Ep 168: Math Flattens Spheres, FPGAs Emulate Arcades, and We Can't Shake Polaroid Pictures

Hackaday Podcast · 13 May 2022 · 53m · Episode 168

What this episode covers

Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney review a week of hardware hacks, focusing on retro computing and FPGA education. They highlight Mr. Retro Wolf’s project to clone arcade games like Tank Battalion on an FPGA, a nearly all-new Commodore 64 built by Retro Shack, and a DRM-free label printer by Michi Martini. The hosts also discuss Nervous System’s mathematically flattened sphere lamp, Wyman’s Workshop’s ducted fan aerodynamics, and deep dives into 1950s television technology and modern smartphone optics.

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 11m

    Apple HQ and Vintage Arcade Games - The Mothership Manifesto

    Dave Jones and Jeff Kaiser discuss the passing of legendary analog designer Jim Williams and the upcoming third edition of The Art of Electronics by Wyn Hill. They explore the use of FPGAs to recreate vintage arcade hardware, specifically mentioning the Jammer board and FPGA Arcade, contrasting this with software emulation. The hosts also analyze the new Apple 'Mothership' headquarters, Agilent's responsive handling of a firmware bug in their U1272A multimeter, and the economic and technical arguments for retaining 8-bit microcontrollers over 32-bit ARM architectures.

  • The Electromaker Show · 30m

    Arduino Plug and Make Kit, FPGA mixing console on 1990s OS/2, and much more!

    The host reviews the Arduino Plug and Make Kit, a solderless beginner system using Modulinos and an Arduino Uno R4 Wi-Fi, highlighting its educational resources and cross-compatibility with SparkFun and Adafruit connectors. He details Chris Nerding’s FPGA mixing console project, which uses an Arduino MKR Vidor 4000 to hack a Behringer audio interface and runs an OS/2 GUI on retro IBM hardware. The episode also covers automating the Nordic Semiconductor Power Profiling Kit II with a Unihiker single-board computer, a DIY Tempest spinner built from an optical mouse, and Jasper Devreker’s open-source ESP32 MAC layer project.

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 30m

    An Interview With Todd Bailey - Embedded Embrasure Engineering

    Todd Bailey, an embedded and analog engineer and contractor, discusses his journey from an English literature degree to designing toys at Big Monster Toys and now working on high-end custom electronics. He details the technical challenges of building a vector graphics engine for an Asteroids arcade monitor using FPGAs and high-speed DACs, as well as his experiences creating open-source hardware like the 'Where's the Party At' digital sampler. Bailey also reflects on the nature of engineering as a 'calling' versus a hobby, the difficulties of working with artists, and the future of PCB assembly services.

  • Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast · 1h 43m

    044 - Scots Army Knife

    Piotr Esden-Tempski of 1BitSquared discusses the company's role in manufacturing open-source hardware, specifically the Glasgow digital interface explorer, the iCEBreaker FPGA board, and the Black Magic Probe debugger. He explains the economic rationale for using an old Quad 4C pick-and-place machine for small-batch production and details how Glasgow uses an FPGA to dynamically generate hardware protocols via the nmigen HDL. The conversation also covers the geopolitical shift toward RISC-V in China, the challenges of debugging legacy industrial equipment, and the importance of documentation and community education in the open-source hardware ecosystem.

  • Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast · 2h 06m

    052 - Twitter Is My Lab Notebook

    Eric (TubeTimeUS) details his reverse engineering of the original Sound Blaster sound card, leveraging online photos and community help to clone the PCB, and discusses sourcing obsolete components from Chinese brokers. He then explains the design and validation of the MOnSter 6502, a massive discrete 6502 processor built from scratch using NMOS logic and the Visual 6502 netlist. Finally, he describes his reverse engineering of the Snappy Video Snapshot, uncovering its use of an Xilinx FPGA configured via the parallel port, and reflects on engineering ethics, regulatory capture, and the importance of using one's brain for troubleshooting.

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