Hackaday Podcast 161: Laser Lithography, Centurion Hard Drive, and Mad BGA Soldering

Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney for an audio tour of the week’s top stories and best hacks. We’ll look at squeezing the most out of a coin cell, taking the first steps towards DIY MEMS fabrication, and seeing if there’s any chance that an 80’s-vintage minicomputer might ride again. How small is too small when it comes to chip packages? We’ll find out, and discover the new spectator sport of microsoldering while we’re at it. Find out what’s involved in getting a real dead-tree book published, and watch a hacker take revenge on a proprietary memory format — and a continuous glucose monitor, too.

Or Direct Download, like you’ve got something to prove!

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast

Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:

• Google Podcasts
• iTunes
• Spotify
• Stitcher
• RSS

Episode 161 Show Notes:

News This Week:

• Almost 37 years after its launch, someone found an Easter egg in Windows 1.0
• Satellite Snoopers Pick Up Surprising TV Broadcast
• Welcome To The Future, Where Your Microwave Thinks It’s A Steam Oven

What’s that Sound?

• Congratulations Phil, among 95 others, who recognized the theme music to The IT Crowd. (And thanks to a number of respondents, I have 0118-999 stuck in my head.)

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Old Printer Becomes Direct Laser Lithography Machine
  • Exposing PCBs With A Home Made Laser Printer
  • Laser Exposing PCBs With A Blu-Ray Laser
• Minicomputer Restoration Hanging In The Balance
• Hacker Challenges MemoryStick To A Fight And Wins
• Careful Cuts Lets Logger Last A Year On A Coin Cell
  • Coin Cell Hacks That Won The Coin Cell Challenge
• Heroic Efforts Give Smallest ARM MCU A Breakout, Open Debugger
  • How Small Is Too Small?
• Tom’s “Hack Chat Recap” Series: The Open Source ASICs Hack Chat Redefines Possible
  • Classic Chat: Arko Takes Us Inside NASA’s Legendary JPL

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  • Wireshark HTTPS Decryption
  • Tune Your Dish Antenna Like A Pro
  • Web Serial Terminal Means It’s Always Hacking Time
  • IR Remote Transforms To RF
• Dan’s Picks:
  • Morse Keyboard Communicates With The Blink Of An Eye
    • POW Blinks ‘Torture’ in Morse Code
  • 3D Printing Snap Fit Joints
  • Learn All About Writing A Published Technical Book, From Idea To Print

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• • The New-Phone Blues: A Reminder That Hackers Shouldn’t Settle
  • And we talked about Owning A ShortWave Radio Is Once Again A Subversive Activity, but the show went so far over time, that I cut it. It’s a cool hack-your-own radio thing, though, so you should go read it.  We could post up that discussion as a bonus episode?  Let us know in the comments.