Author: sweethess

The Motorola A780 is a Linux based quad-band GSM phone. Kernel hacker Harald Welte has chosen up one of these phones as well as started poking around in the system. The very first thing of note is that the phone doesn’t utilize the typical lightweight tools discovered in most embedded systems. instead of busybox or uClibc it utilizes their heavier counterparts. The phone likewise has a 2.4 kernel as well as changing to the 2.6 kernel is a long term goal. Harald has effectively developed a compatible toolchain as well as has netfilter/iptables running on the A780. It should be possible to build a firewall between the GPRS as well as the USB connection. other hackers are working on adding the stock Linux bluetooth codebase; this may be one of the very first phones supporting A2DP stereo headsets. The future looks bright for hackers with new exploitable features emerging daily like JTAG pads for both processors as well as debugging callbacks developed into the factory code. Harald Welte will be providing these as well as future discoveries at the 22nd Chaos communication Congress in December.

permalink

sometimes you requirement a great deal more data lines than are offered in a parallel port. Hack-A-Day visitor [abhishek dutta] has written a guide for building jobs linked to the ISA bus. The guide provides you 32 general function I/O lines that you can utilize for complex job like a digital oscilloscope. To make things easier, some tips on debugging are included as well. now to unearth a motherboard with an ISA slot

permalink

before [Woz] produced the sophisticated Disk II interface for the Apple II, as well as before Commodore brute-forced the development of the C64 5 1/4″ drive, just about every house computer utilized cassette tapes for storage. Cassette tapes, mind you, not 8-track tapes. [Alec] believed this was a gross oversight of late 1970s engineers, so he developed a 8-track tape drive.

This really isn’t the very first instance of utilizing 8-tracks to store data on a computer. The Compucolor 8001 had a double outside 8-track drive, as well as the Exidy Sorcerer had a tape drive developed in to the ‘the keyboard is the computer’ type factor. It must be noted that almost nobody has heard about these two computers – the Compucolor offered about 25 units, for example – so we’ll just let that be a testament to the success of 8-track tape drives.

[Alec] installed an 8-track drive inside an old outside SCSI difficult drive enclosure. inside is an Arduino that controls the track select, tape insertion as well as end of tape signals. data is encoded with DTMF with an FSK encoding, just like the appropriate cassette data tapes of the early days.

On the computer side of things, [Alec] is utilizing a basic UNIX-style, pipe-based I/O. By encoding four bits on each track, he’s able to put an entire byte on two stereo tracks. The read/write speed is extremely sluggish – from the video after the break, we’re presuming [Alec] is running his tape drive ideal around 100 bits/second – much slower than really typing in data. This is most likely a issue with the 40-year-old 8-track tape he’s using, however as a proof of idea it’s not as well bad.

[Dave Nunez] desired arcade quality controls when gaming at home. The problem was he couldn’t decide on just one console to target with his build, so he targeted them all. What you see above is a single controller that links to lots of different gaming rigs.

He took a simple-is-best approach, keeping the main goal of top notch inputs at the forefront. To start, he developed the face plate out of thick MDF to make sure it wouldn’t flex or bounce as he mashed the buttons. To keep the electronics as basic as possible he soldered connections to actual controller PCBs (well, reproductions of controllers), breaking each out to a separate DB9 connector on the back of the case. These connectors interface with one of the three adapter cables seen to the right. This lets the controller work with NES, SNES, and an Atari 2600 system.

To pull the enclosure together [Dave] designed the rounded corner pieces and cut them out with a CNC mill. These connect with flat MDF to comprise the sides. To give it that professional look he filled the joints with Bondo and sanded them smooth before painting.

inspect out this manage center which [Awesome0749] developed for introducing fireworks. From the looks of his stock he’s going to be doing rather a bit of celebrating. The manage console is clean as well as offers some security features, as well as he just upgraded to an fascinating ignition technique.

He’s utilizing CAT5 cable to link to the fireworks. At the top of the enclosure you can just make out the edge of the almond-colored wall plates which offer three jacks each. The two secrets on the controller must be turned on to power the device. There is likewise a security toggle switch in the middle.

The ignition is cause by running 70 VDC with a 1/4 Watt 24 Ohm resistor. As you can see in the demo after the break this results in flames rather quickly. One other thing we saw in the presentation is that only the LED for the button which is hooked up comes on when the system is armed. We didn’t see a schematic, however he must have wired this so the system checks for continuity to ensure there’s something wired to the business end of the button.

ever wanted to make the jump from microcontrollers to logic chips? Although not technically the same thing we consider FPGA and CPLD devices to be in similar categories. like FPGAs, complex Programmable Logic devices let you build hardware inside of a chip. and if you’ve got the knack for etching circuit boards you can now build your own CPLD development module. Long-time Hackaday readers will remember our own providing in this area.

Our years of microcontroller experience have taught us a mantra: if it doesn’t work it’s a hardware problem. We have a knack for wasting hours trying to figure out why our code doesn’t work. The majority of the time it’s a hardware issue. and this is why you might not want to design your own dev tools when just starting out. but one thing this guide has going for it is incremental testing. After etching and inspecting the board, it is populated in stages. There is test code available for each stage that will help verify that the hardware is working as expected.

The CPLD is programmed using that 10-pin header. If you don’t have a programmer you can build your own that uses a parallel port. included on the board is an ATtiny2313 which is a good touch as it can simulate all kinds of different hardware to test with your VHDL code. There is also a row of LEDs, a set of DIP switches, and a few breakout headers to boot.

The toner transfer technique of fabricating PCBs is a essential in every maker’s toolbox. Usually, tutorials for this technique of making PCBs depend on a clothes iron or laminating machine. They work completely well, however with both of these techniques (sans high-end laminators), you’re only heating one side of the board at a time, making ideal double-sided PCBs somewhat of a challenge.

[Mark] just came up with an fascinating service to this problem. A waffle iron PCB press. Technically, [Mark] is utilizing his ‘grill as well as waffle baker’ as a two-sided griddle, with a few aluminum plates sandwiching the copper board for great thermal conduction.

After a whole great deal of trial as well as error, [Mark] ultimately got a great transfer onto a piece of copper clad board. now that he has the process dialed in, it ought to be a snap to replicate his results with a new job as well as a new PCB design.