctions”, sudden hardware latchups, chips dying out of nowhere mid-work – nothing to wish for.
Worry not, though. Want to build hardware that survives? Take a look at ESD diodes, where and how to add them, where to avoid them, and the parameters you want to keep in mind. Oh and, I’ll also talk about all the fancy ways you can mis-use ESD diodes, for good and bad alike!
If you’re a retro Nintendo fan you can of course carry a NES and a Game Boy around with you, but the former isn’t very portable. Never fear though, because here’s [Chad Burrow], who’s created a neat handheld console that emulates both.
It’s called the Acolyte Handheld, and it sports the slightly unusual choice for these parts of a PIC32 as its main processor. Unexpectedly it can use Sega Genesis controllers, but it has the usual buttons on board for portable use. It can drive either its own LCD or an external VGA monitor, and in a particularly nice touch, it switches between the two seamlessly. The NES emulator is his own work, while Game Boy support comes courtesy of Peanut-GB.
We like the design of the case, and particularly that of the buttons. Could it have been made smaller by forgoing some of the through-hole parts in favour of SMD ones? Quite likely, but though it’s chunky it’s certainly not outsized.
Portable Nintendo-inspired hardware is popular around here, as you can see with this previous handheld NES
Where’s the best place for a datacenter? It’s an increasing problem as the AI buildup continues seemingly without pause. It’s not just a problem of NIMBYism; earthly power grids are having trouble coping, to say nothing of the demand for cooling water. Regulators and environmental groups alike are raising alarms about the impact that powering and cooling these massive AI datacenters will have on our planet.
While Sam Altman fantasizes about fusion power, one obvious response to those who say “think about the planet!” is to ask, “Well, what if we don’t put them on the planet?” Just as Gerard O’Neill asked over 50 years ago when our technology was merely industrial, the question remains:
“Is the surface of a planet really the right place for expanding technological civilization?”
O’Neill’s answer was a resounding “No.” The answer has not changed, even though our technology has. Generative AI is the latest and greatest technology on offer, but it turns out it may be the first one to make the productive jump to Earth Orbit. Indeed, it already has, but more on that later, because you’re probably scoffing at such a pie-in-the-sky idea.
There are three things needed for a datacenter: power, cooling, and connectivity. The people at companies like Starcloud, Inc, formally Lumen Orbit, make a good, solid case that all of these can be more easily met in orbit– one that includes hard numbers.
Sure, there’s also more radiation on orbit than here on earth, but our electronics turn out to be a lot more resilient than was once thought, as all the cell-phone cubesats have proven. Starcloud budgets only 1 kg of sheilding per kW of compute power in their whitepaper, as an example. If we can provide power, cooling, and connectivity, the radiation environment won’t be a showstopper.
Continue reading “Space-Based Datacenters Take The Cloud Into Orbit”
