151
Unusual circuits in the Intel 386's standard cell logic
I've been studying the standard cell circuitry in the Intel 386 processor recently. The 386, introduced in 1985, was Intel's most complex pr...
Topics /
Hardware & Electronics
The most popular blog posts about hardware & electronics on Hacker News. 326 posts.
152
Gate-level simulation of ASIC in browser
TinyTapeout VGA 1D Cellular Automata Simulation
153
Running Unsupported iOS on Deprecated Devices
Earlier this year I demoed iOS 6 running on an iPod touch 3 - a device that Apple never gave iOS 6 to, making iOS 5.1.1 the latest build it can run
154
Negotiating PoE+ Power in the Pre‑Boot Environment
Solving a boot-time power challenge on PoE+ x86 systems by creating our own UEFI app to handle LLDP power negotiation at the firmware level, allowing our machines to request higher power from network switches before the OS loads.
155
OrthoRoute – GPU-accelerated autorouting for KiCad
OrthoRoute: GPU-Accelerated PCB Autorouter
156
Testing two 18 TB white label SATA hard drives from datablocks.dev
It has been 0 days since the last change to my home server.
157
Comparing the power consumption of a 30 year old refrigerator to a new one
Having a home server and a few smart plugs leads to interesting data points like this one. Well, interesting to me, at least.
158
Infinite Grid of Resistors
There is a well-known puzzle based on the premise of an �infinite� grid of resistors connecting adjacent nodes of a square lattice. A small portion of such a grid is illustrated below.
159
A vending machine, on the internet
These days, every new business seems to be a SaaS. I remember when software worked differently: you bought it, installed it, and used it without having to create an account, remember a password, or even connect to the internet. Your data lived on your C drive, and you were in control. Software was a tool, like a…
160
Building my childhood dream PC
In 1993, I was 14 and already passionate about computers [1] . That year my mother managed to buy a PC for the household. That was quite an effort for a single mother. My brother Aurelien and I spent every waking hour on this machine, staying up all night on weekends.
161
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.
162
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…
163
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
164
USB On-The-Go
USB, the Universal Serial Bus, was first released in 1996. It did not achieve widespread adoption until some years later; for most of the '90s RS-232-ish serial and its awkward sibling the parallel port were the norm for external peripheral. It's sort of surprising that USB didn't take off faster, considering the…
165
Linux on the Fujitsu Lifebook U729
A short review and troubleshooting guide.
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167
Bought myself an Ampere Altra system
There are tools and there are toys. I bought myself a tool.
168
I made a 10¢ MCU Talk
I taught a 10¢ CH32V003 RISC‑V MCU to talk. By bit-banging PWM as a DAC and using a tiny 2‑bit ADPCM decoder, I squeezed ~6–7 seconds of recognizable audio into 16 KB of flash. Then I went full ret...
169
A vector graphics workstation from the 70s
A bit of history and a repair of a Tektronix 4051 graphical computer from 1975. What was this computer's place in history, what was it used for and what parts exploded when turning it on.
170
How Not to Buy a SSD
sugar, spice, and everything not nice
171
Synthetic aperture radar autofocus and calibration
3D trajectory position error estimation autofocus, antenna pattern normalization, and polarimetric calibration for drone mounted SAR radar.
172
Golang on the Playstation 2
The PS2 is more than capable of doing some wild things, including running Linux. I always wondered if we could just write baremetal Go code on it, so I decided to give it a try.
173
USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
A short story of me trying out different USB-C hubs, taking them apart, and slowly descending into madness.
174
Touching the Elephant – TPUs
Understanding the Tensor Processing Unit
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Introduction to reverse-engineering vintage synth firmware
A gentle introduction to reverse-engineering vintage synthesiser ROMs using the Ghidra disassembler.
177
The MiniPC Revolution
Reasons why you should consider breaking your hardware up into MiniPCs.
178
Pimping My Casio: Part Deux
Close to three years ago I wrote about using Oddly Specific Objects' alternate "motherboard" to modify a classic Casio F-91W watch: Pimping...
179
Sony PlayStation 2 fixing frenzy
Sony PlayStation 2 fixing frenzy - retrohax.net I once wrote a blog post about Nintendo Wii controllers. That post was already based on ...
180
Nvidia DGX Spark: great hardware, early days for the ecosystem
NVIDIA sent me a preview unit of their new DGX Spark desktop “AI supercomputer”. I’ve never had hardware to review before! You can consider this my first ever sponsored post …