Hacked Together NAS In A Box

December 18, 2012 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

hacked-together-nas-in-a-box

[David] is serving up files on his home network thanks to this Frankenstein’s monster of a Network Attached Storage device. It looks like he raided all the good bits from his parts bin to bring it all together.

The case is a tin box which may have been for a card/board game or some holiday treats. The hardware started with an NS-K330 server which he picked up from Deal Extreme. It has a NIC and a couple of USB ports but it tends to run really hot so he added a heat sinks to the board’s main chips. The hard drives are both 2.5″ form factor from old laptops. He uses some 2.5″ to 3.5″ mounting adapters to attach them to the tin box. A pair of USB to IDE adapters shed their cases and were solder directly to the wires which make a connection with the server’s USB ports.

There is a Linux distro specifically for this hardware but [David] wasn’t impressed with it. He ended up compiling OpenWRT for it and is satisfied with the functionality that provides.

Silent HTPC Build Is An Art Piece For The Livingroom

December 17, 2012 by Mike Szczys 29 Comments

silent-htpc-build

This sexy beast is [DeFex’s] new silent home theater PC. To give you an idea of scale, that motherboard is a Mini ITX form factor. Mounted below it is the solid state drive which is an SLC version chosen because they tend to last longer than the MLC variety. This distinction comes with a price tag that is $100 more expensive.

But we digress. It’s the custom case that really caught our eye with this build. The frame is made of a huge aluminum heat sink. It measures about 7″ by 10″ and sets the final foot print for the computer. An aluminum puck was added to transmit heat from the processor to the heat sink. Holes were drilled and tapped into the heat sink to accept the brass stand offs which hold the motherboard in place.

The near side of the case is a sheet of acrylic. It connects to the rest of the case using 3D printed brackets at each corner. There is an additional bracket on the bottom to hold the hard drive in place. The sides of the case are filled in with bicycle spokes which also find a home in the corner brackets. Now the hard part will be figuring out which orientation looks the best for displaying his fine craftsmanship.

[via Reddit]

Custom Desk Is A Custom Computer Case

December 17, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 37 Comments

desk

[Paul] had been kicking around his idea of a perfect computer desk for some time, and when given the opportunity to remodel his office decided it was time to build his dream computer case.

The desk itself is made of hickory with a formica top to match the other workbenches in [Paul]’s workspace, The two largest drawers house an ATX motherboard, power supply, disk drives, and a pair of CD drives. On top of the desk are two 24″ monitors – one for each computer – and a built-in powered USB hub that allows [Paul] to charge his phone or use an external drive.

As a computer tech, [Paul] needed a way to connect customer’s drives. He did this by putting two Startech UniDock2U USB to SATA and IDE converters in the top right drawer. It’s one of his most used features and very handy for duplicating bare drives.

Also included in [Paul]’s desk is a large UPC, and a pair of 120mm case fans venting to the front of the desk. It’s a wonderful piece of workmanship, and the removable computer cases make cleaning and upgrading a breeze.

USB NeXT Keyboard

December 9, 2012 by Eric Evenchick 24 Comments

[Ladyada] and [pt] had an old keyboard from NeXT, but since it used a custom protocol it wasn’t usable with modern hardware. So they built a custom device to convert the NeXT protocol to USB.

The device uses a Arduino Micro to read data from the keyboard and communicate as a HID device over USB. It connects to the keyboard using the original mini-DIN connector, and is housed in the classic Altoids tin enclosure.

Since the protocol used by NeXT isn’t standard, they had to figure it out and write some code to interpret it. The keyboard communicates bidirectionally with the computer, so they needed to send the correct frames to key data back.

Fortunately, they hit on a Japanese keyboard enthusiast’s site, which had protocol specifications. They implemented this protocol on the Micro, and used the Keyboard library to create a HID device.

The final product is an adapter for NeXT to USB, which allows for the old keyboards to be used on any computer with USB. It’s a good way to bring back life to some otherwise unusable antique hardware.

World’s Oldest Functioning Digital Computer Reminds Us Of A Telephone Exchange

November 20, 2012 by Mike Szczys 28 Comments

This is the WHICH, the Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell. It is the oldest functioning digital computer and thanks to a lengthy restoration process you can go and see it in person at The National Museum of Computing in Milton Keynes (Northwest of London in the UK).

The system was first put into operation in 1951. It’s function is both familiar and foreign. First off, it uses decimal rather than binary for its calculations. And instead of transistors it uses electromechanical switches like are found in older automatic telephone exchanges. This makes for very noisy and slow operation. User input is taken from strips of paper with holes punched in them. As data is accumulated it is shown in the registers using decatrons (which have since become popular in hobby projects). Luckily we can get a look at this in the BBC story about the WITCH.

According to the eLinux page on the device, it was disassembled and put into storage from 1997 until 2009. At that point it was loaned to the museum and has been undergoing cleaning, reassembly, and repair ever since.

[Thanks David]

.NET Micro Framework Used For A Prompt-based Computer

November 20, 2012 by Mike Szczys 32 Comments

[Tom] is doing a little show and tell with his latest .NET Micro framework based project. He managed to get a prompt-based computer running on a FEZ Cobra board.

A USB keyboard serves as the input device. To give himself a familiar way to navigate and execute programs [Tom] mimicked the functionality of DOS. Above you can see the familiar format of the directory listings as he navigates the data on an SD card. But this goes deeper than changing directories and listing files. He also has access to commands which control peripherals, showing manipulation of the WiFi connection and demonstrating some simple code to show images on the screen. Since the hardware centers around the .NET MF, any compiled binary for that environment can be executed from the prompt as well.

See a complete demonstration of the project embedded after the break.

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A Nostalgic Look At What A 13 Year Old Can Do With A C64

November 13, 2012 by Mike Szczys 41 Comments

[Armin] recently pulled out his Commodore 64 and looked back on the projects he did as a kid. The surprising thing is that we’re not talking quite as far in the past as you might image. He was 13 in 2002 and the family didn’t have a PC. But more than a decade before his father had purchased a C64 and [Armin] dug into the manual to teach himself how to code. This week he connected the old hardware to his video capture card to give us a demonstration on what he accomplished.

He had seen Windows 95 at the local computer club and figured why not program a clone of the software for the machine at hand? He called it Windows 105 (because that number is higher than 95) and worked out ways to mimic programs like DOS, Corel Draw, Notepad, and some of the programs from Microsoft Office. They didn’t include all the functionality of the real thing, but the look was there.

The story does have a happy ending. [Armin’s] parents saw what he was doing and managed to pick up a PC for him to play with. Now he’s a professional programmer looking back on the formative years that got him there. We’ve embedded one of his demo videos after the break for your enjoyment.

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