Open Hardware/Modding: SBCs, Retro, RISC-V, and More
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Tom's Hardware ☛ RISC-V CPU demoed with RX 7900 XTX GPU in Debian GNU/Linux — AMD flagship GPU paired with Milk-V Megrez board and SiFive P550 cores
RISC-V firm Milk-V demonstrated that it can get AMD’s RX 7900 XTX graphics card to work on one of its RISC-V boards.
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Hackaday ☛ Another Commodore Portable We Never (Quite) Received
The story of Commodore computers is one of some truly great machines for their time, and of the truly woeful marketing that arguably spelled their doom. But there’s another Commodore computing story, that of the machines we never received, many of which came close enough to production that they might have made it.
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CNX Software ☛ Orbbec Gemini 335Lg 3D depth and RGB camera features MX6800 ASIC, GMSL2/FAKRA connector for multi-device sync on NVIDIA Jetson Platforms
The Orbbec Gemini 335Lg is a 3D Depth and RGB camera in the Gemini 330 series, built with a GMSL2/FAKRA connector to support the connectivity needs of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and robotic arms in demanding environments. As an enhancement of the Gemini 335L, the 335Lg features a GMSL2 serializer and FAKRA-Z connector ensuring reliable performance in industrial applications requiring high mobility and precision.
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Old VCR ☛ The unreleased Commodore HHC-4's secret identity
Once upon a time (and that time was Winter CES 1983), Commodore announced what was to be their one and only handheld computer, the Commodore HHC-4. It was never released and never seen again, at least not in that form. But it turns out that not only did the HHC-4 actually exist, it also wasn't manufactured by Commodore — it was a Toshiba.
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Adafruit ☛ Floppsy rev B – now Apple-ier – a floppy disk-shaped board, fully open hardware / open source interface to archive diskettes!
[...] Here’s an update to our Floppsy board, it’s floppy disk-shaped and is intended to be a fully open hardware / open source interface to archive diskettes. This version adds Apple Disk ][ support via a 2×10 IDC connector. [...]
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The Register UK ☛ Chinese engineers use Raspberry Pi to test tunnels
But the authors of this paper wanted to test something different: the conductivity of concrete. Because when that dips it's a strong indicator of possible tunnel lining voids. The Raspberry Pi's 40 General Purpose Input Output (GPIO) pins make the small machines ideal for that sort of role.
The authors embedded wires in the secondary lining of a recently built 600 meter tunnel, and hooked them up to Pin 2 as a source of current and Pin 34 to ground the circuit.
"If the circuit remains open (indicating an empty void), the Raspberry Pi detects no current flow. When the circuit is closed (indicating a filled void), the current flows through, and the Raspberry Pi registers this as a completed grouting process," the paper explains. The rig also used a Honeywell pressure transducer, and a temperature–humidity sensor.
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Medevel ☛ 9 Open-source Projects to Turn Raspberry Pi as a Portable Hacking Device
The Raspberry Pi is a versatile, portable single-board computer (SBC) that can be used for almost anything—from building your own CCTV surveillance system or music streaming server to retro gaming consoles or even a private VPN to maintain your privacy.
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Raspberry Pi ☛ DEC Flip-Chip tester | The MagPi #147
His Raspberry Pi-controlled DEC Flip-Chip tester checks the power output of these boards using relay modules and signal clips, giving accurate information about each one’s power draw and output. Once he’s confident each component is working properly, Anders can begin to assemble the historic DEC PDP-9 computer, which Wikipedia advises is one of only 445 ever produced.
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[Old] G8GKA ☛ AD8317 + Arduino RF Power Meter # 2
My own test equipment doesn’t provide any means of accurately measuring power levels above 1.5GHz and unfortunately I’ve not yet been able to attend a MicroWave Round Table event. For those of you that have never attended such an event, one of the many highlights is usually some form of test facility that typically offers frequency / power measurement, spectrum analysis etc. Hopefully we will all soon be in a position where all these excellent events will be able to run again.
My interest in QO-100 and a homemade up-converter meant that the need to do power measurements at 2.4GHz was growing. This seemed a common requirement amongst a small group of fellow QO-100 enthusiasts. As a result of this and the successful completion of another recent project, where five of us constructed a 50MHz Power Reference Source, this new project came about.
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[Old] Dutch Amateur Radio Station PA0RWE ☛ RF MiliWatt meter
The schematic of the mW meter ( 2×24 version). The 2×16 character display is controlled by I2C on pin A4 (SDA) and A5 (SCL)
After many years of using the OZ2CPU HF meter, I switched to the Arduino and the AD8317. This had two reasons: the PIC compiler was no longer efficient enough to compile the software without errors and I wanted to be able to take measurements up to 10GHz. This resulted in a new design in the Arduino Nano but using the display layout of the OZ2CPU HF meter.
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[Old] G8RWG ☛ AD8317 Noise meter - Part 1 -
Recently I’ve started experimenting on 10GHz and as I have no test equipment above 6GHz I decided to build a noise meter that would cover 10GHz as well as possible IF’s of 432MHz and 910MHz.
There are several noise meter designs using the AD8307 (DC - 500MHz) and AD8313 (0.1GHz - 2.5GHz) rf log detector devices and I’ve been using two AD8313 devices in an Arduino based RF power meter since 2021.
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CNX Software ☛ CodeCell is a ESP32-C3 mini development board for robots, wearables, smart home projects
Engineer and YouTuber Carl Bugeja recently developed CodeCell, a tiny ESP32-C3 development board designed as the brain for robots, wearables, and smart home devices. This module features a nine-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU) for motion fusion and an optional VCNL4040 light sensor. It includes a USB Type-C port for data and power as well as a lithium-polymer battery with a charging circuit.
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CubicleNate ☛ 3D Printed Access Point Hanger for Neat Cabling
This is a quick summary of my solution for mounting an access point and neatly routing the cables in my shop that I call “CubicleLabs.” I designed this a short while ago and decided to upload the CAD and share the information.
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Hackaday ☛ Little Quadruped Has PCB Spine And No Wiring
Dealing with all the wiring can quickly become a challenge on robots, especially the walking variety which have actuators everywhere. [Eric Yufeng Wu] sidestepped the wiring issue by creating Q8bot, a little quadruped where all the components, including the actuators, are mounted directly on the PCB.
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CNX Software ☛ $5 CH32-Ant CH32V003 RISC-V development board comes with Stemma QT connector
The CH32-Ant is a low-cost, breadboard-compatible development board powered by the WCH Electronics CH32V003-F4U6 RISC-V microcontroller, ideal for prototyping. It is pin-compatible with Prokyber’s ESP32-C6-Bug, offering an easy transition for users who don’t need wireless capabilities or the higher performance of the ESP32-C6FH4. The board features a Stemma QT connector for straightforward I2C sensor integration and a USB Type-C port that supports data transfer and power through software-based USB on the CH32V003.
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Life of a Developer
I’ve had my Creality CR-6 SE for quite some while now and it’s worked very well. I’ve even moved with it a couple of times. However, it seems that now was the time for it to give up the ghost, as the extruder casing developed a crack. Apparently something not completely uncommon.
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It's FOSS ☛ He He 😆 Running backdoored Windows on Raspberry Pi ... Because Why Not? [Ed: It's not FOSS, for one thing...]
Sometimes I feel too adventurous to try new and weird things. This one is one of those adventures.
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Bryan Lunduke ☛ Open Source RISC OS Now Has WiFi and Modern Web Browser on Raspberry Pi
The OS first released in 1987 for Acorn computers is becoming a viable modern desktop.