[Dave] sent in his retro Mac project. Putting new guts into an old mac isn’t really unheard of, but I liked his solution to use the original Mac 512k keyboard and mouse. He used an Atmel AT90USB162 to create his own standard USB HID device. The keyboard and mouse appear as a standard USB device, so the mac (or any modern USB PC) can identify use the keyboard and mouse without any additional software.
Misc Hacks4181 Articles
NTP Alarm Clock
[bifferos] just found us, but he sent in his NTP alarm clock. It’s actually a Sweex LB200021 router with a custom display driver to display 24 hour time. Given my love of NTP, I couldn’t resist posting this one.
Friday Night Double Cap Extra
[scott] sent along his lego ipod dock.
The letter [M] brings us the oscilloscope terminal (AVR based text displayed via oscope).
[Max] sent in his funky alarm clock mod.
[Chad] sent in a question, but I dig his custom camera housings.
[sprite_tm] sent in his new use for a cheap photo display.
UPDATE: Torrents for all the talks at the Chaos Communication Congress have been posted.
Electric Roach Motel
[Luhan] built this PIC controlled roach motel. It’s the first micro-controller project that I’ve seen devoted to exterminating a member of the insect world. A PIC 16F675 is used to generate 10 pulses at 400 volts per second. Crispy.
Great Intro To Surface Mount Soldering
[Scott] sent in his video how-to on surface mount soldering. The macro video quality is excellent, and the demo is great even if you’re already into SMD work. Everything can be done with fine solder, a decent soldering station, tweezers, a 10x loupe and a good selection of flux. I’ve managed quite a bit of SMD work without external flux, but this sort of demo shows just how effective it is.
How To Make A Vacuum Tube
[marco] sent in this video (scroll down) showing how to make a vacuum tube by hand. The page and captions are in french, but it’s pretty interesting to watch. A small spot welder, some fairly basic glass working tools and a vacuum generator are required, but the technology is definitely within reach for the dedicated hardware hacker.
Nixie Counter Clock
[lerneaen hydra] sent in his version of the ubiquitous nixie clock. Rather than gut his counter for the tubes, he used an Atmel Mega88 to pulse the clock to display the time. Additionally, the LED matrix on the case outputs the time in binary. His past projects are worth checking out. He milled the case on his converted CNC mill, retrofitted an old CNC lathe and seems to enjoy putting supercaps in everything (including his clock).
