Raspberry Pi Turns A Novelty Radio Into A Real Computer

July 15, 2014 by Adam Fabio 32 Comments

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[Strider19] remembers the 90’s, and a great little novelty radio he had back then. Shaped like a computer, the radio was a typical AM/FM affair, with the monitor serving as a speaker. His original radio was long gone, but [Strider19] was able to find a replacement on everyone’s favorite auction site. With the replacement radio in hand, he set his plan in motion: Turning it into an epic Raspberry Pi Case.

The Raspberry Pi fit great, but [Strider19’s] 3.5″ composite monitor didn’t quite make it. Following in [Ben Heck’s] footsteps, [Strider19] cut the LCD’s control PCB down to fit the case. A piece of clear polycarbonate protects the fragile LCD from poking fingers. The monitor’s button board, two USB ports, and an external composite input mounted nicely inside the former battery compartment at the rear of the CRT. There’s even enough room back there to hide a USB WiFi adapter.

The Raspi itself fit perfectly into the base of the radio, along with a DC to DC converter, USB hub, real-time clock module, and a whole bunch of wires used to extend the connectors.

The final result is awesome! Thanks to a request on [Strider19’s] Reddit thread, we have pictures of Doom running on a (former) radio. Even Windows 3.1 runs under DosBox, though it took a bit of tweaking to get the display settings just right. Now [Strider19] just needs to figure out how to turn that tiny keyboard into a working model. We think some old school cell phone keyboard hacking may be in order!

JJ Dasher: The Tinkerer (Documentary)

October 5, 2013 by James Hobson 12 Comments

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This isn’t our usual faire, it’s a really cool documentary on a hacker. [JJ Dasher] is a tinkerer from Taylorsville, Utah — and this is his story.

Like many mechanical hackers, he got his start taking apart engines with his dad who owned a motorcycle repair shop at the time. The cover photo above is of his micro-bike project, which can get him going quite fast! He’s also built quite a few tesla coils, and loves picking up things from thrift stores to hack. He’s got a kid now which takes up a lot of his time, but he jokes that his son is just his next big project waiting to be finished.

We’ve actually featured [JJ’s] projects quite a few times before. He brought us the Doombox (handheld Doom-only computer), the awesome brute force GPS PIN cracker, and in the spirit of halloween one of our favorites: a tesla coil that delivers shocking candy!

Stick around after the break to watch the well-filmed documentary — don’t worry, it’s only 8 minutes long!

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Doom For Your Calculator Gets A Color Upgrade

January 19, 2012 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

You’re not still playing nDoom in black and white, are you? What decade do live in? Thankfully, the Doom port for TI-nspire calculators has been upgraded to support color. That is if you’ve got the hardware to run it.

The video after the break (and the image above) shows a TI-nspire CX running the popular first-person-shooter. It’s seen several upgrades since the beta version which we saw piggy-backed with a different TI-83 hack a year ago. The control scheme has been tweaked, and a menu system was added. It’s not the same on-screen menu that you would see with the DOS version of the game, but it accomplishes that same thing. This port is packaged with the Ndless program that unlocks the hardware so that you can perform your own hacks.

Unfortunately there is still no sound available for the game but that is a project for a different time. We know it must be possible because we’ve seen a TI-84+ used to play music stored on a thumb drive. Continue reading “Doom For Your Calculator Gets A Color Upgrade” →

Doom II On Epaper Display

April 10, 2011 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

We love to see Doom ported to new hardware because it usually means that someone has found a way around the manufacturer’s security measures. But the most exciting thing for us to see this time is that Doom II is played on an epaper display. These are notorious for slow refresh rates, but as you can see in the video after the break, this one achieves an admirably fast page redraw.

According to a translation of the original forum post, the PocketBook 360° Plus boasts a 5″ E Ink Pearl screen, 533 MHz Freescale i.MX35 ARM11 processor, 128 Mb of RAM, 2 gigs of storage, and WiFi. No word on price for one of these babies as it seems they’ve not yet been release. Remind anyone of the green monochrome goodness from the original Game Boy?

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Robot Hand Has No Problem Giving You The Finger

January 26, 2011 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

Get your Terminator clichés ready, this robot hand reeks of Skynet. It is designed to function like the human hand, but the main goal is one of robustness. A lot of effort went into making sure this won’t break in the field. Instead of rigid gears, a system of tendons actuates each digit. The pulleys that control these are located in the forearm and each has a spring mechanism that helps to cushion shocks to the apparatus which might damage other grippers. It has bone-crushing power behind the 19 degrees of movement and, as you’ve already guessed, this comes at a pretty steep price tag; topping out around 100,000 Euros. It’s more complicated, and more expensive that jamming grippers, but it’s also far scarier. See for yourself in the silent movie after the break.

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DoomBox: Classic Keys Meet Tiny Screen

March 1, 2010 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

The doomBox is a dedicated gaming rig for lovers of ID Software’s classic title. [JJ] built this from an old Kodak DC290 camera that had a broken lens. Since this runs the Digita OS, he was able to use the Doom port that already exists. But the camera’s factory buttons were not well suited as controls. By whipping up his own button board, and using the traditional keyboard keys for the button caps, he achieved a much more comfortable (yet squint-inducing) gaming experience. The finished project resides in an all-too-familiar black project box. See him fire it up after the break.

The original Doom for Digita OS pages seem to be down so here’s an alternate if you’re interested.

Update: Looks like the original website is back up.

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Polycarbonate Fish Uses Three Servos To Swim

October 17, 2009 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

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[Amnon] is learning the hard way that water and electronics don’t always like to play nicely together. He’s been working on creating a swimming fish that uses three servos to flex a sheet of fish-shaped polycarbonate. This photo doesn’t really do the project justice but you can get a better idea of what he’s accomplished by watching the videos after the break.

The three servos along with some distance sensors for obstacle avoidance are all controlled by a PIC 16F877A microcontroller. [Amnon] tried out three different waterproofing methods; coating the device in varnish, dipping it in hot glue, and dipping it in epoxy. The first two resulted in water damage to the electronics, but the third managed to work. It kept the water out, but also prevents reprogramming of the controller.

Although not successful, we would have loved to see the process of dipping the fish in a churning vat of molten glue. Once perfected, this may be the perfect platform for carrying our weapons of doom.

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