Who Wants A Rusty Old Smartphone?

September 24, 2025 by Tyler August 58 Comments

If we’re talking about oxidized iron… probably nobody. If we’re talking about Rust the programming language, well, that might be a different story. Google agrees, and is working on bringing the language into Android. That’s not enough for [Paul Sanja], who has the first Redox OS smartphone.

Redox OS is a Unix-like operating system written entirely in Rust, and somehow we haven’t covered it until now. Unlike Asterinas, a project to recreate the Linux kernel in Rust, Redox has few pretensions of being anything but its own thing, and that’s great! On desktop, Redox has a working windowing system and many utilities, including a basic browser in the form of NetSurf.

It’s claims to be source-compatible with Linux and BSD programs, and partially POSIX compliant. A certain someone around here might want to try it as a daily driver. The header image is a desktop screenshot, because there’s more to see there and it fits our aspect ratio.

On smartphones, it… boots. Some smartphones, anyway. It’s actually a big first step. That booting is possible is actually thanks to the great work put in by the Postmarket OS team to get Uboot working on select android devices. That uboot loader doesn’t need to load the Linux-based Postmarket OS. It can be used for anything compatible. Like, say, Redox OS, as [Paul] shows us.

Of course, Redox OS has no drivers for the touchscreen or anything else, so at the moment that rusty smartphone can only boot to a login screen. But thanks to Rust, you can rest assured that login screen hasn’t got any memory leaks! Jokes aside, this is a great start and we’re hoping to see more.

Redox is a promising project on mobile or desktop, and its development seems a much better use of time and effort than fighting over Rust in the Linux kernel.

Attack Of The Beepy Clones

June 13, 2025 by Arya Voronova 22 Comments

In the Blackberry-keyboard-based project lineage story last week, I covered how a series of open-source projects turned into Beepy, a cool Linux PDA with a lively community. To me, it’s yet another demonstration of power that open-source holds, and more importantly, it shows how even a small pet project of yours could cause big moves in the hardware world, provided you publish it – just ask [JoeN], [WoodWorkeR] and [arturo182].

The journey didn’t end there. For all its benefits, Beepy had some flaws to take care of, some board-killing flaws, even. The 5 V boost regulator was never intended for 4.7 V input it gets when charger is connected, and would occasionally cook itself. A charging current resistor was undersized, leading people to either bodge resistors onto their Beepy boards, or have their battery charge for 30 hours until full. A power path diode was undersized, too, and has burned out on more than a few devices. Also, Beepy’s feature package left things to be desired.

Beepy never made it beyond v1. If I had to guess, partially because of BB Q20 keyboard sourcing troubles, but also definitely some sort of loss of interest. Which is a shame, as the plans v1.5 of the hardware were pretty exciting. In the meantime, other players decided to take up the mantle – here’s a tale of three projects.

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The Blackberry Keyboard: How An Open-Source Ecosystem Sprouts

June 4, 2025 by Arya Voronova 43 Comments

What could happen when you open-source a hardware project?

No, seriously. I hold a fair few radical opinions – one is that projects should be open-source to the highest extent possible. I’ve seen this make miracles happen, make hackerdom stronger, and nourish our communities. I think we should be publishing all the projects, even if incomplete, as much as your opsec allows. I would make ritual sacrifices if they resulted in more KiCad projects getting published, and some days I even believe that gently bullying people into open-sourcing their projects can be justified. My ideal universe is one where companies are unable to restrict schematics from people getting their hardware, no human should ever hold an electronics black box, by force if necessary.

Why such a strong bias? I’ve seen this world change for the better with each open-source project, and worse with closed-source ones, it’s pretty simple for me. Trust me here – let me tell you a story of how a couple reverse-engineering efforts and a series of open-source PCBs have grown a tree of an ecosystem.

A Chain Of Blackberry Hackers

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An image of a smarphone sitting on a lightly-colored wooden table. It has a tan case surrounding it on the top 2/3, and a copper case holding a BlackBerry Q10 keyboard jutting out over the bottom of the phone.

FairBerry Brings The PKB Back To Your Smartphone

January 24, 2024 by Navarre Bartz 37 Comments

Missing the feel of physical keys on your phone, but not ready to give up your fancy new touchscreen phone? [Dakkaron] has attached a BlackBerry keyboard to a slightly more recent device.

Designed for the FairPhone 4, [Dakkaron]’s hack should be transferable to other smartphones as it connects to the phone over USB without any of that tedious mucking about with Bluetooth. There’s even a handy OpenSCAD-based generator to help you along in the customization process.

[Dakkaron] started with an Arduino Pro Micro-based implementation, but the most recent iteration uses a custom board that can be obtained partially-populated. Unfortunately, the Hirose connector for the keyboard isn’t available off-the-shelf, so you’ll have to solder that yourself if you’re planning to do this mod. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to practice your surface mount soldering skills!

If the Q10 keyboard looks familiar, it’s probably because it’s one of the most popular keyboards for small projects around here. Check out Regrowing a BlackBerry from the Keyboard Out or a LoRa Messenger with one. We’ve even seen them in a conference badge!

A BlackBerry Classic-sized device with a BlackBerry keyboard and an e-ink screen. It sits next to an e-ink smartwatch with a grey bezel that matches the 3d printed enclosure of the messaging device.

Beepberry Brings Memory LCD And A Physical Keyboard To Your Pi

May 27, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 9 Comments

As the 2020s are seeing the return of the flip phone, could we see a rebirth of other device form factors from before the slab era? [Eric Migicovsky] and [SQFMI] are working on a new physical keyboard device with the Beepberry.

Featuring a high contrast Sharp Memory LCD and the tried-and-true reliability of a BlackBerry keyboard, the device is designed for messaging all your contacts over WiFi without the distractions of a smartphone. As this is a collaboration with the Matrix-based chat service Beeper, the device is designed around the CLI version of their client.

If you want to eschew the distraction-free nature of the device, since it’s Pi-powered it can run any ARM Linux programs you might want as well being a playground for hardware mods. Add a DSP and headphone jack and this could be a neat little pianobar player. [Migicovsky] stresses this is currently a dev board and by no means should be assumed to be an off-the-shelf piece of kit.

If this looks like a familiar reuse of a BlackBerry keyboard, you might be remembering [arturo182]’s Keyboard Featherwing or this LoRa Messenger.

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Blackberry Will Run Out Of Juice On January 4th

January 1, 2022 by Kristina Panos 47 Comments

Happy New Year, though it may not be for Blackberry fans. The company that has so often had their products compared to a certain addictive substance recently announced that they are ending support for Blackberry OS and Blackberry 10 devices.

What does this mean? While they won’t be bricking phones outright, they might as well be. On January 4th, Blackberry will be shutting off all the key services — data, SMS, phone calls, and 911 support. In official terms, they are ending network provisioning for these older devices, meaning that they won’t be able to join any cellular or WiFi networks.

Unless you’re old enough to remember, it may seem strange that these half-screen, half-keyboard machines once dominated the mobile market. But back then, the people who used them were texting wizards who had broken free from the chains of the T9 keyboard.

Though this news may not mean much except to a select few, it’s still sad to see the Blackberry era come to a true end. We never had one ourselves during the heyday, though we did pick up a cheap used model to carry around as a tiny mobile writing device and calendar. We sure do miss phones with real keyboards though, and would love to see them come back. At least the keyboards themselves get love in the hacker community.

[Main and thumbnail images via Digital Trends]

The Feather “FAUXBERRY” Is Now A Real Thing

June 20, 2019 by Tom Nardi 5 Comments

Last month we featured an interesting project from Hackaday.io that was essentially trying to recreate the iconic Blackberry form factor for use with Adafruit’s line of Feather development boards. This would let you drop in modules for everything from LTE to packet radio, opening up a nearly limitless possibilities for handheld hacking. The only problem was, it didn’t actually exist yet.

But recently creator [arturo182] wrote in to tell us that not only had all the parts arrived, but that he’d completed assembly of the first prototype. He even put together a video about the current status of the device, which you can see after the break. The short version is: it works, and it looks fantastic.

For those who might not have seen this project the first time around, the front features a 2.6 inch 320×240 touch screen display, four general purpose buttons, a RGB NeoPixel LED for visual status display, a five way joystick, and what’s arguably the star of the show, a QWERTY keyboard originally designed for the Blackberry Q10. Around the back it has an SD card slot, a socket for the Feather module of your choice, and some handy GPIO expansion pads you can attach your own hardware onto.

[arturo182] says he’s looking at a couple cosmetic changes, but on the whole, everything works and he considers the PCB essentially done. He’ll soon be sending out a handful of test units to individuals who’ve expressed interest in helping him develop the project and then…well, he’s not really sure what’s going to happen then. Some kind of commercial release seems like the logical conclusion given the interest he’s already seen in the project, but he hasn’t quite worked out whether that will be a kit or as assembled devices.

Until then, anyone who’s looking for a pocket sized device that will let them bang out some Python with a physical keyboard will have to stick with their TI-83s.

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