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The most popular blog posts about hardware & electronics on Hacker News. 4,805 posts.
I'm a laptop weirdo and that's why I like my new Framework 13
It turns out I've always done weird things to my laptops.
Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.3
Porting Linux to Apple Silicon
Setting up an electronics workshop
A minimalist, non-commercial take on a handful of indispensable workshop tools.
Can Repelling Magnets Replace the Spring in a Pogo Stick?
Discover if magnets can replace springs in pogo sticks in our latest exploration of magnetic repulsion and mechanical innovation.
RTX 5080 and RTX 3090 Setup: 80 Tok/s on Qwen 3.6 27B Q8
Dual GPU setup: run Qwen 3.6 27B at a Q8 quantization at 80+ tokens/sec with 39GB total VRAM
Librem5 Hardware Update
Purism makes premium phones, laptops, mini PCs and servers running free software on PureOS. Purism products respect people's privacy and freedom while protecting their security.
How to Measure Indoor Air Quality with a Raspberry Pi, RuuviTags and PMS7003
Learn how to build an air quality monitoring device with a PMS7003 sensor, Raspberry Pi and some Java code. Help raise awareness about air pollution.
Restoring YC's Xerox Alto day 8: it boots
We've been restoring a Xerox Alto from the 1970s for several months, and we finally got it to boot and run some programs! There's still so...
De-smarting the Marshall Uxbridge
This is the story of a commercially unavailable stereo pair of thebi-amped Marshall Uxbridge, with custom-built replacement electronics:active filters feedin...
Crowdfunding the Novena Open Laptop
We’re launching a crowdfunding campaign around our Novena open hardware computing platform. Originally, this started as a hobby project to build a computer just for me and xobs – something that we would use every day, easy to extend and to mod, our very own Swiss Army knife. I’ve posted here a couple of times about…
ECDSA smartphone key extraction using $2 magnetic probe
We show that modern cryptographic software on mobile phones, implementing the ECDSA digital signature algorithm, may inadvertently expose its secret keys through physical side channels: electromagnetic radiation and power consumption which fluctuate in a way that depends on secret information during the cryptographic…
That UPS you bought for your home server may not be as useful as you think
Some years ago I decided to install a server at home for use as a NAS (network-attached storage) in my home network, and for an Internet-facing server. I live in a place where blackouts are very in…
Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops
Linaro Connect 2025 showcases progress in bringing Linux on Snapdragon-Powered Devices
Home Assistant waters my plants
Some readers will know, but most will not, that I am a bit of a self-confessed foodie. I enjoy cooking, but especially so when others get enjoyment from it. Be it friends, family, or neighbours, and sometimes all three, I’m always up for putting something together.
SPARCbook 3000ST: The coolest 90s laptop (2019)
My personal website and blog
Writing a firmware-only keylogger
In the previous blog post, I looked at the EC firmware in my laptop. This time I will look into the WiFi firmware of the same laptop.
Miniature 3456 LED Cube
For some reason, I’m intrigued by LEDs. Indeed, they can be found in pretty much all of my projects. I was recently inspired by one of Greg Davill’s projects, a miniature LED cube boasting a total of 3456 LEDs . After pondering about it for a while, I decided I’d attempt building one myself. This post describes the…
Sol-Ark manufacturer reportedly disables all Deye inverters in the US
Seemingly, at the drop of a hat the morning of Friday, Nov 15th, Deye-branded inverters across the US were intentionally bricked.
Reading NFC Passport Chips in Linux
For boring and totally not nefarious reasons, I want to read all the data contained in my passport's NFC chip using Linux. After a long and annoying search, I settled on roeften's pypassport. I can now read all the passport information, including biometrics. Table of ContentsBackgroundRecreating the MRZPython code to…
Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
A prototype Raspberry Pi dashboard to save me talking to my smart assistant.
LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware
The LibreRouter project has developed an open source, open hardware router, customized to the needs of community-run networks.
A kernel developer made my styluses work again on newer kernels
Both styluses of my XPPen Artist 24 Pro and XPPen Artist 16 Pro Gen2 styluses are now usable again on newer Linux kernels.
Why I don't like smartphones
They are unequal devices. Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption. In this regard they differ critically from PCs, because PCs are equal devices in the sense that the same device is used for creation and consumption. This means that anyone with a PC can create as well as consume, if they so wish. This…
DB-19: Resurrecting an Obsolete Connector
Oh man, this is good! You’re looking at the first DB-19 connector to be made in the 21st century:
My USB Drive Has a Hidden Encrypted Vault
This article was written by a human, for humans. Phantomdrive is now available from the Rootkit Labs shop. Many places don’t respect privacy …