All articles tagged with #microcontrollers
A Hackaday post covers XTX’s XTSD04GLGEAG cardless NAND flash chip, which mimics an SD card without a physical slot. It can be used with standard SD card libraries and a custom breakout to plug into breadboards or laptop card readers, enabling SD-like storage for prototyping. The setup requires careful thickness (0.6 mm for card-like use) and a standardized pinout for easy drop-in integration.
The article explores various innovative tech gadgets and concepts, including tiny gaming devices like the Thumby Color, transforming handhelds, modular phones, a Star Wars cargo bot, and a powerful gaming laptop, highlighting their features, potential, and the author's personal experiences and opinions.
Kaluma, a lightweight JavaScript runtime, can now be installed on the Raspberry Pi Pico, which uses the RP2040 microcontroller. This allows developers to use familiar JavaScript tools and modules for file systems, graphics, networking, and more. The Kaluma command-line interface enables easy development and flashing of code to the Pico. This expansion of high-level languages on microcontrollers opens up embedded programming to a wider range of coders.
A clever hack has been discovered to dump the contents of a Mostek MK3870 chip, a 1970s mask ROM microcontroller. By utilizing the TEST pin to disable the mask ROM and load alternative program code directly into the micro's processing core, the ROM's contents can be read out. Although implementing the hack had strict timing requirements, the code can be optimized for dumping multiple chips. Mask ROMs are known for their long-term data storage capabilities.
A Reddit user has shared code for a dynamic WiFi beacon that Rickrolls wireless LAN users via the broadcast SSID of an ESP32 WiFi radio. The ESP32 and its smaller sibling, the ESP8266, are popular microcontrollers featuring built-in WiFi support, making them a favorite for makers, hackers, and pranksters. The sketch periodically updates the SSID to a next line of text stored within the code, with the Rickroll prank featuring the next line of lyrics from "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley.