The LackRack Enterprise Edition in Revspace, Netherlands

Rackmount Hardware Placement Issues? IKEA LACK To The Rescue!

May 29, 2022 by Arya Voronova 18 Comments

[hackbyte] reminds us about a classic hack that, even though we’ve seen floating around for over a decade, has somehow never quite graced our pages before. Many of us keep small home labs and even, at times, collections of servers that we’d be comfortable be calling mini-datacenters. However, if you use the ever-abundant 19″ switches, servers and other hardware, keeping these mounted and out of the way can be a thorny experience. Which leads us to, undoubtedly, unintentional – but exceptionally handy – compatibility between IKEA LACK table series and 19″ rackmount hardware.

The half-humorous half-informative wiki page on Eth0Wiki talks about this idea in depth, providing a myriad of examples and linking to pages of other hackerspaces and entities who implemented this idea and improved upon it. These tables look nice and fit anywhere, stack neatly when not in use, and you can put a bottle of Club-Mate on top. Aka, they’re the exact opposite of cheap clunky cabinets actually designed for rackmount you can buy, and cost a fraction of the price. What’s not to love?

You can buy a whole lot of cheap hardware in 19″, and arguably, that’s where you can get the best hardware for your dollar. Many a hackerspace has used these tables for makeshift infrastructure, permanent in all but intent. So, in case some of us missed the memo, now you are aware of yet another, underappreciated solution for mounting all these servers we get for cheap when yet another company replaces its equipment – or undergoes a liquidation. If LackRack hasn’t been on your radar – what have you been using for housing your rackmount hardware collection?

Wondering what to do with an old server? Building a powerful workstation is definitely on the list. Alternatively, you could discard the internals and stuff it full of Raspberry Pi!

A purple PCB with many DIP chips including a 6502

Hackaday Prize 2022: Reuse Those DIP Chips To Make A 1980s-Style Single-Board Computer

May 28, 2022 by Robin Kearey 30 Comments

With the Great Chip Shortage still delaying deliveries of new components, now might be a good time to look around your lab and inspect those piles of chips that you thought “might come in handy one day”. Chances are you’ll find a good stack of 74xx series logic, once ubiquitous but today mostly obsolete thanks to powerful microcontrollers and FPGAs. It would be a shame to let them go to waste, so why not use them to make a neat 1980s-style computer?

With this idea in mind, [Anders Nielsen] designed the ABN6502: a single-board computer based on the venerable 6502 processor, but with relatively modern interfaces like a VGA monitor output, a PS/2 keyboard connector and even a wireless module to simplify firmware uploads from a PC. One design requirement was to minimize the number of new components needed; the average hacker interested in building the ABN6502 will probably have many of the chips lying around somewhere in their workshop.

The component list reads like a typical bill of materials for a 6502-based computer, but comes with a lot of flexibility to allow for part subsititution. For the CPU, both the classic NMOS 6502 as well as the modern CMOS-based 65C02 are supported, along with their 6522 companion chip that provides I/O ports and timers. A ROM socket can hold either modern, fast flash chips or traditional but slow UV-erasable EPROMs.

Instead of using DRAM chips with their complicated refresh requirements, [Anders] went for 32 KB of SRAM to implement the main memory; unaffordable in the ’80s but easily available today. Standard 74xx series logic chips glue all the components together, again with several options to add or remove features as the user prefers. Pin headers bring out the I/O ports for easy connection to external peripherals.

The ABN6502’s software library is currently limited to a bootloader, but a complete development toolchain based on the CC65 compiler should make it easy to develop all kinds of programs on this platform. We’ve already featured the clever wireless ROM flashing system, as well as a demonstration of the 6502 driving RGB LEDs.

Continue reading “Hackaday Prize 2022: Reuse Those DIP Chips To Make A 1980s-Style Single-Board Computer” →

HP-200LX Runs Website Like It’s The 90s

May 21, 2022 by Donald Papp 20 Comments

The HP-200LX palmtop was a fascinating machine for its time, and [Terrence Vergauwen] proves that its time is not yet over, given that one is responsible for serving up the website for Palmtop Tube, a website and YouTube channel dedicated to vintage palmtops.

All by itself a HP-200LX doesn’t have quite what it takes to act as a modern web server, but it doesn’t take much to provide the missing pieces. A PCMCIA network adapter provides an Ethernet connection, and a NAS contains the website content while networking and web server software run locally. Steady power comes from a wall adapter, but two rechargeable AA cells in the 200LX itself act as a mini-UPS, providing backup power in case of outages.

The HP-200LX was a breakthrough product that came just at the right time, preceding other true palm top computers like the IBM PC 110. In the early 90s, it was unimaginable that one could have a fully functional MS-DOS based machine in one’s pocket, let alone one that could last weeks on a couple of AA cells. It didn’t have some proprietary OS and weird ports, and that kind of functionality is part of why, roughly 30 years later, one is able to competently serve up web traffic.

A video overview of the machine and how it all works is in the video embedded below. And if you’re more interested in what an HP-200LX looks like on the inside? This video is all about taking apart and repairing a 200LX.

Continue reading “HP-200LX Runs Website Like It’s The 90s” →

Asahi GPU Hacking

May 16, 2022 by Jonathan Bennett 7 Comments

[Alyssa Rosenzweig] has been tirelessly working on reverse engineering the GPU built into Apple’s M1 architecture as part of the Asahi Linux effort. If you’re not familiar, that’s the project adding support to the Linux kernel and userspace for the Apple M1 line of products. She has made great progress, and even got primitive rendering working with her own open source code, just over a year ago.

Trying to mature the driver, however, has hit a snag. For complex rendering, something in the GPU breaks, and the frame is simply missing chunks of content. Some clever testing discovered the exact failure trigger — too much total vertex data. Put simply, it’s “the number of vertices (geometry complexity) times amount of data per vertex (‘shading’ complexity).” That… almost sounds like a buffer filling up, but on the GPU itself. This isn’t a buffer that the driver directly interacts with, so all of this sleuthing has to be done blindly. The Apple driver doesn’t have corrupted renders like this, so what’s going on?
Continue reading “Asahi GPU Hacking” →

Framework Board Gets This Round Display PC Rolling

May 10, 2022 by Tom Nardi 15 Comments

The Framework laptop is already a very exciting prospect for folks like us — a high-end computer that we can actually customize, upgrade, and repair with the manufacturer’s blessing? Sounds like music to our ears. But we’re also very excited about seeing how the community can press the modular components of the Framework into service outside of the laptop itself.

A case in point, this absolutely gorgeous retro-inspired computer built by [Penk Chen]. The Mainboard Terminal combines a Framework motherboard, five inch 1080 x 1080 round LCD display, and OLKB Preonic mechanical keyboard into a slick 3D printed enclosure that’s held together with magnets for easy access. Compared to the Raspberry Pi that we usually find tucked into custom computer builds like this, the Framework board offers incredible performance, not to mention the ability to run x86 operating systems and software.

[Penk] has Ubuntu 22.04 LTS loaded up right now, and he reports that everything works as expected, though there are a few xrandr commands you’ll need to run in order for the system to work properly with the circular display. The standard Ubuntu UI doesn’t look particularly well suited to such an unusual viewport, but we imagine that’s an issue you’ll have to learn to live with when experimenting with such an oddball screen.

It was just a few weeks ago that we brought you word that Framework was releasing the mechanical drawings for their Mainboard module, and we predicted then that it would be a huge boon to those building bespoke computers. Truth be told we expected a cyberdeck build of some sort to be the first one to hit our inbox, but you certainly won’t catch us complaining about seeing more faux-vintage personal terminals.

The TPM module that Viktor designed, inserted into the motherboard

TPM Module Too Expensive? DIY Your Own Easily!

May 4, 2022 by Arya Voronova 83 Comments

Since Windows 11 has announced its TPM module requirement, the prices for previously abundant and underappreciated TPM add-on boards for PC motherboards have skyrocketed. We’ve been getting chips and soldering them onto boards of our own design, instead – and [viktor]’s project is one more example of that. [Viktor] has checked online marketplace listings for a TPM module for his Gigabyte AORUS GAMING 3 motherboard, and found out they started at around 150EUR – which is almost as much as the motherboard itself costs. So, as any self-respecting hacker, he went the DIY way, and it went with hardly a hitch.

Following the schematic from the datasheet, he quickly made a simple KiCad layout, matching it to the pinout from his motherboard’s user manual, then ordered the boards from PCBWay and SLB9665 chips from eBay. After both arrived, [viktor] assembled the boards, and found one small mistake – he designed a module for 2.54mm pin headers, but his motherboard had 2.0mm headers. He wired up a small adapter to make his assembled V1.0 boards work, and Windows 11 installed without any TPM complaints. He shows that he’s designed a new, V1.1 version with an updated connector, too, and published its (untested but should work) design files for us on GitHub. These modules can vary, by manufacturer and motherboard series, but with each module published, a bunch of hackers can save money – and get a weekend project virtually guaranteed to work out.

Regardless of whether the goal of running Windows 11 is ultimately worthwhile, it has been achieved. With scalpers preying on people who just want to use their hardware with a new OS, rolling your own TPM PCB is a very attractive solution! Last time we covered a DIY TPM module for ASrock server motherboards, we had a vivid discussion in the comments, and if you’re looking to create your own TPM board, you could do worse than checking them out for advice and insights!

The TinyPICO board and the rocker switch soldered together showing a complete device, shown being held in the air by a crocodile clip

Simple Hardware Switch For OS Dualbooting, Thanks To RP2040

May 2, 2022 by Arya Voronova 43 Comments

Dualbooting your computer can be a chore, the more switching between OSes you have to do – which is why virtualization or having separate computers are the go-to for many. Failing that, we have no choice but to smooth over our dualbooting experience with various workarounds and helpers. [William Somsky] shares one such helper tool with us – an elegant device made with a RP2040-sporting TinyPICO board and a three-way rocker switch, directing GRUB to boot into either Windows or Linux automatically, or leave us with the usual boot menu. This way, you can just flip the switch, hit “reboot” and walk away, coming back to your PC booted into OS of your choice, instead of timing your presence just so that you can catch the boot menu on time.

All you need to do is to solder a rocker switch to your RP2040 board of choice, then flash the RP2040 with code that detects the state of the switch, and creates a mass storage device hosting a file setting a Grub variable to either one of the 0, 1 or 2. [William] describes his journey, fighting mysterious caching problems, but tells us he got it working in the end. Sadly, [William] hasn’t shared the RP2040-side code with us, but he has at least put the Grub’s custom.cfg file in the ‘Files’ section of the Hackaday.io project.

Readily accessible microcontrollers with mass storage functions sure help make such hacks simple – earlier, we’ve seen dualboot switching like this done by modifying assembly code of the MBR. Dualbooting is a hacker’s rite of passage, and certain OSes of late can make it harder than other ones. Even if you don’t want to dualboot your PC, however, you sure can dualboot an Arduino!