Fix 0LBA And BSY HDD Errors

February 28, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 21 Comments

One of the worst moments almost every hacker has experienced is a hard drive inexplicably dieing. And of course, its at the most inopportune time and you’ve had no chance to backup!

Recently there has been an influx of Seagate hard drives (specifically the 2700.11s) kicking the bucket with firmware errors 0LBA and BSY. The good news is [Gradius2] has made guides to unbrick your drive without having to match serials.

The procedure is lengthy, complicated, can easily become expensive, and there is the possibility of losing your data so it’s not recommended if you’re only getting those pictures of Mr.Fluffykins back. In such a case, Thermite might be a bit better solution.

[Thanks Calvin]

Lower Productivity By Using A Rotary Num Pad

February 26, 2010 by Mike Szczys 30 Comments

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/9618204]

[Maximilian Ernestus] sent us a quick little demo that shows him using a rotary phone dial as a num pad. We’re often frustrated when notebooks and netbooks prohibit us from using our mad 10-key skills (alternate key mapping doesn’t count). This makes coding and using GnuCash undesirable on small form factor portables.

Instead of fixing the problem, [Maximilian] made it worse by interfacing a rotary phone as a num pad. An Arduino counts the pulses and feeds them to the computer via a serial connection. From there it’s just a bit of software handling to issue a keypress. He mentions that a future version should register as a USB keyboard. This is a great opportunity to ditch the Arduino and use the V-USB library.

Want to dig a bit deeper into this old technology? Don’t miss out on the information available from the Magic Phone hack.

Python IR Tracking For The Handicapped

February 25, 2010 by Mike Szczys 18 Comments

[Techb] had a friend who was paralyzed after an accident and could no long use a computer. He rigged up an amazingly simple mouse interface using python to implement infrared tracking. The controller was built from an old hat by adding an IR LED and wireless mouse modified so that the button could be clicked by the user’s mouth. A webcam with exposed film used as a filter can track the IR LED and take input from the wireless mouse buttons.

This setup, which draws inspiration from Wii Remote white boards, is much simpler than the Eyewriter (and doesn’t shine an IR LED into your eye). Although [Techb] wants to add facial recognition to the system, there’s something to be said for such a simple implementation.

[Thanks Wolfmankurd]

Oscilloscope Doubles As A Serial Terminal

February 24, 2010 by Phil Burgess 25 Comments

PC-based USB oscilloscopes are fast becoming all the rage. [Matt Sarnoff’s] Terminalscope takes the reverse approach, adapting an oscilloscope into a full serial terminal. You may have seen something similar before in the Dutchtronix/SparkFun O-Clock, but [Matt’s] project goes one further by adding a PS/2 keyboard port for full bidirectional serial communication, and with much sharper display resolution to boot.

The mostly VT-100 compatible Terminalscope is built around two AVR microcontrollers: an ATmega328P runs full-tilt to generate the video signal and handle serial I/O, while an ATtiny45 handles keyboard input to avoid interrupting the ’328’s duties. Rather than vector trace each character, a raster-scanning approach is used: the beam follows a fixed X/Y path (like a television), while modulating the Z input (beam intensity) to form an image. The device can be connected to a PC via serial port or USB-to-TTY adapter, or directly to another microcontroller to debug serial output.

We recently showed an oscilloscope being used as a multichannel digital logic display. The Terminalscope provides yet another use for this essential bench tool and could nicely round out a “poor man’s” testing setup. The schematic and full source code are available for download.

Flexi Knobs

February 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

These boxes, called Flexi Knobs, work like a wireless Atari paddle and mouse rolled into one. Each has a rotary encoder that can also be clicked like a button. On the inside is a wireless optical mouse which controls an on-screen cursor which matches the color of the knob. In the video after the break you can see these are being used as midi controls. Each cursor can be locked onto a virtual knob, giving it a physical interface. Because there are several units being used on one machine this creates something of an abstract multi-touch system. This would make a nice interface for other applications with a plethora of settings, like Blender.

Continue reading “Flexi Knobs” →

Glove Mouse

February 19, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 23 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZB2K1wlaZo]

[thetanktheory] sent us his glove mouse modification. He has gutted his mouse and mounted the parts on a glove. This is interesting, as he doesn’t have to place his hand on the mouse any more, he just plops it down on any surface and starts mousing. He claims that it is helping his twitch reactions in gaming as somehow it requires less force, but we still see the circuit and batteries mounted on the back of his hand, so we’re not sure how it is helping. Maybe if he moved the laser to his finger tips, he’d be more accurate.

HMD Upgrade

February 15, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 18 Comments

[Banfield Design] has put together this instructable on how to upgrade or re build a head mounted display to be more immersive and add features. Though you can already buy glasses style viewers for your media devices, they can use some upgrades. For one, you have to supply your own sound, and putting headphones on, over bulky glasses can be painful on your ears. Another area that could use improvement is the light that comes in around the glasses. The current trend is to make them as small as possible, but that tends to let your peripheral vision see the outside world. [Banfield design] wanted to make them more immersive, so he built them into some ski goggles. This not only helped block the light, but allowed for an over the ear style headphone assembly which is much easier on the ears.

A functional improvement came next, by adding a webcam front and center. He could now switch between a live feed of his environment and whatever other inputs he wanted. This could be really fun with some augmented reality. He has a list of future improvements, but he doesn’t mention adding a second camera for stereoscopic viewing of his surroundings. Why would you do that? because it would make augmented reality much cooler.