news
Standards/Consortia: Serial Peripheral Interface, GNSS Replacement, and More
-
Hackaday ☛ SNES Controllers Are (Almost) SPI-Compatible
Considering that the Serial Peripheral Interface bus semi-standard has been around since the early 1980s, it’s perhaps not that shocking that the controllers of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) would take at least some strong design hints for the used protocol. This does however raise the question of exactly how compatible a SNES controller is when connected to the SPI master peripheral of any random MCU. Recently [James Sharman] set out to answer this question decisively.
-
Hackaday ☛ NASA Uses Mars Global Localization As GNSS Replacement For The Perseverance Rover
Because the off-the-shelf processor in the rover’s Helicopter Base Station (HBS) is much faster than the custom, radiation-hardened processors that control the rover, the decision was made to try the algorithm on the HBS, especially since Ingenuity was left behind after it fatally damaged its propeller during a rough landing. This left the HBS unused and free to be repurposed.
-
Kevin McDonald ☛ Building a Live BGP Map
Right now, thousands of routers are arguing about how to reach each other. That’s expected. It’s how the Internet works. This website wouldn’t load without it. BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) continuously announces and withdraws prefixes, adjusting how traffic moves globally. Most people see URLs and apps; routers see prefixes and AS paths.
I made a map that lets us listen in on this conversation, but in a relaxing, aesthetically pleasing way.
-
Jack Baty ☛ My first and last frames of Kodachrome
Kodak stopped making Kodachrome in 2009 and Dwayne’s Photo, the only place that still processed it, accepted their last roll at the end of 2010. I wanted to get at a few rolls in before it was too late.