handhelds hacks

381 Articles

How To Root A Nook

December 17, 2009 by 16 Comments

Here’s the latest in rooted consumer devices, nookdevs.com has rooted the Barnes & Noble Nook eBook reader. The process is extremely easy, as the operating system is stored on a 2GB SD card inside the device. In fact, once you have the case open the hard part is over. From there, the card should be backed up for safe keeping. Now mount the card, enable the Android Debug Bridge and reassemble. The Android SDK can then be used to log into a shell on the Nook wirelessly.

We’re not sure there’s much that can be done past this point yet. It’s up to you to get Doom running!

[techknott]’s Portable Dreamcast

December 16, 2009 by 9 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOZvlEOZaCg]

[Sydney] sent in this fantastic portable Dreamcast, built by [techknott], in response to the one we posted yesterday. While we agree, this one is much more polished, we want to point out why the post yesterday is more Hack A Day material. Sure, it looks more “hackish”, but that’s not what we are referring to. What we want to draw your attention to, is the lack of information. Yesterday, there was a build log. Today, there is not. Sure the other one could have had much much more information and we’re not commenting on which one is “better”. We’re just reminding you to please please please document your projects. Oh, and also, this thing is awesome.

Odroid: All The Open, None Of The Contract

December 14, 2009 by 33 Comments

The Odroid derives its name from the combination of Open and Android. The hardware is aimed at the portable gaming market and runs Android. The specs are amazing, the device is open and begging you to develop for the platform.

The Samsung S5PC100 System-On-A-Chip provides the device with an ARM Cortex-A8 processor running at 833MHz. The usual suspects are all here, a capacitive touchscreen, accelerometer, SDHC slot, and WiFi. What you usually don’t expect to see is a serial debugger and 720p HD output. But the best part, we get all of this without a 2 year contract or the hardware being locked down as we’re used to with and Android based cell phone.

[Thanks Stillbourne via LinuxDevices]

Embedded Games: Rogue

December 12, 2009 by 10 Comments

Here’s a handheld version of Rogue. Rogue is one of the first graphical computer games and takes the player through a dungeon-exploring adventure. [Manuel] built this around a PIC 16F876 microcontroller and a KS0108 graphic LCD screen.

Hot on the heels of the pixellated Mario game, these embedded handhelds make for fun projects and great gifts. There are few parts used and [Manuel] etched his own PCB. Take a look at the schematic, this is a great platform to start with but the sky’s the limit on writing your own games.

Pink Wireless-terminal Of Wonder

November 30, 2009 by 53 Comments

[Hunter Davis] is at it again, this time hacking the pink IM-ME to use as a wireless terminal. It sells for between $12-16 and he ordered it to get free shipping with another purchase. The wireless antenna registered as an HID device when he plugged it into his Linux box. He then sat down for a long USB sniffing session only to be surprised by the lack of any type of security. Everything transferred to the device is just plain text in hexidecimal. Because of possible DMCA issues he hasn’t posted a driver but does explain most of the process to write your own.

[Hunter] has given us a lot of handheld hacks. This device is meant as a remote terminal for instant messaging. We’re sure you can think up a lot better uses so let us know in the comments and don’t forget to send in any projects you come up with.

[Thanks Paul]

8-bit Device Quenches IPhone Envy

November 3, 2009 by 69 Comments

avr-iphone-envy

[Peter] deserves an award for doing more with less. He’s built a handheld device based on an AVR controller that has features normally associated with much more powerful devices. Here’s what it doesn’t do: no phone calls, no text messages, no accelerometer, and best of all no app approval needed. What it does do is leverage inexpensive, readily available components combined with common homebrew development techniques to create a touch sensitive handheld.

The demo video embedded after the break details the device playing video, rendering 3D objects, and displaying pictures and ebooks with touch scrolling. All of this is running at 60 fps for a smooth picture. The whole thing is no larger than the 320×240 LCD that he salvaged from a broken MP3 player. An Atmel AVR ATmega644 microcontroller ties together the display, a resistive touch screen, and a microSD card for storage. The chip also controls the backlight, a Lithium Polymer battery, and uses USB for PC connectivity, charging, and even a mouse or keyboard interface. He etched the PCB himself for surface mount components and managed to do it with just four jumpers needed on the underside.

This is a big leap forward from the last AVR based touch sensitive device we saw. All of the functionality seen in the demo is run using 4k of memory and 32k of programming space. Because [Peter’s] powering this at 3.3v the system clock is limited to 12MHz but he’s managed to make it work. We asked him to post code and schematics and he didn’t hold back. Head over to the microtouch project page to download the code, Eagle CAD files, and PCB artwork. All of the demo files are there just waiting for you to build on his hard work. When you’ve got something running, don’t forget to share it with us!

Continue reading “8-bit Device Quenches IPhone Envy” →

We’ll Take The Fries.

November 1, 2009 by 32 Comments

fjdkalfjdklajfdaflj

We’ve all been there; hardest decision we’ve ever had to make. College and debt or freedom but no career? Start a family or live out alone? The number 2 with a small shake or side of fries?!

[Leon] sent in his random number generator, oddly enough not to just generate a number, but help us through with those life altering decisions. Using a noise diode like setup he’s able to generate random bits, which an ATtiny24 then converts and displays on a 7 segment LED. His generator also has the ability to set upper and lower limits. Seems like an awful lot of work to avoid the freedom of choice paradox, but we enjoyed the project none the less. Check out a video after the break. Continue reading “We’ll Take The Fries.” →