When floppy disks were the data storage medium of choice, software companies and in particular game developers came up with ever more inventive ways to make them difficult to copy. Tinkering at the edges of the disc format standards didn’t come cheap though, and for example the Dungeon Master game for the Atari ST was reported as using $40,000 worth of custom hardware to achieve its so-called “fuzzy bit” technique. [Chris Evans] set out to recreate it, not by building a modern version of the custom hardware, but by doing it the hard way, with an early-1980s 8-bit BBC Micro home computer.

One could be forgiven for thinking that a computer sporting a 2 MHz 6502 would be unable to manage this task without extra hardware, and were it simply the 6502 itself you would of course be right. So to get anywhere he had to get creative with the Beeb’s built-in peripherals. Eschewing the floppy controller it was hooked up directly to the parallel port, and after a voltage problem courtesy of the drive’s termination resistors we’re taken through some of the 6522 VIA’s different modes in order to achieve a higher speed data burst than would normally be possible. All of these approaches hit the buffers though, until he looks at the 6845 video chip and uses its video output as a very fast shift register. With a custom cable and some work on special video modes, a home computer that would have cost several hundred dollars in the early 1980s can do the work of $40,000 custom hardware from later in the decade. Colour us impressed!

If you’d like to know more about the Dungeon Master copy protection, we’ve been there in the past.

BBC Micro header image: StuartBrady / Public domain.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/16/a-lowly-8-bit-micro-busts-copy-protection-from-the-16-bit-era/

When you are ready to design real things, you’ll find simple CAD programs can be pretty limiting. Serious modern designs tend to use parametric modeling where you don’t necessarily set dimensions and positions of everything but instead constrain the design by describing the relationship between different elements. For example, you can create a vertical line and constrain other lines to be parallel, perpendicular, or form a given angle with that line. There are many tools that can do that, including FreeCAD and SolveSpace, two programs that [Joko Engineeringhelp] uses to create a complex compressor blade and it really shows the differences and similarities between the two tools.

You probably don’t need this particular design, but watching over someone’s shoulder while they do a complex design can be very valuable. Being able to see the differences between the two tools might convince you to learn one or the other or maybe even switch.

Our choice? We often use FreeCAD although we like how SolveSpace handles certain things. We haven’t used it as much, though, and FreeCAD integrates nicely with OpenSCAD which we use a lot, too. So, generally, we reach for FreeCAD but it is mostly because of habit. Both tools have a lot of great features.

We’ve looked at SolveSpace before. And we’ve talked a lot about FreeCAD, too. What’s your pick?

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/16/freecad-vs-solvespace/

Microsoft’s Kinect, a motion-sensing peripherial originally for the Xbox 360, is almost exactly a decade old now. And in that decade it has expanded from its limited existence tied to a console to a widely-used tool for effective and detailed motion sensing, without breaking the bank. While it’s seen use well outside of video games, it’s still being used to reimagine some classic games. In this project, Reddit user [SuperLouis64] has used it to control Mario with his own body.

While the build still involves some use of a hand controller, most of Mario’s movements are controlled by making analogous movements on a small trampoline, including the famed triple jump. The kinect is able to sense all of these movements and translate them into the game using software that [SuperLouis64] built as well. The trickiest movement seems to be Mario’s spin movement, which appears to have taken some practice to get right.

We appreciate the build quality on this one, and [SuperLouis64]’s excitement in playing the game with his creation. It truly looks like a blast to play, and he even mentions in the Reddit thread that he’s gotten a lot of productive excercise with his various VR and augumented reality games in the past few months. Of course if this is too much physical activity, you could always switch to using your car as the unique game controller instead.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/16/super-mario-64-as-experienced-by-mario/

Google has been responsible for unleashing some pretty incredible hardware and software on the world, but they can only take partial credit for the voice to Morse code gadget that [WhiskeyTangoHotel] recently completed.

With the Google AIY Voice Bonnet, [WhiskeyTangoHotel] had everything he needed to pick up on human speech and turn that into text the Raspberry Pi can parse and act on. Usually this would get passed to some kind of virtual assistant software, but in this case, a Python script breaks the speech down into individual characters and looks up their Morse representations. All those “dits” and “dahs” are then sent to one of the Pi’s GPIO pins, to which a relay has been connected.

At this point, you’ve got an interesting little toy that can sit on your desk and turn your speech into audible Morse code as the relay clicks and clacks its way through the message. In fact, if you don’t have a ham radio license, this is probably where you should stop. But if you’ve done the appropriate paperwork to transmit over the air, the relay can be connected to a radio to actually transmit messages.

If you think giving Google access to the content of your Morse code messages is a step too far, you’ll just have to learn it yourself. It might not be necessary to get your amateur license anymore, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth knowing.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/16/speech-to-morse-code-courtesy-of-google/

With many conferences moving to fully virtual this year, video conferencing will continue to be a mainstay in our lives for the foreseeable future. [Elliot] wanted to spice up his video conferencing experience just a bit and make his experience a bit more ergonomic. We’ve all had the problem of looking for our Zoom window buried behind any number of other applications, desperately searching for the mute button. Furthermore, when we get called on, we’re desperately trying to give the impression that we’ve been paying attention the entire time, even when we haven’t been.

To solve all these problems, he built a physical mute button to easily toggle the mute option on and off during Zoom calls. The device takes advantage of the native USB feature of his Digispark board, and a few built-in keyboard shortcuts in Zoom. With native USB, the Digispark board can act like a keyboard, making it really simple to emulate keyboard presses using the microcontroller. Throw in an arcade-style button and do a bit of handcrafting and you have yourself your own physical mute button.

We were really impressed by the simplicity of the design as well as the elegance of the mechanical assembly. [Elliot] even made a revamped version with a second button allowing him to control his video as well. Cool button(s) [Elliot]!

What’s your favorite work-from-home hack? Check out some of our favorites here on Hackaday.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/quickly-mute-and-unmute-yourself-using-the-physical-mute-button/

One problem with modern programming languages is the reach their overly enthusiastic early adopters have nowadays thanks to the internet. As a result, everyone else’s first encounter with them are oftentimes some crude, fanboyish endeavors to rewrite every single established software project in that shiny new language — just because — which may leave an off-putting taste behind. However, Rust certainly seems to have outgrown this state by now, and with its rising popularity within the general developer population, it’s safe to say it will stick around. Will it fully replace C one day? Probably not, but there’s a big chance for coexistence, and [Nick Desaulniers] got the ball rolling for that within the Linux kernel.

Now, before you storm off pledging your allegiance to C by finding a new operating system: nothing is happening yet. [Nick] simply tested the waters for a possible future of Rust within the Linux kernel code base, which is something he’s planning to bring up for discussion in this year’s Linux Plumbers Conference — the annual kernel developer gathering. The interesting part is [Linus Torvalds]’s respone on the LKML thread, which leaves everyone hoping for a hearty signature Rust rant akin to his C++ one disappointed. Instead, his main concern is that a soft and optional introduction of the support in the build system would leave possible bugs hidden, and therefore should be automatically enabled if a Rust compiler is present — essentially implying that he seems otherwise on board.

We’ll see what comes of it, but with Rust language team lead [Josh Triplett] stating that enhancements benefiting and advancing a kernel integration are certainly imaginable for Rust itself, we might see interesting collaborations coming up in the near future. If you don’t want to wait for that and use Rust already today in a user-land driver, check out this 35c3 talk. And if that doesn’t go far enough for you, here’s a whole (non-Linux) kernel written in Rust.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/will-2020-be-the-year-of-rust-in-the-linux-kernel/

For many of our readers, the classic 555 timer holds a special place in their heart, and cursed be the fool who dares to use an Arduino in its place. For the seriously devoted ones, or those who simply like a novelty decorative item, [acerlaguinto7] built just the right thing: a giant, actually functional, cardboard 555 timer IC.

Taking all the measurements of the original IC, [acerlaguinto7] scaled it up by factor 22 and started cutting out pieces of cardboard — also considering the orientation notch — and added the markings to emulate TI’s NE555P. Next he took a bunch of aluminum cans apart and shaped them into the pins, again staying as close as possible to the original. To top it all off, he put an actual NE555 inside the giant counterpart, and hooked it up to the soda can pins, turning it into a fully operational, oversized timer IC.

Obviously, giant conductive pins like that scream for some dead bug blinky light that even the shakiest of hands could manage to solder, and [acerlaguinto7] certainly delivers, as you can see in the video after the break. One nifty way we could see this taken further would be integrating this breadboard implementation as replacement for the 555 inside — or then just connect it to the giant Raspberry Pi.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/a-shrine-for-all-the-555-lovers/