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Retro and Open Hardware/Modding
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Doug Brown ☛ Please don’t ship heavy, fragile vintage computers. They will be destroyed.
Most vintage computer enthusiasts are well aware of this, but the plastic in old computers tends to become very brittle as it ages. With Macs in particular, machines made from 1993-ish onward seem to really be affected by this issue. I’ve seen this with my own eyes, too. The CD-ROM bezel on my Quadra 840av fell off because several very thin plastic clips snapped off. Good luck finding one that hasn’t already broken off. One of the clips that holds the top case in place on my Power Mac 6100 also broke off. And I, too, once received a Performa 550 that was destroyed in shipping.
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CNX Software ☛ NXP OrangeBox 2.0 V2X automotive domain controller features NXP i.MX 94 SoC
NXP OrangeBox 2.0 is an NXP i.MX 94-powered V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) automotive domain controller development platform designed for modern vehicles. It works as a centralized controller between the vehicle’s gateway and its wired and wireless technologies, with features like Wi-Fi 6/6E, Bluetooth 5.3, UWB, 5G cellular, and secure car access for automotive zone controllers, smart car access systems, and V2X communication systems. It’s the first i.MX 94 platform we’ve covered here, and NXP says the OrangeBox 2.0 delivers up to 4x the performance of its predecessor – the OrangeBox – based on an NXP i.MX 8XLite SoC. The i.MX 94’s Cortex-A55, Cortex-M7, and Cortex-M33 cores, and the eIQ Neutron NPU enable Hey Hi (AI) features such as an intelligent firewall and predictive maintenance.
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CNX Software ☛ $24 Banana Pi BPI-Forge1 industrial SBC is powered by Rockchip RK3506J tri-core SoC
The Banana Pi BPI-Forge1, also known as the ArmSoM Forge1, is an industrial SBC (single board computer) powered by the Rockchip RK3506J triple-core Cortex-A7 processor designed for Smart Audio, HMI, and factory automation applications. The Forge1 is equipped with 512MB RAM, 512MB NAND flash, two Fast Ethernet ports, a MIPI DSI display connector, USB Type-A and Type-C ports, an audio jack, a 40-pin GPIO header partially compatible with Raspberry Pi HATs, and a 14-pin header with speaker output, microphone input, RS-485, and CAN Bus.