Slashdot Mirror

Whine less, solder more.

Linux? On an Arduino?

Linux on AVR has already been done. http://dangerousprototypes.com...

Then again there are Arduinos with ARM and x86 processors so porting Linux to them is not that big deal. But it is not and won't be a Linux desktop.

Also Dangerous Prototypes, quite a few things appear there a few days before Hackaday or Slashdot picks them up.

These are around $6000 but it's the real deal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You may have lost a zero there--I wasn't able to find pricing on that machine specifically, but most pick and place machines of that caliber cost upwards of $50,000. There are some chinese ~$3,000 desktop machines like this http://dangerousprototypes.com..., but they have poor accuracy and no optical feedback.

A $300 pick and place machine would be awesome, but honestly anything around $2000 that can accurately place 0402 components with optical feedback would be amazing.

...considering the release of Novena. the Open Source Computer: http://dangerousprototypes.com...

I doubt I'll ever go there, but the two places where I've seen the most about Shenzen (without trying to) and all its wonders from a techie point of view are Dangerous Prototypes and Bunnie Huang. I think it helps a bit that they are both (AFAIK) living over there right now.

Like Intel embedding 3g radios in the vPro processors? Putting trojan in FPGAs? If i can't walk to the next continent, why worry to start walking?

Do what you have at your hands, you can improve a lot your security in the points where you control. And let the rest of the world figure the missing pieces, with open source software you also have portability, when an alternative comes in that area (i.e. moving to ARM) you will be able to take a step forward. Just don't get too tied to a solution that you can't control.

Get to a Maker Faire. Several years ago I spent awhile talking with Bre Pettis about his new machine from MakerBot without realizing who he was. Take the kids! Solder your own badge! Learn how to make your own air powered rockets! My kids aren't even into robots think it is a blast. A word of waring... they make you sign a serious waiver for a reason. They expect you to pay attention to your surroundings and not blindly walk into that quadcopter demo. Make sure your kids are not texting as they walk. Look for some of the small booths/tables with guys that brought in their home brewed stuff. They were you not that long ago and would love to talk about hot to get started. The fancy booths are people looking to sell stuff. If your not looking to buy your own laser cutter.... they will let you look and they will be polite but they are looking to sell stuff.
http://makerfaire.com/

If you decide you want to start now and want to learn how things work....

Get this kit for $49:
http://www.adafruit.com/products/193

Follow the tutorials starting here:
http://learn.adafruit.com/lesson-0-getting-started

Soon you will be a master of blinky lights. Think of it as "Hello world" for robotics.

If you think, "HOLY CRAP. I AM MAKING IT REALLY DO THINGS" Then continue. If you went, "HOLY CRAP, I JUST WASTED $50 AND A FEW HOURS OF MY LIFE TO MAKE A STUPID LIGHT BLINK" you might consider some of the more expensive options or re-consider your desire to do this. If you want to continue...

If you have an old printer laying around then rip some motors out of it. In fact anything that has a motor or is older electronics will soon be looked at with, "Hey, that has a nice transformer in it. Those are some nice through hole resisters. Would you look at those hardened steel rods! I wonder why they did it this way?"

Things to consider furthering the addiction:
motor shield with some basic motors
digital multimeter
Soldering iron, do not get one of those nasty Radio Shack $20 pieces of junk. You wouldn't try to build a small deck with a handsaw. This is one of the more expensive pieces you will buy, but it is one of those tools that you will use and will appreciate not having a junk one. This does not mean you need to get a super solder re-work station. Get one with a base station and dial control. Temp controlled would be great.
Go to a nearby electronics place that sells this stuff and buy some general wire, breadboard etc. They will appreciate the business and might be there someday when you really need that one part and don't want to wait for shipping. I was amazed to find one near me. They were rather knowledgeable compared to some certain chains (they had a soldering iron on the counter just in case)
An old computer with the following ports: MIDI(computers used to have a port with real IO, oh my), serial, USB, parallel. You might want to eventually talk to ports and individual pins without the OS in the way. Windows stopped allowing this with XP. A P4 is fast but gets warm and very power hungry. A PIII not so hot or power hungry but not as fast. An old laptop works great for this since it has a small footprint.

Start to follow a few web sites:
http://hackaday.com/
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/?main_page=blog
http://blog.makezine.com/
http://dangerousprototypes.com/
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/
http://diydrones.com/
https://www.sparkfun.com/

People are mentioning tcpdump, wireshark, etc. Why not sniff something a bit more lower level, a bit less documented, and therefore a bit more interesting?

Buy a cheap logic analyzer (here's one for $50). For even more fun buy a Bus Pirate, which works kind of like the old Game Genie game modification device from the 90's. Connect probes to conductors on various devices and try to figure out how they communicate at the electrical level, then modify the signals themselves to try to make new things happen!

People are mentioning tcpdump, wireshark, etc. Why not sniff something a bit more lower level, a bit less documented, and therefore a bit more interesting?

Buy a cheap logic analyzer (here's one for $50). For even more fun buy a Bus Pirate, which works kind of like the old Game Genie game modification device from the 90's. Connect probes to conductors on various devices and try to figure out how they communicate at the electrical level, then modify the signals themselves to try to make new things happen!

Lets see.
http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Logic_Shrimp_logic_analyzer
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/bus-pirate-v3-assembled-p-609.html?cPath=61_68
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/bus-blaster-v2-jtag-debugger-p-807.html
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/preorder-open-workbench-logic-sniffer-p-612.html?cPath=75

And this is just from first link in my bookmarks.

Bus Pirate: good for looking at communication waveforms to debug problems. ($35)

Logic Sniffer: For more complex problems than the above, allows looking at parallel signals.($50)

Raspberry Pi: Tiny ARM11 700MHz CPU with powerful graphics, 10/100 ethernet, USB2.0 host (2 ports), HDMI out, and GPIO connector. Boots from SD card. ($35)

MSP430 Launchpad: inexpensive microcontroller development platform ($4.30)

STM32F4Discovery: Development platform for powerful microcontroller. ARM Cortex M4 with FPU, 168MHz (210DMIPS), Ethernet MAC, 2xUSB host/device/OTG, etc. etc. Board has stereo audio DAC with speaker driver, USB Micro-AB connector, 3-axis accelerometer, digital mic, 4 user LEDs, two pushbuttons (one is reset), and onboard debugger which is supported by open source tools. ($15) <--- take that, arduino

Bus Pirate: good for looking at communication waveforms to debug problems. ($35)

Logic Sniffer: For more complex problems than the above, allows looking at parallel signals.($50)

Raspberry Pi: Tiny ARM11 700MHz CPU with powerful graphics, 10/100 ethernet, USB2.0 host (2 ports), HDMI out, and GPIO connector. Boots from SD card. ($35)

MSP430 Launchpad: inexpensive microcontroller development platform ($4.30)

STM32F4Discovery: Development platform for powerful microcontroller. ARM Cortex M4 with FPU, 168MHz (210DMIPS), Ethernet MAC, 2xUSB host/device/OTG, etc. etc. Board has stereo audio DAC with speaker driver, USB Micro-AB connector, 3-axis accelerometer, digital mic, 4 user LEDs, two pushbuttons (one is reset), and onboard debugger which is supported by open source tools. ($15) <--- take that, arduino

The article is just another extremely tired "This existed since the 80s, but now that the Arduino supports it, we can act as if it a new invention." And ABSOLUTELY nothing other than the Arduino. "other open source tools"? Not that I saw in the article.

Which is a pity, because I think a DP bus pirate would be way the heck more useful for this kind of work. I used a DP BP to debug the software for a I2C real time clock, but I'm sure it could be used for reverse engineering or nefarious purposes (much like a screwdriver is multi-purpose)

http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Bus_Pirate

The days of saying it would take the resources of a nation-state to discover or exploit vulnerabilities in a particular piece of hardware in an industrial control system or a healthcare environment are rapidly fading

Was anyone technical ever dumb enough to ever believe that? Anyone? Ever? Marketing P.R. BS doesn't count.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation? (No, I kid you not, and, no, don't try this at home.)

(Just as a side note: the electronics hobbyist community has gotten used to dealing with surface-mount parts.)

Also check out:

Adafruit: https://www.adafruit.com/ (Sells arduino and other microcontrollers, as well as "heathkit-like" solder-it-yourself electronics kits).

Dangerous Prototypes: http://dangerousprototypes.com/ (Among other things, they were involved with designing a naked-board, 16-channel w/12K sample depth, 100 megasample/sec digital logic analyzer -- for US$50. Then some guy took the firmware and added as many features that he could based upon an HP 16550a timing logic analyzer.)

Seeedstudio: http://www.seeedstudio.com/ (they're a store that sells cool hardware for arduino and others -- I think they're in China, though)

Digikey for all sorts of electronic parts: http://www.digikey.com/

Jameco Electronics for parts and electronic kits: http://www.jameco.com/

(Just as a side note: the electronics hobbyist community has gotten used to dealing with surface-mount parts.)

Also check out:

Adafruit: https://www.adafruit.com/ (Sells arduino and other microcontrollers, as well as "heathkit-like" solder-it-yourself electronics kits).

Dangerous Prototypes: http://dangerousprototypes.com/ (Among other things, they were involved with designing a naked-board, 16-channel w/12K sample depth, 100 megasample/sec digital logic analyzer -- for US$50. Then some guy took the firmware and added as many features that he could based upon an HP 16550a timing logic analyzer.)

Seeedstudio: http://www.seeedstudio.com/ (they're a store that sells cool hardware for arduino and others -- I think they're in China, though)

Digikey for all sorts of electronic parts: http://www.digikey.com/

Jameco Electronics for parts and electronic kits: http://www.jameco.com/

I'm a fan of DP as well, but when I read the post, my first reaction was -- "so what's new here?". I expected there to be something new relating to DP, maybe a new project or even just a new iteration of an existing project. But there's nothing new -- this is just an interview, and a rather bland one at that.

Honestly, it'd be a better service to post:
"There's this thing called Dangerous Prototypes, at: http://dangerousprototypes.com/. It's cool, you should check it out."
But that's true for so many sites/projects.

Are you into electronics and embedded design? Then check these out:
evilmadscientist.com
ermicro.com/blog/
vk2zay.net/
eevblog.com/

And if you want blogs covering these topics (which link to other sites), check out:
hackedgadgets.com/
hackaday.com/
embedds.com/

And these are just a few URLs I grabbed from my browser history.
The point is that it's not news, it's a resource showcase. And if that's what it is, then why just pick one example?...

Dangerous Prototypes doesn't just produce shitty projects for the purpose of proving something that can be found on any flash manufacturer's datasheet. They make plenty of very useful projects too. Not just useful for an end user, but useful for the hardware tinkerer. There two most famous projects by a long shot are the Bus Pirate and the Logic Sniffer

The bus pirate is a small device that connects to the computer via USB and allows you to use a terminal to talk all sorts of weird and wonderful protocols like SPI, 1-wire, I2C, or UART. Great for debugging a design, or reverse engineering. It is also capable of sniffing out the commands on a bus.

The Logic Sniffer is a cheap 16 channel Logic Analyser, which while no where near as good as a commercial unit comes in at 1/100th of the cost as well.

Both are fantastic tools for anyone hacking away at microcontrollers and both have saved me lots of headaches at some point. The best example was when the Logic Sniffer was released with firmware that wasn't very upgrade friendly to say the least, I used the Bus Pirate to flash new firmware to the Logic Sniffer.

They also make a JTAG programmer / debugger, a Infrared I/O board for a computer, and a fully functional tiny Web Server. They are much more useful than the summary makes them out to be.

Dangerous Prototypes doesn't just produce shitty projects for the purpose of proving something that can be found on any flash manufacturer's datasheet. They make plenty of very useful projects too. Not just useful for an end user, but useful for the hardware tinkerer. There two most famous projects by a long shot are the Bus Pirate and the Logic Sniffer

The bus pirate is a small device that connects to the computer via USB and allows you to use a terminal to talk all sorts of weird and wonderful protocols like SPI, 1-wire, I2C, or UART. Great for debugging a design, or reverse engineering. It is also capable of sniffing out the commands on a bus.

The Logic Sniffer is a cheap 16 channel Logic Analyser, which while no where near as good as a commercial unit comes in at 1/100th of the cost as well.

Both are fantastic tools for anyone hacking away at microcontrollers and both have saved me lots of headaches at some point. The best example was when the Logic Sniffer was released with firmware that wasn't very upgrade friendly to say the least, I used the Bus Pirate to flash new firmware to the Logic Sniffer.

They also make a JTAG programmer / debugger, a Infrared I/O board for a computer, and a fully functional tiny Web Server. They are much more useful than the summary makes them out to be.

Dangerous Prototypes doesn't just produce shitty projects for the purpose of proving something that can be found on any flash manufacturer's datasheet. They make plenty of very useful projects too. Not just useful for an end user, but useful for the hardware tinkerer. There two most famous projects by a long shot are the Bus Pirate and the Logic Sniffer

The bus pirate is a small device that connects to the computer via USB and allows you to use a terminal to talk all sorts of weird and wonderful protocols like SPI, 1-wire, I2C, or UART. Great for debugging a design, or reverse engineering. It is also capable of sniffing out the commands on a bus.

The Logic Sniffer is a cheap 16 channel Logic Analyser, which while no where near as good as a commercial unit comes in at 1/100th of the cost as well.

Both are fantastic tools for anyone hacking away at microcontrollers and both have saved me lots of headaches at some point. The best example was when the Logic Sniffer was released with firmware that wasn't very upgrade friendly to say the least, I used the Bus Pirate to flash new firmware to the Logic Sniffer.

They also make a JTAG programmer / debugger, a Infrared I/O board for a computer, and a fully functional tiny Web Server. They are much more useful than the summary makes them out to be.

Dangerous Prototypes doesn't just produce shitty projects for the purpose of proving something that can be found on any flash manufacturer's datasheet. They make plenty of very useful projects too. Not just useful for an end user, but useful for the hardware tinkerer. There two most famous projects by a long shot are the Bus Pirate and the Logic Sniffer

The bus pirate is a small device that connects to the computer via USB and allows you to use a terminal to talk all sorts of weird and wonderful protocols like SPI, 1-wire, I2C, or UART. Great for debugging a design, or reverse engineering. It is also capable of sniffing out the commands on a bus.

The Logic Sniffer is a cheap 16 channel Logic Analyser, which while no where near as good as a commercial unit comes in at 1/100th of the cost as well.

Both are fantastic tools for anyone hacking away at microcontrollers and both have saved me lots of headaches at some point. The best example was when the Logic Sniffer was released with firmware that wasn't very upgrade friendly to say the least, I used the Bus Pirate to flash new firmware to the Logic Sniffer.

They also make a JTAG programmer / debugger, a Infrared I/O board for a computer, and a fully functional tiny Web Server. They are much more useful than the summary makes them out to be.

Dangerous Prototypes doesn't just produce shitty projects for the purpose of proving something that can be found on any flash manufacturer's datasheet. They make plenty of very useful projects too. Not just useful for an end user, but useful for the hardware tinkerer. There two most famous projects by a long shot are the Bus Pirate and the Logic Sniffer

The bus pirate is a small device that connects to the computer via USB and allows you to use a terminal to talk all sorts of weird and wonderful protocols like SPI, 1-wire, I2C, or UART. Great for debugging a design, or reverse engineering. It is also capable of sniffing out the commands on a bus.

The Logic Sniffer is a cheap 16 channel Logic Analyser, which while no where near as good as a commercial unit comes in at 1/100th of the cost as well.

Both are fantastic tools for anyone hacking away at microcontrollers and both have saved me lots of headaches at some point. The best example was when the Logic Sniffer was released with firmware that wasn't very upgrade friendly to say the least, I used the Bus Pirate to flash new firmware to the Logic Sniffer.

They also make a JTAG programmer / debugger, a Infrared I/O board for a computer, and a fully functional tiny Web Server. They are much more useful than the summary makes them out to be.

I agree that the Rigol DS1052E is pretty fine for most uses, specially if you have to ask such a question. I have one and it has done everything I needed so far. Even my college use scopes worse than those. If you need a logic analyzer to deal with digital stuff (I think you might, since you're compsci-oriented instead of a proper electronics engineer), you might take a look at the Open Logic Sniffer. It's even open-source, so you can hack it too. The only reason I think you might look for another one is if you deal with RF or something like that.

Right now, the Open Workbench Logic Sniffer beats the USBee for most uses if you need logic analysis. http://dangerousprototypes.com/category/logic-analyzer/

The USBee scope is 16MSPS and only one channel, for $545! That is an epic ripoff.

The Rigol DS1052E is a standalone 50 MHz bandwidth scope with 1 GS/s (or was it 2?) samplerate for $400. It is very well regarded by most who have used it, including myself.