Micropython Binaries For The ESP8266 To Be Released

July 11, 2016 by Elliot Williams 20 Comments

MicroPython is a Kickstarted project that brings Python to small, embeddable devices. As part of the terms of the Kickstarter, supporters were to get exclusive access to binary builds, with a few exceptions. Now it looks like the ESP8266-version is going to be added to the binary list. This is awesome news for anyone who enjoys playing around with the popular WiFi chip.

But even more heartwarming is the overwhelming response of the Kickstarter’s backers for making the binary builds public. Basically everyone was in favor of opening the binaries up to the general public, and many wrote that they wanted public binaries all along. People can be so giving.

But there’s also something in it for them! The more people get behind MicroPython, the more (free and paid) development support it will warrant, and the more bug reports it will garner. Wins all around. So keep clicking refresh on the binary list until you see it live. Or better yet, if you’re interested, head over to the forum. (Or just wait for us to cover it here. You know we will.)

Hackaday Prize Entry: Modular, Low Cost Braille Display

July 9, 2016 by Bryan Cockfield 21 Comments

A lot of work with binary arithmetic was pioneered in the mid-1800s. Boolean algebra was developed by George Boole, but a less obvious binary invention was created at this time: the Braille writing system. Using a system of raised dots (essentially 1s and 0s), visually impaired people have been able to read using their sense of touch. In the modern age of fast information, however, it’s a little more difficult. A number of people have been working on refreshable Braille displays, including [Madaeon] who has created a modular refreshable Braille display.

The idea is to recreate the Braille cell with a set of tiny solenoids. The cell is a set of dots, each of which can be raised or lowered in a particular arrangement to represent a letter or other symbol. With a set of solenoids, this can be accomplished rather rapidly. [Madaeon] has already prototyped these miniscule controllable dots using the latest 3D printing and laser cutting methods and is about ready to put together his first full Braille character.

While this isn’t quite ready for a full-scale display yet, the fundamentals look like a solid foundation for building one. This is all hot on the heels of perhaps the most civilized patent disagreement in history regarding a Braille display that’s similar. Hopefully all the discussion and hacking of Braille displays will bring the cost down enough that anyone who needs one will easily be able to obtain and use one.

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Punch Card Reader For The 10 Types Of People In The World

February 22, 2016 by Dan Maloney 7 Comments

Punch card data input is so 1890 US Census, right? Maybe not, if your goal is to educate kids about binary numbers and how they can encode characters. In which case, this paper clip and metal tape punch card reader might be just the thing you need.

Built as part of the educational outreach efforts of the MakeICT hackerspace, this project allows kids and adults to play with binary numbers and get some instant feedback. The reader itself is a simple affair of wood and plastic; bent paperclips make contact with a foil tape strip and LEDs show the state of the five input bits. A card is provided to students with spaces for the letters of a word that they want to input, along with a table to translate each letter into a number. Students use a paper punch to encode each character in binary. As the card is pulled through the reader, the letters are spoken by the Pi in turn and the whole word is pronounced at the end.

We’ll no doubt hear quibbles with the decision not to use ASCII for the character set, but we can see the logic in keeping the number of bits to a minimum and not distracting from the learning process. What’s cool about this is that it engages kids on so many levels. They learn about binary numbers, encoding systems, interfacing a computer to the real world, and if they care to delve deeper, they can learn about the code behind everything. It’s a great hook into the hacking arts.

And once the kids learn a thing or two, maybe they can use this punch-card Twitter interface to tweet their new-found knowledge.

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Calculator Built In Super Mario Level. Mamma Mia!

February 10, 2016 by Richard Baguley 19 Comments

Most people use the Super Mario Maker to, well, create Super Mario game levels. [Robin T] decided to try something a little different: building a working calculator. Several hundred hours later, he created the Cluttered Chaos Calculator, which definitely lives up to the name. What this Super Mario level contains is a 3-bit digital computer which can add two numbers between 0 and 7, all built from the various parts that the game offers. To use it, the player enters two numbers by jumping up in a grid, then they sit back and enjoy the ride as Mario is carried through the process, until it finally spits out the answer in a segment display.

It’s not going to be winning any supercomputer prizes, as it takes about two minutes to add the two digits. But it is still an incredibly impressive build, and shows what a dedicated hacker can do with a few simple tools and a spiny shell or two.

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Build Some Entertainment For Young Holiday Guests

December 26, 2015 by Mike Szczys 1 Comment

Need a good excuse to duck out on the family over the holidays and spend a few hours in your shop? [Jens] has just the thing. He built a color-mixing toy that looks great and we’d bet you have everything on-hand necessary to build your own version.

The body of the toy is an old router case. Who doesn’t have a couple might-be-broken-but-I-kept-it-anyway routers sitting around? Spray painted red, it looks fantastic! The plastic shell hosts 6 RGB LEDs, 3 toggle switches, and 2 buttons. [Jens] demonstrates the different features in the demo video below. They include a mode to teach counting in Binary, color mixing using the color knobs, and a few others.

Everything is driven by an Arduino Pro Mini. The lights are APA106 LEDs; a 4-pin through-hole package version of the WS2812 pixels. You could easily substitute these for the surface mount varieties if you just hot glue them to the underside of the holes in the panel. We’d love to see some alternate arrangements for LEDs and a couple more push buttons for DIY Simon Says.

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The IBM 1401’s Unique Qui-Binary Arithmetic

November 5, 2015 by Brandon Dunson 12 Comments

Old mainframe computers are interesting, especially to those of us who weren’t around to see them in action. We sit with old-timers and listen to their stories of the good ol’ days. They tell us about loading paper tape or giving instructions one at a time with toggle switches and LED output indicators. We hang on every word because its interesting to know how we got to this point in the tech-timeline and we appreciate the patience and insanity it must have taken to soldier on through the “good ol’ days”.

[Ken Shirriff] is making those good ol’ days come alive with a series of articles relating to his work with hardware at the Computer History Museum. His latest installment is an article describing the strange implementation of the IBM 1401’s qui-binary arithmetic. Full disclosure: It has not been confirmed that [Ken] is an “old-timer” however his article doesn’t help the argument that he isn’t.

Ken describes in thorough detail how the IBM 1401 — which was first introduced in 1959 — takes a decimal number as an input and operates on it one BCD digit at a time. Before performing the instruction the BCD number is converted to qui-binary. Qui-binary is represented by 7 bits, 5 qui bits and 2 binary bits: 0000000. The qui portion represents the largest even number contained in the BCD value and the binary portion represents a 1 if the BCD value is odd or a 0 for even. For example if the BCD number is 9 then the Q8 bit and the B1 bit are set resulting in: 1000010.

The qui-binary representation makes for easy error checking since only one qui bit should be set and only one binary bit should be set. [Ken] goes on to explain more complex arithmetic and circuitry within the IBM 1401 in his post.

If you aren’t familiar with [Ken], we covered his reverse engineering of the Sinclair Scientific Calculator, his explanation of the TL431, and of course the core memory repair that is part of his Computer History Museum work.

Thanks for the tip [bobomb].

Open Source Binary Wristwatch Is Professional Quality

March 8, 2015 by Rick Osgood 29 Comments

If you want to proclaim to the world that you’re a geek, one good way to go about it is to wear a wristwatch that displays the time in binary. [Jordan] designs embedded systems, and he figured that by building this watch he could not only build up his geek cred but also learn a thing or two about working with PIC microcontrollers for low power applications. It seems he was able to accomplish both of these goals.

The wristwatch runs off of a PIC18F24J11 microcontroller. This chip seemed ideal because it included a built in real-time clock and calendar source. It also included enough pins to drive the LEDs without the need of a shift register. The icing on the cake was a deep sleep mode that would decrease the overall power consumption.

The watch contains three sets of LEDs to display the information. Two green LEDs get toggled back and forth to indicate to the user whether the time or date is being displayed. When the time is being displayed, the green LED toggles on or off each second. The top row of red LEDs displays either the current hour or month. The bottom row of blue LEDs displays the minutes or the day of the month. The PCB silk screen has labels that help the user identify what each LED is for.

The unit is controlled via two push buttons. The three primary modes are time, date, and seconds. “Seconds” mode changes the bottom row of LEDs so they update to show how many seconds have passed in the current minute. [Jordan] went so far as to include a sort of animation in between modes. Whenever the mode is changed, the LED values shift in from the left. Small things like that really take this project a step further than most.

The board includes a header to make it easy to reprogram the PIC. [Jordan] seized an opportunity to make extra use out of this header. By placing the header at the top of the board, and an extra header at the bottom, he was able to use a ribbon cable as the watch band. The cable is not used in normal operation, but it adds that extra bit of geekiness to an already geeky project.

[Jordan] got such a big response from the Internet community about this project that he started selling them online. The only problem is he sold out immediately. Luckily for us, he released all of the source code and schematics on GitHub so we can make our own.