1951
Hacking a cheap fitness tracker bracelet
A blog post on reverse engineering and customizing the firmware of a cheap fitness tracker bracelet.
Topics /
Hardware & Electronics
The most popular blog posts about hardware & electronics on Hacker News. 3,045 posts.
1952
Tilt-5 Was Magical
Introduction It was nice to get out and actually look through AR and VR displays at AWE 2021. I started to write about everything I saw at AWE, but to me Tilt-5 was such a standout that I decided t…
1953
Wallace the 6 inch f/2.8 telescope, building it, and hiking with it
Hiking with Wallace, my 6" f/2.8 corrected dobsonian.
1954
Lorentz forces and cheating at the Pinewood Derby
The annual Pinewood Derby in my Cub Scout troop was always an exciting time for my friends and me growing up. Just look how happy I am in this amazing digital photo composition that my dad put together using Microsoft PictureIt! 99:
1955
Restoring YC's Xerox Alto, Day 6: Fixed a chip, data read from disk
In today's Xerox Alto restoration session we investigated why the disk drive isn't working and found a failed chip. With this chip repaire...
1956
Tiny Lisp Computer
This article describes a self-contained computer with its own display and keyboard interface, based on an ATmega328, that you can program in Lisp. You can use it to run programs that interface to components such as LEDs and push-buttons via the I/O pins, read the analogue inputs, and operate external devices via the…
1957
Discovery's Teardrop
They are perhaps the most easily recognizable tiles in space shuttle history. For shuttle watchers, when you see them, you know exactly which shuttle you are looking at. Only space shuttles Columbia and Enterprise are more recognizable. The four other shuttles — Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour — aside…
1958
Could we build a computer designed to last at least fifty years? (2021)
The computer built to last 50 years par Ploum - Lionel Dricot.
1959
1960
Why I use the IBM Model M keyboard that is older than me
The last primary keyboard I’ll use in my life might be the IBM Model M. It’ll probably last me the decades to the day that keyboards should become obsolete. - Kheng Meng, 2018 I just had to start my blog post with that self quote ^^^ but I’m pretty confident it’ll hold true for me. I have owned several keyboards so…
1961
Upgrade Raspberry Pi 4 with a NVMe boot drive
You can upgrade the storage in your Raspberry Pi 4 with an NVMe drive using USB3 to get more reliable storage and faster I/O than an SD…
1962
1963
1964
Refurb Weekend: Silicon Graphics Indigo² Impact 10000
It's one of my periodic downsizing cycles, which means checking the hardware inventory (and, intermittently, discovering things that were no...
1965
The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros
Last week Joe Chilcote discovered an interesting message when imaging a Late 2016 MacBook Pro TouchBar (from here on out referred to as TBP): A critical software update is required for your Mac. To…
1966
Refurbishing a Tektronix TDS7104 Oscilloscope
A little over a month ago, I ran into a Tektronix TDS7104 at the Silicon Valley Flea Market , where else?
1967
Coreboot Blocked from Recent Thinkpads by Intel Boot Guard
So some innocent post on the coreboot mailing list managed to make some waves. The problem Intel tries to solve… Intel Boot Guard is the latest effort in a long series by Intel and others to allow computers to provide some reliable information about the state a computer is in. They’re working on it since at least…
1968
Uptime Lab's CM4 Blade Adds NVMe, TPM 2.0 to Raspberry Pi
A few weeks ago, I received two early copies of Uptime.Lab's CM4 Blade. The Blade is built for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, which has the same processor as the Pi 4 and Pi 400, but without any of the built-in IO ports. You plug the CM4 into the Blade, then the Blade breaks out the connections to add some…
1969
Controlling RGB LEDs with only powerlines: Anatomy of a Christmas light string
The RGB curtain predictably turns into a mess of wires when not used according to instructions. As should be obvious from this blog, I am somewhat drawn to clever and minimalistic implementations o…
1970
Hacking industrial vehicles from the internet
It is possible to monitor and control float trucks, public bus or delivery vans from the internet , obtaining their speed, position, and a lot other parameters. You can even control some parameters of the vehicle or hack into the canbus of the vehicle remotely.
1971
The Lost Japanese ROM of the Macintosh Plus
If you look for information about the Macintosh Plus and its ROM, you’ll usually find that the ROM has a capacity of 128 KB and that it exists in three revisions . But that’s incorrect: there’s a fourth ROM, 256 KB in size, which includes fonts for kanji (Japanese characters). And I found (and preserved) this ROM. I’m…
1972
How I built the world's first 3D ultrasonic scanner
Here's how I built an ultrasonic 3d scanner that works in the air, using off-the-shelf components.
1973
Long distance sound localization with the Raspberry Pi
TDOA Sound Localization is determining the source of a sound when all you know is the differences in the time of arrival of the sound event…
1974
Building a radio-controlled submarine with automatic depth control
In this post series I will explain the making of a radio-controlled submarine. I will go through the design, the building process, Python code, tests in water, and all the mistakes I made. Lots of …
1975
The "Crown of Nobles" Noble Gas Tube Display (2024)
In my day job I work with ion thrusters for spacecraft, which are essentially electric-powered rockets that fling Xenon gas out at super high speeds to provide thrust and allow satellites to change…
1976
Homemade Memristor (2011)
Modified curve tracer is applying AC voltage. Horizontal axis represents voltage and the vertical axis represents current. In both cases, the curve always passes through zero voltage and current. This requirement must be met in order to be classified as a memristor.
1977
8086 Microcode Browser
Since releasing 486Tang , I’ve been working on recreating the 8086 with a design that stays as faithful as possible to the original chip. That exploration naturally led me deep into the original 8086 microcode — extracted and disassembled by Andrew Jenner in 2020.
1978
How many AMD RX 7900 XTX's are defective?
I'm working on a project—a very dumb project, mind you—and I was trying to acquire the two current-gen flagship GPUs: an Nvidia RTX 4090, and an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX. In some weird stroke of luck (it has been difficult to find either in stock), I was able to get one of each this week. (lol at the size difference...)
1979
1980
Confirmed the MOS 7600/7601 Pong chip is a true microcontroller
In a previous article I discussed the MOS 7600 and 7601 "Pong in a chip" ICs, manufactured by MOS Technology (of the famous 6502) and act...