Misc Hacks

4191 Articles

Ruckingenur II: Reverse Engineering Video Game

August 25, 2008 by 31 Comments


[Zach Barth] has released Ruckingenur II, the game of reverse engineering. The latest in his Games for Engineers series, it is a full game with multiple levels and live action cut scenes. Set with a military theme, the goal is to reverse engineer enemy items. Pictured above is a lock to a weapons cache.

The pixelized style is consistent throughout. Even the cut scenes have the effect. The reverse engineering is fun enough to keep you interested while you learn. There is an in game help system that keeps you on track as well. Our only suggestion is that he get some better costumes next time!

Hacking The Elefun

August 25, 2008 by 21 Comments


In a move reminiscent of many episodes of Home Improvement, [Xenon] decided to soup up one of his children’s toys. The Elefun is a toy the shape of an elephant that uses a built in fan to blow little butterflies into the air. They are notoriously weak and eat batteries like crazy. They don’t even have a plug for a wall adapter for power.

[Xenon] dug out a 7.5 V wall adapter from an old DSL modem. Since the Elefun normally ran on 6V, he figured this would give the toy a much needed boost. He began to open things up and prepare the soldering iron when he realized that he could just jam the wires into the terminals. The battery compartment screws shut, providing nice safety against electric shock.

He ended up with a much more pleasant experience for his little boy. The Elefun now jumps to life, spewing the butterflies out with ease. It actually shoots them out so quickly, he had to make some more just so the game would last longer.

This may not be the most complex hack or the most impressive execution. [Xenon] deserves some credit though, He recognized the design problems and made his own fixes for them. There’s at least one Elefun in the households of the Hack A Day staff that will be getting this treatment.
[thanks Chris]

SMD Soldering Practice Kit

August 24, 2008 by 9 Comments


Here’s an interesting kit put together just to help you work on your SMD soldering skills. It’s got 49 SMD LEDs on the front with a programming header and switch jumper. The back has an ATtiny26L and a coin cell. At only 3V, power management is essential; all of the example programs are only addressing one LED at a time (imperceptible to the human eye). If you turn on too many LEDs at the same time, the voltage drop could cause the AVR to reset. Included example programs are a scrolling marque, bouncing balls, and Conway’s game of life. SparkFun has tutorials for regular SMD soldering and using a reflow skillet. The video below shows the kit builder attaching just one LED using the heat and slide method.

Continue reading “SMD Soldering Practice Kit” →

Improved Jog Wheel

August 24, 2008 by 1 Comment


Taking a cue from the jog wheel we posted last week, [42ndOddity] has built an improved version. The design is based around a solid state rotary encoder instead of an optical encoder. The rotary encoder is far easier to attach and position properly. The knob is milled from scrap aluminum-it was a copier foot. To make the motion smooth, it’s sitting in a bearing from the same copier.

Rebooting The Magic SysRq Way

August 24, 2008 by 6 Comments


[Cory Wright] shares a tip on how to reboot a system with a failed hard drive remotely. The magic SysRq key is a linux kernel feature that lets you perform a number of interesting operations. If you’re working on a remote system where the disk has failed, you won’t have access to the reboot or shutdown commands. You can issue keystrokes to the magic SysRq device in /proc though, so you can send a hard reboot directly to the kernel with no disk access required.

The Wikipedia entry includes a handy tip on how to properly restart a otherwise frozen machine. It should save you from having to fsck the next time around.

[photo: Joshua Davis]

Best Firefox 3 Extensions

August 23, 2008 by 43 Comments


We generally try to limit the number of extensions we install for security, performance, and because we use a lot of different systems. That’s not to say there aren’t a lot of interesting addons out there and Mozilla has recently announced the winners of their Extend Firefox 3 Contest. Lifehacker has a full rundown of each of the winners. Nothing really stands out in our eyes (although we might try Last.fm’s toolbar).

The three extensions we always end up installing are Firebug, Greasemonkey, and Flashblock. What are yours?

MySQLgame, Playing With Database Queries

August 23, 2008 by 12 Comments


mySQLgame is a quirky App Engine game that has decided to forgo flashy UIs and just stick with the core of the system: a database. You start the game by creating your own row in the shared game database. Game time increments your fuel and money resources every ten seconds. Fuel is spent on scanning other rows and for attacking. Money is used for upgrades and building units. Build up resources and attack your neighbors using database queries, just like any other game. Like a bit more gloss on your internet metagames? Have a look at trolling simulator Forumwarz.

[via Waxy]