Hardware/Modding: LoongArch and More

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 26, 2026

• CNX Software ☛ Infineon AIROC ACW741x Wi-Fi 7 ultra-low power tri-radio IoT SoC family support MLO, Wi-Fi sensing, BLE 6.0, and Thread

  Infineon has introduced the AIROC ACW741x tri-radio Wi-Fi 7 wireless SoC family designed for IoT and smart home devices. The company mentions it’s the first Wi-Fi 7 solution with a “20 MHz” 1×1 Wi-Fi 7 radio, Bluetooth 6.0 (including Channel Sounding), and an 802.15.4 radio for Thread and Matter support, in a 7×7 mm QFN package.

• Tom's Hardware ☛ Open-source Intel 486 mobo built from scratch in under 6 months for i486 chips — M8SBC-486's goal was to achieve Linux and Doom compatibility, but it achieves far more than that

  A programming, electronics, and retro enthusiast has showcased an open-source Intel 486 motherboard that they claim was “made from scratch” in under six months. The M8SBC-486 isn’t based on existing designs, but on previous experimental work by the maker, Maniek86. This real Intel 486 CPU packing project originally began with the goal of creating a system that could run Linux and Doom. However, Maniek86 excelled themselves and noted that the system also runs various flavors of DOS, Windows 3.1 (kinda), various programs, and games like Prince of Persia and Wolfenstein 3D.

• Hackaday ☛ Bike Spokes, Made Of Rope

  However, a number of other methods have been tried on the forum threads. Namely, a number of users have attempted to varying degrees of success putting a length of spoke inside the hollow rope weave and “Chinese finger trapping” it together. The key issue here is sourcing a glue strong enough to hold the spoke piece on at lower tensions, but flexible enough to not crack with the cyclical loading on a rim.

• Wesley Moore ☛ Exploring Linux on a LoongArch Mini PC

  Ever the fan of an underdog, I recently acquired a new mini-PC with a Loongson 3A6000 CPU. This CPU uses the LoongArch64 instruction set architecture (ISA). loongarch64 is a 64-bit RISC ISA inspired by MIPS and RISC-V introduced by Loongson Technology in 2021. From Wikipedia: [...]

• Hackaday ☛ Inside A Sketchy Mains Voltage Touch Control Dimmer

  These unassuming little boxes are built around the Tontek TT6061A, listed as a ‘touch dimmer’, which uses a triac to control the output current. There are four levels, ranging from off to full brightness, before the next touch event turns the output off again.