1231
Reverse-engineering a three-axis attitude indicator from the F-4 fighter plane
We recently received an attitude indicator for the F-4 fighter plane, an instrument that uses a rotating ball to show the aircraft's orienta...
Topics /
Hardware & Electronics
The most popular blog posts about hardware & electronics on Hacker News. 3,045 posts.
1232
Samsung WB850F Firmware Reverse Engineering
Dissecting and symbol-mapping a camera firmware to get around WiFi hotspot mis-detection
1233
What has changed in CPU cores in M3 chips?
Little seems to have changed in CPU cores in M3 chips, if you read reviews. Dig a bit deeper and there are major changes, as explained here.
1234
The Decline of the MacBook Pro
I’ve been using Macs for almost nine years. I got a 15” MacBook Pro the summer before my freshman year of college through my school’s computer store. I used it for six years before getting a 13” model in 2015. I’m considering getting a new one in the next year or two, but the latest MacBook Pros have become worse in…
1235
The tyranny of the supertweeter
So-called "filter bubbles" aren't necessary; it's enough that some people just tweet more.
1236
Cheap DIY solar fence design
A year ago I installed a 4 kilowatt solar fence . I'm revisiting it this Sun Day , to share the design, now that I have prooved it out.
1237
ECC RAM should be a human right
I am now a staunch advocate for ECC RAM, after the events of last week. You see, over the last several weeks my main desktop workstation has been misbehaving, with occasional freezing and crashing. After some diagnostics I began to suspect a faulty RAM module, and sure enough, upon performing a quick run of memtest86…
1238
Standard cells: Looking at individual gates in the Pentium processor
Intel released the powerful Pentium processor in 1993, a chip to "separate the really power-hungry folks from ordinary mortals." The origin...
1239
Everything I know about floppy disks
Floppy disk drives are curious things. We know them as the slots that ingest those small almost-square plastic "floppy disks" and we only really see them now in Computer Museums. But there's a lot going on in that humble square of plastic and I wanted to write down what I've learned so far.
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CM0 – A new Raspberry Pi you can't buy
This little postage stamp is actually a full Raspberry Pi Zero 2, complete with eMMC storage and WiFi. But you can't get one. Well, not unless you buy the CM0NANO development board from EDAtec, or you live in China. This little guy doesn't have an HDMI port, Ethernet, or even USB. It's a special version of the…
1242
Apple's interactive television box: Hacking the set top box System 7.1 in ROM
This article has been revised with recollections and corrections from former Apple employee Al Kossow, some good folks on Hacker News and t...
1243
Cache Associativity
Consider a strided incrementing loop over an array of size $N=2^{21}$ with a fixed step size of 256:
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Let's Build a 28-Core Raspberry Pi Cluster
I built a 28-core gigabit cluster, Kraken, consisting of 7 Raspberry Pi 3 Model Bs.
1246
All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral
Just A Quick Note Today on Magic Leap 2+ Month Old News Things have been very quiet lately with respect to Magic Leap. So quiet, that apparently the assignment of all of Magic Leap patents over 2 m…
1247
I made a floppy disk from scratch
Polymatt decided he was going to make a 3.5” floppy disk from scratch — and actually did. I’m not sure how many of you have actually cracked one of these things
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Demystifying GPU compute architectures
Getting 'low level' with Nvidia and AMD GPUs
1250
How to estimate an SSD’s working life
The life of an SSD should be more predictable than a hard disk. All you need is its TBW, and the total amount of data written to it so far.
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The Apple Watch – Tipping Point Time for Healthcare
I don’t own an Apple Watch. I do have a Fitbit. But the Apple Watch 4 announcement intrigued me in a way no other product has since the original IPhone. This wasn’t just another product announcemen…
1253
24-Bit vs. 16-Bit Audio Test – Part II: Results and Conclusions
A blog for audiophiles about more objective topics. Measurements of audio gear. Reasonable, realistic, no snakeoil assessment of sound, and equipment.
1254
Now you're thinking with relays
Tinkering with relay-based logic just for the fun of it.
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Shmøergh Hog – The making of a simple analog synth
The making of a simple analog synth
1257
Apple didn't revolutionize power supplies; new transistors did (2012)
The new biography Steve Jobs contains a remarkable claim about the power supply of the Apple II and its designer Rod Holt: [1] Instead o...
1258
iPhone 14 Pro Camera Review: Scotland
The iPhone 14 Pro's 48-megapixel camera in the Scottish Highlands — hiking, biking, and boating around the Dunton Kilchoan Estate.
1259
Turning a dumb AC unit smart (without losing my security deposit)
TL;DR: DIY home automation is ezpz with nothing more than a stepper motor, an esp32, and a high tolerance for Jank. My rental apartment’s AC unit can only be controlled using these retro-looking analog knob-based controls, mounted right onto the unit. No separate wall-mounted thermostat, no remote…
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Audio CD ripping – optical drive accuracy listing
Audio CD ripping - optical drive accuracy listing