#hardware hack

[techav]

Early Hacks

Here we see a hack I did more than fifteen years ago, when I lacked much of the knowledge, experience, and materials I have at my disposal now. I overclocked my PowerMac G4 Sawtooth. Stock it ran at 450MHz; I was able to get it to run stable at 500MHz.

The CPU card for these old G4s used a few resistors to set the bus multiplier. For this old Sawtooth model, it was R7, R9, R11, R13.

I removed the resistors that were there originally and soldered some enameled magnet wire in their place. On the other end, I soldered a set of DIP switches to allow me to experiment with the multiplier without a lot of effort. I only had this bank of six switches, so two are unused. And then, lacking anything better, I wrapped it in tons of electrical tape.

I tried setting the multiplier up to 5.5x to get it up to 550MHz, but it wasn't stable enough to boot. At 600MHz it wouldn't even power on. I believe it could be set down to 3.5 or 3.0, should I ever have any reason to underclock the machine.

I used this computer, overclocked to 500MHz and running MacOS 10.5 for years before passing it on to a family member who used it for several more years. Never once had an issue with the overclock or my crude hack.

In the 15 years since, the tape has obviously collected a lot of dust, but the computer still runs fine. I'm just a extra cautious when it comes to working around those fine wires.

[findingmyrib]

G3 Powerbook to Raspberry Pi conversion idea

I need to get to bed but I think when I get up I'll start researching how to make an adapter to attach my G3 Powerbooks keyboard to a Raspberry Pi. Did a little reading and it doesn't look too impossible, more time consuming than anything else. Either build an adapter to go to the Pis GPIO pins or use a microcontroller to convert it to USB.  USB is probably ideal, letting me expose the GPIO pins somewhere.  Might use an Arduino, or to keep it all Pi stuff, a Pi Pico(which isn't an SBC, it's a microcontroller). And the display... I'm really thinking that should just be replaced. If the existing one is VGA with a different connector to suit a laptop, it wouldn’t be too terrible to interface with it, but if it’s anything proprietary that would be a nightmare. And I could maybe get something higher resolution if I replace it. Finding one that will fit might be a challenge but if I can pull that off, that would be ideal, hopefully, something HDMI so I don't have more adapters to build and stuff into the thing. Run one of the Pis HDMI ports to the internal display, run the other to the side of the case so I can drive an external display. And figure out how to route the HDMI audio to either the exisiting speakers or suitable replacements, along with a headphone jack. Then I’ll have to sort out the power situation. The existing AC adapter is dead, though I have a thought that I could buy a USB wall charger, take it apart, stuff it into the case of the existing one, and replace the laptop end of the cable with a USB cable. I’m thinking if I can figure out a way to run two USB power banks in a way I can hot swap them, that would be an amazing battery solution. Current bank goes low?  Swap it without having to power down. With the size and capactiy of a lot of powerbanks these days, and the power requirements of a Pi 4, I could probably have some pretty impressive battery life. Who knows, maybe I could even replace the existing long dead battery for even more power. This would make for a genuinely useful laptop, for probably more money than I’m expecting, and I’d learn a lot in the process. It wouldn’t replace the Ryzen laptop I have on the way from Amazon, but it would be fun to play with. If I have the space, I might even be able to get one of the motherboards for a Compute Module, some of those even have M.2 slots and that would be a great storage option. Or I could go with a PCIe slot option. Lots of stuff to research and think about. I’ll probably do a bit of research to nail down what my theoretical options are, ensure they would support at least minimally useful capabilities for me, and then if I’m still on board with this idea, start gutting my Powerbook so I can figure out how much space I have to work with to nail down how to approach this project in detail. It’s not a modern paper thin laptop, but it’s still a laptop and that means limited space to work with. Hopefully enough space to do all this and maybe even include sufficient cooling to overclock it a bit. I’ve got my Pi 400 at 2.25ghz, and that’s passively cooled. So I could probably at least get that far. And then set up OS9 in an emulator and make people think I’m actually running ancient hardware.

[techlomedia]

Pencil Tip Sized Chinese Spying Chips Found hidden on Servers of US Companies http://dlvr.it/QmLnv9

[0xmichelle]

It begins!

[hungryhacker]

Now, will you just insert a strange flash drive to your computer?

[brit]

Hardware goes haute... Read more.

[salvadorparadise-blog]

Yes there are many ways to intercept Internet traffic or pull off a MITM (Man in the Middle) attack, but that does not mean "average" users knows how to do so. The Firefox browser addon Firesheep is one of the easiest "canned" tools for the clueless (Script Kiddies), so an attacker can sniff and capture a user's unencrypted cookie information, HTTP session jacking, allowing anyone to become an Internet griefer. For a little bit different take on how to mess with people's minds, there is Newstweek to manipulate the news people are reading at wireless hotspots. For those who like to tinker with hardware, break out the soldering iron because building a Newstweek device just got easier with a detailed how-to post - starting with hardware, software, firmware, installing, and remote controlling the Newstweek device.

Given Internet citizens reliance on digital communication, as paper and ink newpapers die out in favor of web-based news, censored news reports could easily color judgments and affect many readers. The reason anyone might use Newstweek may seem ethically questionable, but there could be "greater good" uses as well, such as inserting truthful and uncensored versions of the news in countries where news is "seen through a filter of government-issued data surveillance."

[revolvingdork]

Building a Hackintosh

My friend and business partner Dave has been in need of a new computer. At work, he uses a passable all-in-one system; at home he only has access to an underpowered laptop. As the CEO of a dynamic cutting-edge web startup, he should undoubtedly be running more becoming hardware. Haim and I endeavored to build him a worthy machine, but there was just one issue:

Dave's a Mac.

I'm a PC.

There was a solution to the conundrum: Hackintosh. A "Hackintosh" is a computer built with standard off-the-shelf "PC" parts that can run Mac OS X. It's a great DIY project for techies who want to make use of Apple's operating system but don't want to buy pricey proprietary hardware.

What does this mean? In concrete terms, I was able to build a machine roughly on par with a $3200 Mac Pro for less than a third of the price. Here's how!

Parts and Preparation

The most crucial aspect of any build is part selection, and in this scenario it's even more important than usual. You can, in theory, install OS X on any Intel-based motherboard. Some boards make it easier than others; many boards make the process nothing short of hellish.

It helps to read up on specific hardware compatibility in places like OSx86 Project and tonymac86x. These communities brought a handy installation tool called Kakewalk to my attention, and it quickly became the focal point of my build. To install OS X, you must jump through a few hoops: first, you need to run a bootloader to fake the OS installer into thinking it's being run on a Mac; then you need to install "kexts" ( kernel extensions ) to provide the device drivers that allow OS X to operate your system's components; last you need to install a custom boot loader that will provide a more permanent method for starting up your machine. Kakewalk is nice because it attempts to take care of this whole process for you.

Gigabyte is the current community-favorite manufacturer of Hackintosh-friendly motherboards, and Kakewalk supports several of their boards directly. After consulting with multiple compatibility lists, I ended up with the following parts list:

Motherboard: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R LGA 1366

CPU: Intel Core i7-950 Quad-Core 3.06GHz LGA 1366

RAM: Corsair 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1333

GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Case: Antec Three Hundred ATX

PSU: Corsair CMPSU-650TX 650W

Optical drive: Generic SATA DVD drive

That all adds up to a capable setup for both work and gaming. Later in this post you'll see which parts ended up being mis-selections!

Installation

After assembling the hardware, I used Kellbot's Macbook Air to prepare Kakewalk with an OS X installation disc ( a USB DVD burner was used due to the Air's drive scarcity ). The instructions provided with Kakewalk are detailed and provide almost all of the necessary steps, from BIOS adjustment to drive formatting specifics. You'll need a USB flash drive with a capacity of at least 8GB on which to load the bootable installer.

I hit a snag while attempting to boot to the OS installer: the system would crash and display an error message stating "You need to restart your computer". After consulting the wealth of information posted by the Hackintosh community, I realized that the issue was being caused by my video card: it wasn't fully supported by Kakewalk. Since I had another machine to vampire parts from, I swapped the 460 GTX out for an 8800 GTS and the boot proceded normally.

OS X was successfully installed, but it lacked audio, ethernet, and optical drive functionality. After lots of experimentation and research, I discovered that my second-revision X58A-UD3R motherboard worked better if I configured Kakewalk as if it was installing on a X58A-UD7. I started again from the beginning, and this time audio worked on boot and ethernet came with a handy kext.

The SATA optical drive still didn't want to play ball, so I tried swapping it out with an IDE drive and it worked immediately. At this point, I declared victory.

End Result

It's big, it's powerful, and it didn't come from anywhere remotely near Cupertino.

We can see that the processor and RAM are recognized and running at the correct speed.

Of course, you don't really know if it works until you play Starcraft on it.

One of the main reasons I've been historically uninterested in Macs is that they do their best to separate the human from the hardware. They're sold as fully complete self-contained systems, warding users away from making any attempt at understanding what makes them tick. After building one from the ground up, I now feel a greater sense of understanding and ownership towards the platform. This is the kind of Mac I'd be excited to use: one I've built myself.