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Image by [John Anderson] via Hackaday.IOAs you may have guessed, I really dig the looks of this thing. The paint job on the display is great, but the stripes on the keyboard and badging on are on another level. Be sure to check out the entire gallery on this one.
About that keyboard — [John] started this project with two incomplete keyboards that each had a couple of broken switches. Since the two keyboards were compliments of each other parts-wise, they made a great pair, and [John] only had to swap out three switches to get it up and clacking.
In order to make it work with the Pi, [John] wrote a user-mode serial driver that uses the uinput kernel module to inject key events to the kernel. But he didn’t stop there.
Although the Pi supports composite video out, the OS doesn’t provide any way to turn off the chroma color signal that’s modulated on top of the basic monochrome NTSC signal, which makes the picture look terrible. To fix that, he wrote a command-line app that sets up the video controller to properly display a monochrome NTSC signal. Happy AVRing on your amazing setup, [John]! Continue reading “Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Curvy Centerfold”→
It looks like we won’t have Cruise to kick around in this space anymore with the news that General Motors is pulling the plug on its woe-beset robotaxi project. Cruise, which GM acquired in 2016, fielded autonomous vehicles in various test markets, but the fleet racked up enough high-profile mishaps (first item) for California regulators to shut down test programs in the state last year. The inevitable layoffs ensued, and GM is now killing off its efforts to build robotaxis to concentrate on incorporating the Cruise technology into its “Super Cruise” suite of driver-assistance features for its full line of cars and trucks. We feel like this might be a tacit admission that surmounting the problems of fully autonomous driving is just too hard a nut to crack profitably with current technology, since Super Cruise uses eye-tracking cameras to make sure the driver is paying attention to the road ahead when automation features are engaged. Basically, GM is admitting there still needs to be meat in the seat, at least for now.
If you don’t already have a logic analyzer, or if you have one of those super-cheap 8-channel jobbies, it might be worth your while to check out the Pico firmware simply because it gets you 24 channels, which is more than you’ll ever need™. At the low price of $4, maybe a little more if you need to add level shifters to the circuit to allow for 5 V inputs, you could do a lot worse for less than the price of a fancy sweet coffee beverage.
And the RTL dongle; don’t get us started on this marvel of radio hacking. If you vaguely have interest in RF, it’s the most amazing bargain, and ever-improving software just keeps adding functionality. The post above adds HTML5 support for the RTL-SDR, allowing you to drive it with code you host on a web page, which makes the entire experience not only cheap, but painless. Talk about a gateway drug! If you don’t have an RTL-SDR, just go out and buy one. Trust me.
What both of these hacker tools have in common, of course, is good support by a bunch of free and open software that makes them do what they do. This software enables a very simple piece of hardware to carry out what used to be high-end lab equipment functions, for almost nothing. This has an amazing democratizing effect, and paves the way for the next generation of projects and hackers. I can’t think of a better way to spend $20.
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Humans are well overdue for a technological revolution – not a profit-driven one like we’re having now, a human-centric one. Sci-fi is wonderful for having your brain run wild. Over the last century, we’ve had writers try and imagine what world would’ve had looked like if a new technology were to address different aspects of human condition, or, work to undercut us all in yet unseen ways, for a change.
Quite a few leading HaD projects have clear sci-fi inspiration, too, and same goes for a large number of Hackaday Prize entries. Over here, we live for fantasy made reality through skill, wit, and insights.
Ever got a sci-fi-esque dream that you’ve tried to implement with modern-day tech, only to fail because something fundamental was missing about how your phone/laptop/smartwatch functions? You’re not alone here, for sure – this describes a large chunk of my tech journey. In real life, you work with audience-tailored devices, the few fun usecases pre-cooked into the hardware-firmware blob.
Still, how much can you build on top of a consumer device? Alternative OSes that liberate you from the trend of enshittification, for instance, that one’s brilliant and a lifeline for preserving one’s sanity. Alternative platforms that bring a reprieve from a modern combative and ad-filled social media environment, sure. Still, feels limited
This week on the big 300th episode, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos teamed up to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. So basically, business as usual.
First up in the news: it’s time for the Hackaday Europe 2025 call for proposals! Do you have a tale of hardware, firmware, or software that must be shared with the Hackaday crowd? Then this is your chance to regale us with a 20- or 40-minute talk. You know we love to hear new voices, so be sure to consider proposing a talk.
On What’s That Sound, it’s a results show week. Congratulations to [Kelvin] who was one of many that correctly identified it as the Wii startup sound. Kristina will just be over here with her Pikachu64 with the light-up cheeks.
Then it’s on to the hacks and such beginning with a rather nice reverse-engineering of the PS1, which surprisingly did it with a two-sided board. Then it’s on to a smartphone home server, magic eye images in a spreadsheet, and the math behind the music of 80s. Finally, we talk about disc cameras, the hovercraft revolution, and a whole mess of keyboards.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Download in DRM-free MP3 and savor at your leisure.
Microsoft’s Recall feature is back. You may remember our coverage of the new AI feature back in June, but for the uninitiated, it was a creepy security trainwreck. The idea is that Windows will take screenshots of whatever is on the screen every few seconds, and use AI to index the screenshots for easier searching. The only real security win at the time was that Microsoft managed to do all the processing on the local machine, instead of uploading them to the cloud. All the images and index data was available unencrypted on the hard drive, and there weren’t any protections for sensitive data.
Things are admittedly better now, but not perfect. The recall screenshots and database is no longer trivially opened by any user on the machine, and Windows prompts the user to set up and authenticate with Windows Hello before using Recall. [Avram] from Tom’s Hardware did some interesting testing on the sensitive information filter, and found that it worked… sometimes.
So, with the public preview of Recall, is it still creepy? Yes. Is it still a security trainwreck? It appears that the security issues are much improved. Time will tell if a researcher discovers a way to decrypt the Recall data outside of the Recall app.
The cable car system of San Francisco is the last manually operated cable car system in the world, with three of the original twenty-three lines still operating today. With these systems being installed between 1873 and 1890, they were due major maintenance and upgrades by the time the 1980s and with it their 100th year of operation rolled around. This rebuilding and upgrading process was recorded in a documentary by a local SF television station, which makes for some fascinating viewing.
San Francisco cable car making its way through traffic. Early 20th century.
While the cars themselves were fairly straight-forward to restore, and the original grips that’d latch onto the cable didn’t need any changes. But there were upgrades to the lubrication used (originally pine tar), and the powerhouse (the ‘barn’) was completely gutted and rebuilt.
As opposed to a funicular system where the cars are permanently attached to the cable, a cable car system features a constantly moving cable that the cars can grip onto at will, with most of the wear and tear on the grip dies. Despite researchers at San Francisco State University (SFSU) investigating alternatives, the original metal grip dies were left in place, despite their 4-day replacement schedule.
Ultimately, the rails and related guides were all ripped out and replaced with new ones, with the rails thermite-welded in place, and the cars largely rebuilt from scratch. Although new technologies were used where available, the goal was to keep the look as close as possible to what it looked at the dawn of the 20th century. While more expensive than demolishing and scrapping the original buildings and rolling stock, this helped to keep the look that has made it a historical symbol when the upgraded system rolled back into action on June 21, 1984.
Decades later, this rebuilt cable car system is still running as smoothly as ever, thanks to these efforts. Although SF’s cable car system is reportedly mostly used by tourists, the technology has seen somewhat of a resurgence. Amidst a number of funicular systems, a true new cable car system can be found in the form of e.g. the MiniMetro system which fills the automated people mover niche.
![A Raspberry Pi-based AVR workstation that uses a Kaypro keyboard and 9" monochrome Apple ][c display.](https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Atari-AVR-workstation.jpg)
