[Juan] describes himself as a software engineer, a lover of absurd humor, and, among other things, a player of Nethack. We think he should add computer game archaeologist to that list. In the 1990s, he played a game that had first appeared on USENET in 1987. Initially called “Middle-earth multiplayer game,” it was soon rebranded […]
There are many applications out there that use more than one window, with every modern-day platform and GUI toolkit offering the means for said application to position each of its windows exactly where it wants, and to restore these exactly in the configuration and location where the user saved it for that particular session. All […]
Over on the [Behind The Code with Gerry] YouTube channel our hacker [Gerry] shows us how to emulate a 74LS48 BCD-to-7-segment decoder/driver using an Altera CPLD Logic Chip From 1998. This is very much a das blinkenlights kind of project. The goal is to get a 7-segment display to count from 0 to 9, and […]
[Samcervantes] wanted a cyberdeck. Specifically, he wanted a Clockwork Pi uConsole, but didn’t want to wait three months for it. There are plenty of DIY options, but many of them are difficult to build. So [Sam] did the logical thing: he designed his own. The Bumble Berry Pi is the result. The design criteria? A […]
If you’re familiar with electrical slip rings as found in motors and the like you’ll know them as robust assemblies using carefully chosen alloys and sintered brushes, able to take the load at high RPM for a long time. But not all slip ring applications need this performance. For something requiring a lot less rotational […]
Despite the best efforts of modern medicine, Huntington’s disease is a condition that still comes with a tragic prognosis. Primarily an inherited disease, its main symptoms concern degeneration of the brain, leading to issues with motor control, mood disturbance, with continued degradation eventually proving fatal. Researchers have recently made progress in finding a potential treatment […]
Ever get to the train station on time, find your platform, and then stare at the board showing your train is 20 minutes late? Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) may run like clockwork most days, but a heads-up before you leave the house is always nice. That’s exactly what [filbot] built: a real-time arrival display […]
If you have a Nest thermostat of the first or second generation, you probably noticed it recently became dumber. Google decided to pull the plug on the servers that operate these devices, turning them into — well — ordinary thermostats. Lucky for us [codykociemba] has been keeping up with various exploits for hacking the thermostat, […]
The arrival of cheap thermal printer mechanisms over the last few years has led to a burst of printer hacking in our community, and we’re sure many of you will like us have one knocking around somewhere. There are a variety of different models on the market, and since they often appear in discount stores […]