91
Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard
I've been typing for 20+ years and this is one of my favorite general purpose / programming keyboards when factoring in a few things.
Topics /
Hardware & Electronics
The most popular blog posts about hardware & electronics on Hacker News. 165 posts.
92
93
94
A DIY Cruise Missile (2004)
I'd like to thank all those who have emailed me with their opinions, condemnations and support. The fact that I get so many emails obviously means that my goal of raising public awareness is working. Instead of answering the same questions and restating my perspectives repeatedly, I've been talked into writing a book…
95
Unsung Beauty of Analog Devices Datasheets
Engineers build stuff. They need to put together complex systems, most often from pieces that others have built. I jokingly talk to my colleagues that software engineering is similar to plumbing - take various pieces of software and link them through an interface (API or in case of real plumbing - connectors,
96
Adventures Building a Self-Driving RC Car
Having read some amazing books on Machine Learning, I had been looking for opportunities to apply ML from first principles in the real world. That was what got me curious about the wonderful Donkey Car project. The project is essentially a how-to guide to building your own RC car which can drive itself around a track…
97
New chips for machine intelligence
This note summarises details of some of the new silicon chips for machine intelligence. Its aim is to distil the most important implementation and architectural details (at least those that are currently available), to highlight the main differences between them. I’m focusing on chips designed for training since they…
98
Making a Menger sponge in stained glass
Over the course of six weeks in January and February 2019, I took an introduction to stained glass course from Olivia Vavroch at Vavroch Glass Studio in north Portland, OR.
99
100
FreeBSD on the Lenovo Thinkpad
Compatibility of FreeBSD on a Lenovo Thinkpad T480, notes and fixes (HiDPI, Trackpad, camera, etc).
101
RISC-V from scratch 2: Hardware layouts, linker scripts, and C runtimes
A post describing how C programs get to the main function. Devicetree layouts, linker scripts, minimal C runtimes, GDB and QEMU, basic RISC-V assembly, and other topics are reviewed along the way.
102
Travels with a Pi (2018)
Pete's Random Notes Blog - I have opinions on lots of things...
103
Adventures in reverse engineering Broadcom NIC firmware
For some time now, I've been reverse engineering the firmware of the Broadcom BCM5719 Ethernet NIC chip, so that open source firmware can be produced for it. The BCM5719 is a PCIe chip which provides up to four Gigabit Ethernet ports, and is mainly intended for use in server applications. It can be used with the Linux…
104
How Computers Boot Up (2008)
The previous post described [motherboards and the memory map] memory-map in Intel computers to set the scene for the initial phases of boot. Booting is an involved, hacky, multi-stage affair - fun st
105
The Nokia N9 Alarm Clock (2014)
I want to talk about the Nokia N9 (2011) alarm clock application because it’s a really nice example of thoughtful, functional design – and because it’s only on the N9, so a lot of people won’t have seen it.
106
A Camera Lens Made from an Iceberg
I made a camera lens with an Iceberg
107
Let's Talk About Capacitor Failure
I spend a good deal of time these days on various telnet BBS that are (naturally) focused on vintage computing. As such, much of the discussion being had in the message bases is in the form of help / advice … Continue reading →
108
Understanding the BeagleBone’s built in microcontrollers (2016)
The BeagleBone Black is an inexpensive, credit-card sized computer that has two built-in microcontrollers called PRUs. While the PRUs provi...
109
How to liberate a Chromebook
Google is about as open as a clam. Over the holidays, I found a Chromebook that Samsung had given me to evaluate about six years ago and which had been gathering dust ever since. Coincidentally, Laura’s sister Annie had just told me that she needed a laptop. Hmm… Well, there was no way I was going to give her a Google…
110
Open Source Hardware Hearing Aid Part 1
My mother got hearing aids a few years ago. About a month later, she lost one. Insurance said if she wanted a replacement, she could pay them many thousands of dollars or she could wait a year.
111
Casting Glass from 3D Printed Molds
31 Jul 2019 | self-Amos , glass art , kiln casting , fabrication , kilncasting , lost-resin , lost-wax
112
Solar Powered Raspberry Pi Camera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M53eJI90ETE Update: this project was featured in issue 92 of the official Raspberry Pi magazine (download as PDF, buy the issue or subscribe). SSH-ing into a remote solar powered Raspberry Pi at the top of an apple tree has a special feeling -- almost like commanding a spaceship where…
113
System76 Thelio: A Review
The bottom line : Thelio, System76’s new “open hardware” desktop, is a small, beautiful, and powerful desktop computer that hits every high point anyone could have expected, faltering only in the inherent limitations of its small size.
114
A new cycle-stepped 6502 CPU emulator
TL;DR: The how and why of the new 6502 emulator in the chips project.
115
Retro 5″ Black and White TV as a computer monitor – A tale of pointlessness
The convoluted and ultimately pointless tale of how I connected a retro 80s 5" BW TV to my PC as a 3rd monitor
116
117
My Laptop Bit Me – The Shocking Truth (2012)
Apple aren't the only company with products that can feel tingly or buzzy to a light touch, it is all due to the widespread use of switched...
118
The Joys of Unix Keyboards
A decade or so ago while helping a friends father clean out an old building, we came across an ancient Sun Microsystems server. We found it curious. Everything about it was different from what we were used to. The command line was black text on a white background, the connectors strange and foreign, and the keyboard…
119
Raspberry Pi microSD follow-up, SD Association fools me twice?
/ Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, \ \ prepare to die. (Klingon Proverb) / -------------------------------------------- \ ^__^ \ (oo)\_______ (__)\ )\/\ ||----w | || || (Excerpt from Ansible for DevOps, chapter 12.) The fallout from this year's microSD card performance comparison has turned into quite a…
120
“It's done in hardware so it's cheap” (2012)
This is one of these things that look very obvious to me, to the point where it seems not worth discussing. However, I've heard the idea that "hardware magically makes things cheap" from several PhDs over the years. So apparently, if you aren't into hardware, it's not obvious at all.