NASA is going back to the Moon! We’ll follow the crew of Artemis II every step of the way.
Continue reading “Following Artemis II’s Journey Around The Moon”
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Longform articles, the best of what the Hackaday writing crew has to offer.
WheatForce: Learning From CPU Architecture Mistakes
Nothing ever made is truly perfect and indeed, CPU architectures like x86, RISC-V, ARM, and PowerPC all have their own upsides and downsides. Today, I aim to make an architecture that learns from all these mistakes and improves architecture design for everyone.
I’ve consulted with many people opinionated on the matter, both from a software perspective, and from a hardware perspective. I have taken all their feedback in mind while creating this initial draft of the WheatForce architecture (PDF). It is inspired by pieces from many architectures: segmentation inspired by x86, hash table-like paging from PowerPC, dynamic endianness control from RISC-V and PowerPC, and more. Let’s look into each feature in a little bit more detail. Continue reading “WheatForce: Learning From CPU Architecture Mistakes”
Improving FDM Filament Drying With A Spot Of Vacuum
Keeping your filament safely away from moisture exposure is one of the most crucial aspects of getting a good 3D print, with equipment like a filament dryer a standard piece of equipment to help drive accumulated moisture out of filament prior to printing or storage. Generally such filament dryers use hot air to accomplish this task over the course of a few hours, but this is not very efficient for a number of reasons. Increasing the vaporization rate of water without significantly more power use should namely be quite straightforward.
The key here is the vapor pressure of a liquid, specifically the point at which it begins to transition between its liquid and gaseous phases, also known as the boiling point. This point is defined by both temperature and atmospheric pressure, with either factor being adjustable. In a pressure cooker this principle is for example used to increase the boiling temperature of water, while for our drying purposes we can instead reduce the pressure in order to lower the boiling point.
Although a lower pressure is naturally more effective, we can investigate the best balance between convenience and effectiveness.
Continue reading “Improving FDM Filament Drying With A Spot Of Vacuum”
Spy Tech: Conflicts Bring A New Number Station
If you know much about radios and espionage, you’ve probably encountered number stations. These are mysterious stations that read out groups of numbers or otherwise encoded messages to… well… someone. Most of the time, we don’t know who is receiving the messages. You’d be excused for thinking that this is an old technology. After all, satellite phones, the Internet, and a plethora of options now exist to allow the home base to send spies secret instructions. However, the current-day global conflict has seen at least one new number station appear, apparently associated with the United States and, presumably, targeting some recipients in Iran, according to priyom.org.
As you might expect, these stations don’t identify themselves, but the Enigma Control List names this one as V32. It broadcasts two two-hour blocks a day at 0200 UTC and a repeat at 1800 UTC. Each message starts with the Farsi word for “attention” followed by what is assumed to be some header information as two 5-digit groups. Then there is a set of 181 five-digit groups. Each message is padded out to take 20 minutes, and there are six messages in each transmission.
Continue reading “Spy Tech: Conflicts Bring A New Number Station”
The Most Secure, Modern Computer Might Be A Mac
The Linux world is currently seeing an explosion in new users, thanks in large part to Microsoft turning its Windows operating system into the most intrusive piece of spyware in modern computing. For those who value privacy and security, Linux has long been the safe haven where there’s reasonable certainty that the operating system itself isn’t harvesting user data or otherwise snooping where it shouldn’t be. Yet even after solving the OS problem, a deeper issue remains: the hardware itself. Since around 2008, virtually every Intel and AMD processor has included coprocessors running closed-source code known as the Intel Management Engine (IME) or AMD Platform Security Processor (PSP).
These components operate entirely outside the user’s and operating system’s control. They are given privileged access to memory, storage, and networking and can retain that access even when the CPU is not running, creating systemic vulnerabilities that cannot be fully mitigated by software alone. One practical approach to minimizing exposure to opaque management subsystems like the IME or PSP is to use platforms that do not use x86 hardware in the first place. Perhaps surprisingly, the ARM-based Apple M1 and M2 computers offer a compelling option, providing a more constrained and clearly defined trust model for Linux users who prioritize privacy and security.
Before getting into why Apple Silicon can be appealing for those with this concern, we first need to address the elephant in the room: Apple’s proprietary, closed-source operating system. Luckily, the Asahi Linux project has done most of the heavy lifting for those with certain Apple Silicon machines who want to go more open-source. In fact, Asahi is one of the easiest Linux installs to perform today even when compared to beginner-friendly distributions like Mint or Fedora, provided you are using fully supported M1 or M2 machines rather than attempting an install on newer, less-supported models. The installer runs as a script within macOS, eliminating the need to image a USB stick. Once the script is executed, the user simply follows the prompts, restarts the computer, and boots into the new Linux environment. Privacy-conscious users may also want to take a few optional steps, such as verifying the Asahi checksum and encrypting the installation with LUKS but these steps are not too challenging for experienced users. Continue reading “The Most Secure, Modern Computer Might Be A Mac”
From Zip To Nought: The Rise And Fall Of Iomega
If you were anywhere near a computer in the mid-to-late 1990s, you almost certainly encountered a Zip drive. That distinctive purple peripheral, with its satisfying clunk as you slotted in a cartridge, was as much a fixture of the era as beige tower cases and CRT monitors. Iomega, the company behind it, went from an obscure Utah outfit to a multi-billion-dollar darling of Wall Street in the span of about two years. And then, almost as quickly, it all fell apart.
The story of Iomega is one of genuine engineering innovation and the fickle nature of consumer technology. As with so many other juggernauts of its era, Iomega was eventually brought down by a new technology that simply wasn’t practical to counter.
The House That Bernoulli Built
Iomega was founded in Utah, in 1980, by Jerome Paul Johnson, David Bailey, and David Norton. The company soon developed a novel approach to removable magnetic storage based on the Bernoulli effect. The Bernoulli Box arrived in 1982, which was a drive relying on PET film disks spun at 1500 RPM inside a rigid, removable cartridge. The airflow generated by the spinning disk pulled the media down toward the read/write head thanks to the eponymous Bernoulli effect. While spinning, the disk would float a mere micron above the head surface on a cushion of air. If the power cut out or the drive otherwise failed, the disk simply floated away from the head rather than crashing into it—a boon over contemporary hard drives for which head crashes were a real risk. The Bernoulli Box made them essentially impossible. Continue reading “From Zip To Nought: The Rise And Fall Of Iomega”
The Zero-Power Flight Computer
In the early days of aviation, pilots or their navigators used a plethora of tools to solve common navigation and piloting problems. There was definitely a need for some kind of computing aid that could replace slide rules, tables, and tedious dead-reckoning computations. This would become even more important during World War II, when there was a massive push to quickly train young men to be pilots.
Today, we’d whip up some sort of computer device, but in the 1930s, computers weren’t anything you’d cram on a plane, even if they’d had any. For example, the Mark 1 Fire Control Computer during WW2 was 3,000 pounds of gears and motors.
The computer is made to answer flight questions like “how many pounds of fuel do I need for another hour of flying time?” or “How do I adjust my course if I have a particular crosswind?”
History
There were a rash of flight computers starting in the 1920s that were essentially specialized slide rules. The most popular one appeared in the late 1930s. Philip Dalton’s circular slide rule was cheap to produce and easy to use. As you’ll see, it is more than just an ordinary slide rule. Keep in mind, these were not computers in the sense we think of today. They were simple slide rules that easily did specialized math useful to pilots.
Dalton actually developed a number of computers. The popular Model B appeared in 1933, and there were refinements leading to additional models. The Mark VII was very popular. Even Fred Noonan, Amelia Earhart’s navigator, used a Mark VII. Continue reading “The Zero-Power Flight Computer”
