Building The DIY HP41C: A Field Report

December 3, 2021 by Al Williams 21 Comments

I have a confession to make. I write about a lot of projects for Hackaday, but there are very few I read about and then go actually build a copy of it. I don’t have a lot of time and I’m usually too busy building my own stuff. But once in a while, something strikes my fancy and I’ll either raid the junk box or buy the kit. The most recent case of that was the PX-41C, a replica of the classic HP-41C.

The HP-41C is a somewhat legendary reverse-polish notation calculator. I still have my original HP-41C from 1979 (a very low serial number). It is still a workhorse but at 43 years old or so, I don’t like to leave it hanging around or near anything that might damage it. It has enough wear from the daily use it received 40 years ago. Sure, I have great emulation on my phone and I use that too, but the PX-41C kit looked fun, and with all through-hole parts it would be a quick build. The black Friday sale on Tindie sealed the deal for me.

Start-Up

The kit arrived on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I decided to tackle it while waiting for some 3D prints. The components were all nicely bagged and marked. Tearing into the bags was a bit frustrating, but not hard and it did keep everything separate. There was a bill of materials, but — I thought — no instructions. Turns out the last part of the bill of materials is a link to some instructions. They aren’t much and I didn’t realize they were until after completing the board, but it isn’t hard to figure out. All the parts are marked on the silkscreen and you can probably figure it out — with a few caveats.

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This Week In Security: GoDaddy, Tardigrade, Monox, And BigSig

December 3, 2021 by Jonathan Bennett 10 Comments

After the Thanksgiving break, we have two weeks of news to cover, so hang on for an extra-long entry. First up is GoDaddy, who suffered a breach starting on September 6th. According to an SEC filing, they noticed the problem on November 17th, and determined that there was unauthorized access to their provisioning system for their WordPress hosting service. For those keeping track at home, that’s two months and eleven days that a malicious actor had access. And what all was compromised? The email address and customer number of the approximate 1.2 million GoDaddy WordPress users; the initial WordPress password, in the clear; the SFTP and database passwords, also in the clear; and for some customers, their private SSL key.

The saving grace is that it seems that GoDaddy’s systems are segregated well enough that this breach doesn’t seem to have led to further widespread compromise. It’s unclear why passwords were stored in the clear beyond the initial setup procedure. To be safe, if you have a WordPress instance hosted by GoDaddy, you should examine it very carefully for signs of compromise, and rotate associated passwords. The SSL keys may be the most troubling, as this would allow an attacker to impersonate the domain. Given the length of time the attack had access, it would not surprise me to learn that more of GoDaddy’s infrastructure was actually compromised. Continue reading “This Week In Security: GoDaddy, Tardigrade, Monox, And BigSig” →

Motorsports Are Turning To Alternative Fuels

December 2, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 53 Comments

As the world grapples with the issue of climate change, there’s a huge pressure to move transport away from carbon-based fuels across the board. Whether it’s turning to electric cars for commuting or improving the efficiency of the trucking industry, there’s much work to be done.

It’s a drop in the ocean in comparison, but the world of motorsports has not escaped attention when it comes to cleaning up its act. As a result, many motorsports are beginning to explore the use of alternative fuels in order to reduce their impact on the environment.

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Ask Hackaday: Why Don’t Automakers Make Their Own EV Batteries?

December 1, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 88 Comments

Sales of electric vehicles continue to climb, topping three million cars worldwide last year. All these electric cars need batteries, of course, which means demand for rechargeable cells is through the roof.

All those cells have to come from somewhere, of course, and many are surprised to learn that automakers don’t manufacture EV batteries themselves. Instead, they’re typically sourced from outside suppliers. Today, you get to Ask Hackaday: why aren’t EV batteries manufactured by the automakers themselves? Continue reading “Ask Hackaday: Why Don’t Automakers Make Their Own EV Batteries?” →

What’s The Deal With UEFI?

November 30, 2021 by Matthew Carlson 98 Comments

It seems like there are two camps, the small group of people who care about UEFI and everyone else who doesn’t really notice or care as long as their computer works. So let’s talk about what UEFI is, how it came to be, what it’s suitable for, and why you should (or shouldn’t) care.

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Linux Fu: The Ultimate Dual Boot Laptop?

November 30, 2021 by Al Williams 37 Comments

I must confess, that I try not to run Windows any more than absolutely necessary. But for many reasons, it is occasionally necessary. In particular, I have had several laptops that are finicky with Linux. I still usually dual boot them, but I often leave Windows on them for one reason or another. I recently bought a new Dell Inspiron and the process of dual booting it turned out to be unusually effective but did bring up a few challenges.

If you ever wanted a proper dual-booting laptop, you’ll be interested in how this setup works. Sure, you can always repartition the drive, but the laptop has a relatively small drive and is set up very specifically to work with the BIOS diagnostics and recovery so it is always a pain to redo the drive without upsetting the factory tools.

Since the laptop came with a 512 GB NVMe drive, I wanted to upgrade the drive anyway. So one option would have been to put a bigger drive in and then go the normal route. That was actually my intention, but I wound up going a different way.

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Prusa XL Goes Big, But That’s Only Half The Story

November 29, 2021 by Tom Nardi 44 Comments

For a few years now it’s been an open secret that Prusa Research was working on a larger printer named, imaginatively enough, the Prusa XL. Positioned at the opposite end of their product spectrum from the wildly popular Prusa Mini, this upper-tier machine would be for serious hobbyists or small companies that need to print single-part objects that were too large for their flagship i3 MK3S+ printer. Unfortunately, the global COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for the Czech company to focus on bringing a new product to market, to the point that some had begun to wonder if we’d ever see this mythical machine.

But now, finally, the wait is over. Or perhaps, it’s just beginning. That’s because while Prusa Research has officially announced their new XL model and opened preorders for the $1,999+ USD printer, it’s not expected to ship until at least the second quarter of 2022. That’s already a pretty substantial lead time, but given Prusa’s track record when it comes to product launches, we wouldn’t be surprised if early adopters don’t start seeing their machines until this time next year.

So what do you get for your money? Well, not an over-sized Prusa i3, that’s for sure. While many had speculated the XL would simply be a larger version of the company’s popular open source printer with a few modern niceties like a 32-bit control board sprinkled in, the reality is something else entirely. While the high purchase price and ponderous dimensions of the new machine might make it a tough sell for many in the hacker and maker communities, there’s little question that the technical improvements and innovations built into the Prusa XL provide a glimpse of the future for the desktop 3D printer market as a whole.

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