The Retro-Printer Module is a small module ("HAT") designed by Retro Computer specialist, RWAP Software. The module plugs into a Raspberry Pi (or other Single Board Computer) to allow you to capture data from a centronics port on older (vintage) computers and equipment, converting it for electronic storage, or printing to any modern printer such as a USB or network printer. It connects to a standard parallel port and emulates a wide range of printer makes and models including Epson ESC/P, Epson ESC/P2, HP PCL3, HP PCL5, Printronix, Seiko and IBM.
Supporting both centronics and serial connections, you can easily capture printer data from a DOS program; a 1980s Home computer; an industrial lathe; test equipment; door entry system; or even PLC controlled equipment to a modern, low-cost printer. We emulate a wide range of different printer protocols and work closely with both home computer users and industry to offer a modern print replacement for dot matrix printers.
This makes the module ideal for both producing hard copies of printed output on modern printers, or for capturing data from old equipment; removing the need for legacy printers and enabling migration of data to modern systems and software.
There are two versions, a Centronics parallel port version and an RS232 serial printer version.
NEWPRINT/Multi is a Wi-Fi-enabled "virtual" printer adapter that connects to your computer's printer port and your local Wi-Fi network to send printer output to any device that supports a modern browser (iPad, Desktop PC, Mac, etc.) The NEWPRINT web interface can show printer output as plain text, hexadecimal values, Print Shop graphics (Apple II), or Apple IIgs GS/OS graphics printing. Text mode output does not (currently) understand special printer control codes used by most word processors (BOLD, multiple font sizes, Form Feed, etc.) The NEWPRINT web interface is available from any browser on your local Wi-Fi network at newprint.local. NEWPRINT uses the standard HTML WebSocket API so you can even write your own web-based or desktop interface for displaying and processing NEWPRINT output.
As long as the printer has a Centronics interface, you can plug it into this unit.
The Tick is the next evolution in covert access control system implants. Designed for a seamless integration behind card readers, The Tick silently intercepts, logs, and replays access credentials with greater efficiency and stealth than ever before. Compatible with a wide range of RFID systems, provides invaluable (to red teamers) insights into facility (in)security, while enabling advanced credential injection.
Once installed behind an access control unit, you can interact with it over Bluetooth or wifi to configure it, extract what it's captured so far, and upgrade the firmware.
SCSIknife is a compact and versatile solid state replacement solution for SCSI disk drives. SCSIknife emulates hard disk drives, CD-ROM drives, removal media, magneto-optical and tape drives from disk images files. SCSIknife is easy to set up and use, by simply placing disk image files on a SD or MicroSD card. SCSIknife can also be used in host/initiator mode, where it will automatically copy the content of an SCSI drive straight to the SD card without computer intervention.
SCSIknife runs the popular open-source ZuluSCSI pico firmware and is simple to use and configure.
Three different configurations are availiable:
- with a 50 pin HE0-19 connector (desktops and servers)
- 2.5" SCSI hard drive connector (laptop)
- all connectors
I'm sure that, like me, you were asked to put your USB drive in an unknown device... and then the doubt: What happened to my poor dongle, behind the scene? Stealing my files? Encrypting them? Or just installing a malware? With USBvalve you can spot this out in seconds: built on super cheap off-the-shelf hardware you can quickly test any USB file system activity and understand what is going on before it's too late!
With USBvalve you can have an immediate feedback about what happen to the drive; the screen will show you if the fake filesystem built on the device is accessed, read or written.
I've tried pretty much every other smartwatch on Earth, yet I still wear my Pebble every day—nothing else matches its features and long battery life. I really, really, really hoped someone else would create a proper replacement, but no one has stepped up, and my stash of old Pebbles is dwindling!
It's time to take matters into my own hands. A small team and I are working on a new Pebble-like smartwatch that runs open source PebbleOS, has the same beloved features (plus some fun new stuff), and stays true to the core Pebble vision. If enough people are interested, we'll build it. Sign up to get one!
Google (which purchased Fitbit, which had bought Pebble) still owns PebbleOS. Over the last year, a team inside Google (including some amazing ex-Pebblers turned Googlers) has been working on open sourcing the OS! The source code for PebbleOS is now available at github.com/google/pebble. Read more on their blog.
An ESP8266 based RS232 <-> WiFi modem with Hayes AT style commands and LED indicators. It makes the appropriate noises.
This project grew out of a desire to get an old Ampro LB+/Z80 hooked up to the Internet. Right from the start, I knew I wanted a row of LED indicators at the front of the modem so that it would be reminiscent of an old Hayes Smartmodem. (I briefly considered finding an old Smartmodem on eBay, but soon remembered that the case had in fact been made of metal; they don't build 'em like that anymore.) Since the modem was going to be hooked up to the Little Board's serial port, I needed an actual RS-232 level serial port, with either a DB-25 or DE-9 connector. And finally, since I wanted the Hayes style LEDs, I thought it would be handy to have the Hayes AT commands too, at least as close as I could manage.
This is the sort of project that you can build yourself, for fun. Even the right kinds of project boxes are linked in the bill of materials, along with the Kicad schematics and greyprints for the panels.
The default serial configuration is 9600bps, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit.
A disaster-resilient communications network powered by the sun.
When the critical infrastructure that so many of us take for granted goes away, how do we organize ourselves and our communities to respond?
If recent ecological disasters have demonstrated anything, it is the inadequacy of existing models and tools to provide efficient allocation of resources, access to emergency communications, and effective coordination of human effort. Few if any solutions exist that are off-grid, affordable, reliable, easily deployed, and openly standardized.
The project started when my mechanical Ferraris energy counter was replaced with a digital smart meter from eBZ. The DD3 model provides an IR signal which can be read once a second with a simple IR receiver. Initially I used just an Arduino with a photo transistor circuit on a breadboard to read the signal. Later I have built an IR dongle on a real PCB in a nice case for permanent mounting on top of the smart meter.
For the software side, the Smartmeter program reads the raw stream of data from the energy meter and forwards it as a JSON formatted string to a MQTT broker on the network. The data is stored in a TimescaleDB database and visualised on a Grafana dashboard.
In the AUR.
JTAGulator alternative for RP2040 microcontroller based development boards including RPi Pico.
Connect the RP2040 microcontroller based development board running blueTag to your computer using USB cable. Connect the development board's GPIO pins (GPIO0-GPIO15 so 16 channels in all) to your target's testpoints on the PCB. Connect the development board's "GND" pin to target's "GND". Connect to your RP2040 using a terminal emulator. blueTag supports auto-baudrate detection so you should not have to perform any additional settings. Press any key in the terminal emulator program to start using blueTag. The firmware methodically pokes at all of the connected lines to figure out what kind of interface it is (JTAG, I2C, SPI, etc) and which line is hooked to which pin of that interface for you.
We at Bitbinders have been developing professional hardware and software solutions since 1982. Our founder had a very long love affair with Commodore computers (and a shorter fling with Atari's!) He founded BitBinders decades ago and mostly did programming to enhance his main career as an engineer and later as an manufacturing executive. There were many developments but perhaps two of the more interesting included some pretty fancy linear programming for foundries and early-90's machine vision for controlling welders. Non-main career commercial successes included "RadBench", a Visual Basic add-on licensed and published by the Crescent Division of Progress Software. His "second career" is now focused on BitBinders retro-computing products, grown from a true passion for retro-computing.
The really interesting thing is that they sell replicas of the Commodore 1581 3.5" floppy drive that are 100% compatible. They sell a couple of variants (one and two drive units) and are engineered with future upgrades and repairs in mind. They're pretty expensive but they're re-implementations using modern components. They also sell replacement power supplies for Commodore computers.
An online electronic component dealer that's been around since 2009.
Meshtastic® is a project that enables you to use inexpensive LoRa radios as a long range off-grid communication platform in areas without existing or reliable communications infrastructure. This project is 100% community driven and open source!
Long range (331km record by MartinR7 & alleg). No phone required for mesh communication. Decentralized communication - no dedicated router required. Encrypted. Excellent battery life. Send and receive text messages between members of the mesh. Optional GPS based location features.
Meshtastic utilizes LoRa, a long-range radio protocol, which is widely accessible in most regions without the need for additional licenses or certifications, unlike HAM radio operations. These radios are designed to rebroadcast messages they receive, forming a mesh network. This setup ensures that every group member, including those at the furthest distance, can receive messages. Additionally, Meshtastic radios can be paired with a single phone, allowing friends and family to send messages directly to your specific radio. It's important to note that each device is capable of supporting a connection from only one user at a time.
A curated list of awesome open source healthcare software, libraries, tools and resources. Each link has been vetted to ensure the project is active and provides value to healthcare facilities, providers, developers, policy experts, and/or research scientists.
flashrom is a utility for detecting, reading, writing, verifying and erasing flash chips. It is often used to flash BIOS/EFI/coreboot/firmware images in-system using a supported mainboard, but it also supports flashing of network cards (NICs), SATA controller cards, and other external devices which can program flash chips. Can also be used for dumping the contents of SPI chips for analysis.
It supports a wide range of flash chips (most commonly found in SOIC8, DIP8, SOIC16, WSON8, PLCC32, DIP32, TSOP32, and TSOP40 packages), which use various protocols such as LPC, FWH, parallel flash, or SPI.
Information about the various models of RasPi.
An open-source, 35mm full-frame (36mm x 24mm) CCD mirror-less interchangable lens camera (MILC). The original goal of this project was to create a digital camera back to convert SLR cameras to DSLR cameras, but has since changed to build a full MILC.
This means that the project includes building a logic board with a system-on-a-chip, optical and ranging sensors, ports, storage media, an LCD screen... this is not a beginner's project. Nor is it a project for casual photographers.
The ISA PicoMEM Extension board (For 8086/8088 PC) is a way to run Emulated ISA boards on a real PC. It currently connects the full 8Bit Memory and I/O Bus plus an IRQ to a Raspberry Pi Pico, through a multiplexor/Level shifter chip. The Pi Pico also has a 8Mbyte PSRAM connected in SPI and a MicroSD Slot. This GitHub Repository does not contains the Firmware at the moment, but PMMOUSE, PMEMM and PM2000 Source are available.
This board helps test floppy drives of several different types:
- Standard IBM 34-pin drives (3.5" and 5.25")
- IBM PS/2 40-pin drives with embedded power connections
- Shugart 8" floppy drives
- Apple II (original Disk II)
- HP 34-pin drives (as found in many 9122 enclosures)
- HP 26-pin drives (found in older enclosures and machines)
- IBM 31SD and 51TD floppy drives
The board basically breaks out every signal to a control switch, indicator LED, or test point. It's not designed as a flux imaging tool--it's just a simple way to exercise features of a floppy drive.
There is an optional section of the board that is a step controller for the head stepper motor. This controller has an encoder wheel and a small 7-segment display. It will let you select and automatically step to a particular track.
Uses an ATmega328PB microcontroller as its CPU.
This repository contains STL files for the MicroLab 3D printed reactors.