Author | Lightnews

Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · 18h

Yep, control codes work. The first 128 entries of the ASCII table work, though the first ~30 are mostly useless on modern computers other than backspace, escape, maybe 1 or 2 others?

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · 1d

People keep competing for smaller and smaller mechanical keyboards. Here is my contribution... a Raspberry Pi Pico powered binary-chording 8-key keyboard where you play piano-style chords of binary values representing the ASCII table. This message may have taken an hour to type, but it works!

My 8-key mechanical keyboard where you type piano-style chords of binary values representing the ASCII table.

The wiring for my 8-key mechanical keyboard where you type piano-style chords of binary values representing the ASCII table.

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Reposted by Obsolete Nerd

Ballarat Hackerspace @ballarathackerspace.org.au · 10d

Teaser for a big LED project in the works for Ballarat Springfest, where we have a stall this year showing off some of our creations. This one is 2.2m high and almost 3m wide and will certainly grab some attention.

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · 12d

Hydroponic strawberries are flowering and have their first berries forming. Still manually controlling nutrient percentages but next step is to add automation there.

Strawberries growing in a home made aquaponic system

Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · Sep 22

These were not plugs that were used a lot, with things being unplugged/plugged. They sit running fish tank filters, lamps in the kids room, etc, and have only been unplugged maybe 2-3 times ever, otherwise just sitting there tucked away doing their thing.

Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · Sep 22

The plug was "rattling" inside, so I pulled it apart and all these pieces fell out. Internally the plastic pieces that hold the 240V prongs in place had all snapped off, leaving the prongs "floating around" with nothing else fixing them in place. These were barely used, just sitting running lamps.

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · Sep 22

I've now had 3 of these Mirabella Genio "smart plugs" fail in a very dangerous and scary way, over the last year or 2. Both have been in use in our home for a few years now, neither have been "abused" just used to schedule fish tank timers/lamps/etc.

Details in thread.

Mirabella Genio wi-fi smart plug packaging

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · Aug 11

Spent the last few weekends fabricating this steel bracket that connects to the factory CRT points in the Sega OutRun cabinet to mount modern monitors. The 3D printed VESA adapter lets you put any modern monitor in, and keeping the area behind empty of stands leaves plenty of space for the PC.

Custom steel chassis that lets you put modern monitors in old arcade cabinets

Modern monitor and gaming PC inside an old Sega OutRun cabinet

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · Jul 19

Tiny (<35mm to each side!) binary clock desk toy, using an ESP32-S3 and a GlowBit 4x4 RGB matrix. It checks the time using NTP then displays it in HH:MM columns, with the rows being binary values of 1/2/4/8 top to bottom.

RGB LED matrix showing the time in binary

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · Jul 3

Made a little grip-training thing that clips onto my home gym and lets me do climbing/grip training. Scrap metal plate with a welded loop on top, then designed mirrored holds in Blender and 3d printed them. It can be used in a few different ways to focus different muscles and grip types.

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · May 27

Harddrive inside is a Seagate ST-238R with a whopping 32Mb of storage space.

Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · May 27

The sticker on the bottom of the keyboard. It says it was made in Taiwan, and all the chips inside say Made in Malaysia. No mention anywhere of this brand ever selling desktop PCs though, just keyboards and some laptops.

Manufacturers sticker on the bottom of a retro computer keyboard.

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · May 27

I found this old 8088-based PC at an e-waste place and can't find *any* information of its existence online.

The only branding anywhere on the whole thing is on the keyboard, saying "Nan Tan Computer Co" and "NTC CO" but no reference of them building PCs, just keyboards.

#retropc #retrocomputing

An old 8088-based PC with a blue case, blue keyboard, and blue monitor. Unknown origin.

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · May 8

Now in a tiny little 3D printed case.

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · May 7

The world's smallest Canon DSLR remote shutter?

Was mostly just curious how the pins work on the proprietary connector, with the ultimate plan of making an ESP32 remote-shutter for input-based triggering.

Tiny little Canon camera remote shutter, made with 2 buttons on a piece of protoboard wired to a headphone jack.

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Reposted by Obsolete Nerd

Ballarat Hackerspace @ballarathackerspace.org.au · Mar 28

Over the last few days we converted the original high/low single-switch toggle shifter to a 2-switch sequential shifter so it works in modern racing games. Getting the mechanism working was a much bigger job than expected, but we finally got the right springs and switch-angles and everything sorted.

Original Sega OutRun gear stick mechanism

Our modified shifter mechanism using 2 switches and a Pro Micro

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Reposted by Obsolete Nerd

Ballarat Hackerspace @ballarathackerspace.org.au · Mar 14

Still a lot to do, but it "works" and we drove our first laps today. Assetto Corsa running in a 1986 Sega Outrun arcade cabinet. Original steering and pedals are now working and calibrated in Steam via an Arduino Pro Micro. Next we'll modify the shifter to work as a sequential gearbox.

Assetto Corsa racing simulator game playing on an original Sega OutRun arcade cabinet

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Reposted by Obsolete Nerd

2600 - The Hacker Quarterly @2600.com · Mar 9

JUST IN - Our Twitter (X) account has been locked.

They claim we published "people's private information without their express authorization and permission."

We published names and email addresses of people working for the government. We will not be intimidated.

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · Feb 23

Latest project I’ve been working on at @ballarathackerspace.org.au

Arduino Pro Micro + a bunch of custom wiring looms convert the old wiring to JST. Goal is to use all the original hardware as inputs for modern sim racing games and use mods in Assetto Corsa to make a new version of Outrun.

Ballarat Hackerspace @ballarathackerspace.org.au · Feb 22

Steam and Assetto Corsa on an original Outrun arcade cabinet, using the original cabinet inputs? Don’t mind if I do…

Still lots to fix and tidy up but we officially have the gaming PC installed inside the cabinet and all the original pedals/steering inputs working in Steam.

1980s Outrun arcade cabinet modified to have a gaming PC and showing Steam on the screen.

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · Feb 23

We got the firmware sorted and all the inputs working yesterday, so now just need to finish fixing the broken gearing in the old steering system and we should be able to do some proper testing.

I reckon a red Civetta Bolide in #BeamNG should suit the cabinet pretty well for a first official drive.

Reposted by Obsolete Nerd

arturo182 @arturo182.bsky.social · Feb 18

Fucking wild that a $699 device that is not even a year old (released April 2024) will "stop functioning before the end of the month, at 12 PM PST on February 28, 2025".

Absolutely criminal.

TechCrunch @techcrunch.com · Feb 18

Humane’s AI Pin is dead

Humane announced on Tuesday that it has been acquired by HP. The hardware startup is immediately discontinuing sales of its $699 AI Pins. Humane told customers who had already purchased an AI Pin that their devices will stop functioning before the end of…

tcrn.ch

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · Jan 28

Just finished watching the video earlier, then spent the next hour with my 10yr old messing around in the demo. We had a load of fun. I think there's definitely potential there for a little game with the growing-snowball and chasing or being chased by penguins.

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Reposted by Obsolete Nerd

Eric Migicovsky @ericmigi.com · Jan 28

** It's happening!! **

We managed to convince Google to open source PebbleOS. Took a while, but they just did it today! github.com/google/pebble

With that, we're bringing Pebble back! I blogged about it - ericmigi.com/blog/why-wer...

Why We’re Bringing Pebble Back

Eight years later, you still can’t beat a Pebble

ericmigi.com

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Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · Jan 24

Why buy stickers when you can make stickers. Threw this together today at @ballarathackerspace.org.au using Inkscape and a vinyl plotter.

MacBook with a large sticker saying “You can’t stop the signal, hack the planet”

Obsolete Nerd @obsolete.bsky.social · Dec 29

Nothing but the highest quality equipment in my workshop. Paint booth made from a camping gazebo, a spotlight zip-tied to the ceiling of it, and a heat gun hanging from some scrap wire. Worked great though!

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