news
Open Hardware and Retro: "FrankenPad", Amiga, and More
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Vermaden ☛ FreeBSD 14.3 on FrankenPad T25
Generally the ThinkPad T25 is a ThinkPad T470 with several different parts – like palm rest and the keyboard of course.
After randomly checking EBAY for new buy options for ThinkPad T25 … I found FrankenPad T25 option – for about $1200 plus TAX and shipment to Poland. I took it and it was delivered to me without any unexpected events. It worked well after some testing – everything was fine – it just took me about half a year to leave ThinkPad W520 and actually migrate to it.
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Andrew Hutchings ☛ The Legend Continues: Amiga 1000 Keyboard Revival
The Amiga 1000 keyboard came from a time before the standard layout we know today was fully formalised. The cursor keys are closer to the main character keys, and the numeric keypad is missing some maths operations. It uses mechanical key switches and at the time it would have been a very nice unit to have. As an added bonus, it slides under the machine when not in use.
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Andrew Hutchings ☛ Amiga 4000 Repair: This one was just weird
I was recently sent an Amiga 4000 motherboard repair. It should have been quite straightforward, but as we will see, not everything went to plan.
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Hackaday ☛ Announcing The 2025 Pet Hacks Winners
When you really love your pawed, feathered, or scaled friends, you build projects for them. (Well, anyway, that’s what’s happened to us.) For the 2025 Pet Hacks Challenge, we asked you to share your favorite pet-related hacks, and you all delivered. So without further ado, here are our favorites, as well as the picks-of-the-litter that qualified for three $150 DigiKey gift certificates. Spoiler alert: it was a clean sweep for team cat.
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'Made in USA' phone priced at $1,999 raises questions about Trump Mobile
Purism’s Liberty Phone highlights challenges in US-made smartphone manufacturing, costing $1,999 with partial domestic components and assembly. Lacking Android, it runs Linux-based PureOS with basic functions. This device underscores supply chain limits and raises doubts about affordable, fully American-made phones amid rising trade tariffs.
Since the recently announced trade tariffs targeting China and other countries where consumer electronics are manufactured, there has been mounting pressure to bring tech manufacturing back to the United States.
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Linux Gizmos ☛ DTI Adds i.MX 8M-Based Computing Modules to Embedded Portfolio
Diamond Technologies, Inc. has launched a new line of Embedded Computing Modules based on NXP’s i.MX 8M series processors. These compact, high-performance modules are designed for energy-efficient embedded computing across a wide range of industrial and OEM applications.
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CNX Software ☛ Battery-powered knob display board pairs ESP32-S3 and ESP32 wireless SoCs, features audio DAC for audio visualization
The Waveshare ESP32-S3-Knob-Touch-LCD-1.8 is a batterry-powered knob display board designed for HMI applications that combines ESP32-S3 and ESP32 SoCs in a dual MCU architecture. The design differs from other ESP32-based knob / rotary encoder with a built-in display such as the MaTouch SmartKnob, M5Dial, and LILYGO T-Encoder Pro. The Waveshare device also stands out with a larger 1.8-inch capacitive touch display, integrated audio DAC, and real-time audio visualization. It comes with a CNC-milled full-metal enclosure for a more premium and durable build.