Something worth sharing

[ralcool]

I feel sometimes in the spirit of hardware hacking sometimes we come across things that inspire or amaze.

To kick off the idea I found this, and its really quite something even if its not actually Atari related.
(Although you might argue Commodore is the evil half brother)

http://blog.tynemouthsoftware.co.uk/201 ... eview.html

Perhaps you've seen something?

[spiny]

I thought this was extremely cool:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36651271

synth built from 40 year old scans- 'scans' notated music sheets to play sounds

[ralcool]

How most people see circuit diagrams

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/circuit_diagram.png

[spiny]

which isn't far off this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36711989

[ralcool]

Which probably has more memory than this:

http://gizmodo.com/5932207/the-computer ... old-ladies
http://drhart.ucoz.com/index/core_memory/0-123

Don't think it will hold TOS2.06 though.
http://hackaday.com/2013/10/09/making-a ... ly-memory/

[spiny]

Which probably has more memory than this:

http://gizmodo.com/5932207/the-computer ... old-ladies
http://drhart.ucoz.com/index/core_memory/0-123

Don't think it will hold TOS2.06 though.
http://hackaday.com/2013/10/09/making-a ... ly-memory/

that is amazing!

[ralcool]

There are a few videos on the utube that explain the clever programming and resourcefulness of the Apollo Flight computer.
Not to be dismissed lightly on account of it being 'old', it lives among the other fathers of the digital age.

Now, A paper that I cannot find to share went to great lengths to discuss the amount of information to be found in the electrical noise of wiring & outlets of your home. In a nutshell, if a Digital Signal Processor is used to sample the very hums and clicks on top of the 50/60hz mains, we can learn what is being operated in the home.

The article in question delved into the possibility that some Smart Meters possess such technology, and while its only known use is to correctly calculate thing such as power factors, resistive vs inductive loads to charge you as much as humanly possible- it ostensibly CAN also know just how much power just your fridge is using. By listening to it.

The really interesting part of this damn article I cannot find, is how a unsuitably smart person managed to create a device that used similar techniques to able to listen to the noise created on a lcd display power supply-to locate a touching finger-and effectively create a touch screen using this method.

Amazing. And a lil bit scary. And it makes more real the possibility of the tale a security expert (this guy an absolute 'kin genius) , told me he could point an antenna at your bedroom window and read the contents of your computers CRT monitor via the RF emissions.

Cheers

[spiny]

Amazing. And a lil bit scary. And it makes more real the possibility of the tale a security expert (this guy an absolute 'kin genius) , told me he could point an antenna at your bedroom window and read the contents of your computers CRT monitor via the RF emissions.

Cheers

^ that bit has been around for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking

[czietz]

And it makes more real the possibility of the tale a security expert (this guy an absolute 'kin genius) , told me he could point an antenna at your bedroom window and read the contents of your computers CRT monitor via the RF emissions.

This not just a tale. The feasibility of such an attack was shown countless times. It works with modern LCDs, as well. See Figure 5 "Text signal received from a notebook through two intermediate offices (3 plasterboard walls)" in http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iss2006-tempest.pdf

[wongck]

Ha Ha... I remembered the days back in Uni when my black & white TV is able to pick up the neighbour room computer signal and just about able to see what's he was doing on his computer. (i think it was an apple ][ with a TV video card using a TV as monitor).

[ralcool]

I did something similar at boot camp, I was tuning my TV while a friend in the next room (coincidentally on an analogue mobile phone call) when the TV picked up the audio from his phone- no picture of course, but his voice was clear as a bell through the TV speakers.

About 800mhz IIRC was the mobile carrier frequency at the time. Somewhere in the UHF TV audio band. (Or a harmonic)

[EvilFranky]

Tynemouth Software...just up the road from me, didn't even know it existed.

[ralcool]

I guess on the back of that discussion I have to mention, the guy that talked about the reading the screen via the emissions...
(And I now remember he also used that term 'Tempest') ... I'll add an edit here and say that I'm not sure if I can say his name okay?!

Was another interesting story you'll never find.

Firstly, I'll explain a little bit why/how I heard this stuff. During my tenure in the RAAF, I did a course called 'Electromagnetic Environmental Effects'

An amazing course that simply explained that you don't put analogue and digital signals on the same ground plane..or too close together , and please really don't put the flight control computer above the radio ok. It gets really messy on so many levels.

So, he also moonlighted as the kind of technician that could fix perhaps ghostly type problems in aircraft and other bizarre places.

I still chuckle at this one... So back in 2000,Australia held the Olympics.. During the closing ceremony there were some stupid looking Kangaroos attached to pushbikes.... daft as a brush.

Kangaroos_on_bicycles_on.jpg

Story goes that these were somehow cut out on a cnc machine. Big flat bed thing, that for some odd reason the machine would randomly cut the head off the internal structure parts of the 'roos it was making- which wasn't actually the fault of the program or computer guiding the cutting tool.

It turns out one side of the factory shared a wall with a large number of PCs in the local employment office that all ran a 33Mhz CPU, precisely the right frequency to confuse the cutting head when it got too close to that side of the bed/building.

He was called in to find the problem, and in the end the solution to this temporary problem was a roll of aluminum foil covering the cabling.

And this only going to get worse.

[ralcool]

Finding some simple pictures isn't very easy, but I want to bring to your attention a version of the Speaking Clock that I know to have used.

All things come to an end, but the mechanical nature is intriguing. Not to mention ladies working around the clock to read you the time before it was invented and put in service!

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/at-the-third- ... 3646r.html (Retirement)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/brighton/8434981241 (The London prototype)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp4zlMZVcmM (The Aussie installation... 37 crates of parts!)

I remember dialing the clock myself many times when I was younger. Just to know a machine was talking.
Then we had that crude ST Speech syth, that was still rather amazing imho, especially when it kind of showed the grammar it was using.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SneAlOB25PQ (Obligatory Atari link..) :p

Happy reading!

[ralcool]

http://web.archive.org/web/201604190702 ... rdware.htm

You guys could probably tell us more about this project... but wow.

[Zogging Hell]

Ha Ha... I remembered the days back in Uni when my black & white TV is able to pick up the neighbour room computer signal and just about able to see what's he was doing on his computer. (i think it was an apple ][ with a TV video card using a TV as monitor).

Both me and my sister had STs at one stage. If I turned my TV on when she was using hers (being tuned into the same channel as mine), I could watch her doing her homework (exciting times!), which sounds an odd thing to do, but the amusement of watching her becoming increasingly mad with 1st Word (and its refusal to print a page that resembled A4 in size) made it worth it. I hate to say it but her ST was the victim of physical abuse now and again! Fortunately I inherited it when she brought a crummy laptop, and it was none the worse for it .

[darklight]

Never had a problem with an ST (apart from an ominous buzzing noise coming out of the PSU that got louder the longer it was turned on), but my speccy just flat out silenced the downstairs radio when it was turned on. I cant express how angry I got when my mum told me to turn it off. She wanted some music while she prepared my food / did the washing up, but *I* wanted to play a crappy covertape.

[spiny]

One of my STs made the lights (the bulbs and the switch) make a very alarming buzzing noise in the room it was used in - turned out it was something to do with the dimmer switch on the lights - replaced it with a normnal switch and the issue went away