__ __ __ ___ / // /__ _____/ /__ ___ _ / _ \___ ___ __ / _ / _ `/ __/ '_/ / _ `/ / // / _ `/ // / /_//_/\_,_/\__/_/\_\ \_,_/ /____/\_,_/\_, / retro edition /___/Now optimized for embedded devices!!
| About | Successes | Retrocomputing guide | Email Hackaday |
Get ready to be swept off your feet by this Acorn Risc Machine promotional video from the Mid-1980′s (also embedded after the jump). We’re sure most have put it together by now, but for those slower readers, this is the introduction of ARM processors.
The video has a bit of everything. There’s a deadpan narration with just a bit of British accent around the edges. But that’s spiced up considerably by the up-beat synthesizer track playing in the background. You’ll see plenty of programmers in short-sleeve dress shirts, and we challenge you to count the number of mustaches that make it on camera. But jest aside, it’s fun to think of how the advent of this chip affected the world.
This post is just the second installment of our Retrotechtacular series (here’s the inaugural post). We haven’t seen any old movies come in from readers yet. What are you waiting for? Digitize that footage because we want to see it! Of course it doesn’t have to be your own movies, so anything you come across that covers decades-old tech is fair game.
[via Adafruit]
[Snypercat] makes no bones about the fact that she despises rats, and does everything in her power to keep them off her farm. We can’t blame her though – they spread disease, eat other animals’ food, and can get your farm shut down if there are too many running about. While most of us might hire an exterminator or set out a ton of traps, she chooses to take a far more hands-on approach, hunting down each and every one of those little buggers with an air rifle.
If you’ve ever gone rat hunting in the dark (and who hasn’t?), you know that it can be difficult to aim in the dead of night. Night vision scopes can be expensive, but [Snypercat] shows how you can make your own scope that gives you the added benefit of recording your kills along the way. She happened to have a Sony camcorder with built-in night vision capabilities, and with a bit of tweaking she was able to mount it on her rifle’s scope. An IR flashlight was mounted on the rifle as well, giving her enhanced visibility without spooking her prey.
Be sure to check out the pair of videos below to see how [Snypercat] attached the camcorder to the scope, along with how well it works in the field.
[via HackedGadgets]
There’s a simple hack to use your Motorola Droid phone as a USB host. It is a hardware-only hack that doesn’t require you to crack open your phone, root it, or even to change firmware (although device drivers in the stock Android image may be quite limited). The dongle above is used as a key to enable the mode while the phone is booting. This was repurposed from a car charging cable by removing the wires and resistor and shorting the resistor pads. Once the phone is in host mode the dongle is swapped for a simple USB-mini to USB-A socket adapter, built from two cables you probably have lying around. Now you can plug in any device you want.
[Thanks Freezer90]
The above is a specially designed game controller made by [Giorgos] solely for the RTS game Men Of War (now that’s dedication to a game). [Giorgos] started off with a rough breadboard and 11 buttons. Slowly overtime he included a joystick, countdown timers, and the wonderfully lit case. Under the hood is a couple of PIC microcontrollers multiplexing the switches, LEDs, timers, and also interfacing with the computer via how is it not dead yet PS/2 port. The build log is a very detailed read and well worth it, even if you’re not planning on making a custom controller. [Ben Heck] better watch out, there is a new controller making enthusiast on the loose.
[yergacheffe] was able to get his hands on a shiny new Google ADK board about a week before it was announced at I/O, and got busy putting together a neat project to show off some of the ADK’s features. His idea was to meld together the ADK and Google’s new music service, two items he says complement each other very well.
He had a handful of LED matrices left over from last year’s Maker Faire, which he decided to use as a Google music metadata display. The base of the display is made from laser-cut acrylic, with a few spare ShiftBrites lighting up the Google music beta logo.
He says it took literally just a couple lines of code to get his Android handset to talk with the display – a testament to just how easy it is to use the ADK.
Pretty much anyone can walk up, attach their phone, and see their current music track on the display with zero fuss, which you can see in the video demo below.