Posts

Featured Post

Pinch Puts an Arduino On a USB-C Connector

Image
Compared to the Arduino Uno of old, modern microcontrollers are absolutely tiny — especially for the amount of processing power and I/O you get. But if you need something  really small, like fits-on-the-tip-of-your-finger small, most of the turn-key development boards on the market are still a bit too big. Enter the pinch from moddo , which they advertise as “The World’s Smallest 32-Bit Arduino- Compatible Board.” We can’t vouch for its world-record status, but we certainly can’t think of a smaller one. At least not a complete solution like this, which offers native USB and 15 GPIO pins in addition to the usual suspects like SPI, I2C, PWM, and UART. In fact, it’s so small that it even includes a breakout board to make prototyping a bit easier. Coming from something like an ESP32, the biggest adjustment will probably be working around the relatively limited specs of the SAMD11. The ARM Cortex-M0+ under the hood tops out at 48 MHz, and there...

DOOM runs (slowly) in a IBM PC-Compatible CSS Sheet

Image
Just when you thought we’d run out of things to port DOOM to, here comes [Ahmed Amer] with his CSS-DOS, a massive 300 MB CSS style sheet, that runs not just DOS, but Windows 1.0 and, of course, DOOM . The CSS sheet isn’t holding a DOOM port this time, though — it’s holding a full IBM PC compatible, with a simulated 8086, 640 kB of RAM, floppy and VGA controllers. Yes, in one style sheet. We did mention it was 300 MB, right? CSS is not a very good programming language. It’s got functions and if statements nowadays, but it doesn’t really do programs in the usual sense. That is, lists of instructions that feed one into another. You can’t change a variable without jumping through hoops. The sort of static behavior you get from a CSS sheet actually matches hardware architecture better than software, which was the key insight [Ahmed] had to make the project possible. It’s still not easy, or elegant, or perhaps even sane , as you can find out ...

Cut And Fold Your 3D Printer’s Next Cover

Image
[cmh]’s  ultra-simple top cover for the Snapmaker U1 3D printer has a 3D model, but don’t let that fool you. There’s no 3D printing at all involved in this project. Rather, the model is a reference shape for making an effective top cover out of cardboard or corrugated plastic sheet (also known as Coroplast) which is what [cmh] used. The pattern can be cut from a single sheet, or from multiple pieces taped together. Corrugated plastic is a versatile option for things like printer enclosures. It’s cheap, a good insulator, easy to cut, and available from just about any plastics supplier. We’ve made the case that they’re a good alternative to acrylic sheets for printer enclosures, but [cmh] goes even further with a design that requires no additional hardware whatsoever. Assembly doesn’t even require more than tape, really. He provides a cutout diagram for pieces that, when assembled, make a sort of hat that is just right to cover the top of the...

FLOSS Weekly Episode 875: JavaScript as a Systems Language

Image
This week Jonathan chats with Nariman Jelveh about Puter! It’s the project that takes the idea of the Browser-as-the-OS seriously. Why did a simulated desktop on the web take off, what the story of making it Open Source, and what’s coming next? Watch to find out! https://github.com/jelveh https://github.com/HeyPuter/puter https://puter.com/ Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel ? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or have the guest contact us! Take a look at the schedule here . Direct Download in DRM-free MP3. If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode . Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast: Spotify RSS Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License from Blog – Hackaday https://ift.tt/Kycb8rW

Benchmarking Repairability Scores with an Asus Tablet

Image
A few years ago, France introduced a mandatory repairability score for consumer goods like laptops and tablets. It involves five criteria that range from documentation and availability of spare parts to ease of disassembly, with the manufacturer using a government-provided checklist to determine their score. Recently Asus determined that their Asus ROG Flow Z13 – model GZ302EA – scored a 10 out of 10 using this system. This led [iFixit] to run the same tablet/laptop hybrid through their own rating system . You can find the filled-out spreadsheet for this device here , with this Asus-provided site showing a list of devices that all score a 10/10 or a measly 9.9/10 according to this system. As a self-reported score it is hard to take it as the objective truth, as there is every incentive for the manufacturer to tweak the truth to their own benefit and gloss over inconveniences. This is where it’s interesting to compare it with [iFixit]’s 7/10 score. On document...

Full Body VR Tracking Is Just Some Recycled Hardware Away

Image
Full body tracking in VR applications involves attaching sensors to one’s body, and [Jaki] has a DIY method to do it on the cheap: the Vive Tracker Lite project repurposes Vive controllers as lighthouse-based trackers, no hardware modifications required. A common method of doing body tracking is to strap on some Vive trackers . Those are extremely hacker-friendly pieces of hardware, but [Jaki] observed that older Vive VR controllers can be had for cheap, and already contain everything a tracker needs. Some new firmware and a custom mount is all it takes to turn them into perfectly usable body trackers. But what about a wireless receiver? [Jaki] has that covered as well with the $5 Viva Dongle , which uses a Pro Micro NRF52840 to act as a cheap DIY alternative to the official dongle hardware. We appreciate the effort put into making this project accessible to everyone, even novices. [Jaki]’s put effort into a Python program with a full GUI to make the flashing of firmware...

The Neo Geo Does Run DOOM After All

Image
Demonstration of the DoomGeo port of Doom to the Neo Geo. (Credit: Sabino, GitHub ) Perhaps the most ridiculous statement that anyone can make is that a computer system with clearly enough processing power ‘cannot run  DOOM ‘. This is why we accept the premise that a PDP-11 cannot run this game, but something on the order of a Neo Geo gaming console with its 68000 processor and for the time impressive GPU definitely ought to be able to. The stated problem here is a lack of RAM for a framebuffer, with the CPU only having 64 kB to play with. This limitation now has seen two different approaches to try and circumvent it, as covered by [Modern Vintage Gamer]. The first project here is Doom64kB , which as the name suggests tries to somehow work with this system RAM limitation. It uses the Doom8088 port for the original IBM PC and similar Intel 8088-based systems. This had to massively reduce the feature list, including the lack of texture mapping for floors and ceiling, no sa...