[HN Gopher] A DIY business card that runs Linux (2019)
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A DIY business card that runs Linux (2019)
Author : hansc
Score : 199 points
Date : 2023-06-03 12:41 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thirtythreeforty.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thirtythreeforty.net)
| hansc wrote:
| Author also wrote a post on the design process, very interesting
| I think:
| https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2019/12/designing-my-...
| gareve wrote:
| I wasn't expecting this to cost less than 3$
| unwind wrote:
| That was in 2019. It has probably tripled by now, and/or the
| SoC is unobtainium. Mumble.
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| Author here! Trivia: I really, really wanted it to run Doom, so
| that I could have a section titled "But Does It Run Doom?". This
| is challenging with no screen; SDL has an experimental ASCII
| backend where in theory you could draw terminal graphics over
| SSH. But it refused to cross compile despite repeated efforts.
|
| So, sadly it does not in fact run Doom.
| fallat wrote:
| Did you see https://bbenchoff.github.io/pages/LinuxDevice.html
| ?
| crote wrote:
| The chip already seems to have an integrated display interface,
| with a nice dedicated PAL/NTSC output pin. Why not use that?
| NBJack wrote:
| In other words, it doesn't run Doom _yet_. Great project, and
| excellent execution!
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| What if you make a USB network device gadget and serve a mjpeg
| video stream to it that's the framebuffer/screen output? Web
| browsers or VLC on the host can show the video, and if you can
| get ffmpeg compiled and running on the device I think it has a
| fbdev input that can capture the framebuffer directly and
| likely convert it to a mjpeg stream (even acting as a http or
| rtmp, etc. server).
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| This is such a cool project but you also did fantastic
| documentation which was certainly quite a bit of work too so
| thank you!
| messe wrote:
| More of a suggestion for a future design, but how about using
| DOOM's software rendering over X forwarding (potentially over
| SSH)? You'd need to have the card present itself as a network
| interface, which would add to the complexity and cost however.
|
| What's the highest baud rate the serial interface supports? You
| could theoretically get PPP over serial working, but I suspect
| at best you could only manage a few frames per second.
| 320x200x4bpp at 1fps requires a 256k baud rate minimum, and
| that's just streaming the video, without any overhead--I
| suppose you could apply compression: ssh -C with the "none"
| cipher; or just compress each frame as a PNG, but I'm thinking
| outloud--this would probably involve writing your own renderer.
| antoinealb wrote:
| With the USB gadget Driver in Linux you can have the existing
| USB Hardware enumerate as a USB Ethernet adapter without too
| much config work so that would not add much to the BoM :)
| randombits0 wrote:
| "It's cheap enough to give away. If you get one from me, I'm
| probably trying to impress you."
|
| Mission accomplished! Well done, sir.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Really cool, but I can't help thinking: All that effort, and
| you're email address have a "5" in it....
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| Heh. I am George Hilliard V (that is, my dad is IV and my son
| is VI). So it makes a certain amount of sense!
| devsda wrote:
| I'm curious. What happens if you have another son?
|
| Also, continuing similar tradition, I hope you've reserved
| mail addresses ending with 6,7 and so on for future
| generations.
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| My family's tradition is that all the men share a middle
| name, and all the women share a middle name, so there's
| still name inheritance even for younger siblings! (There's
| an OOP joke in here somewhere.)
|
| Amusingly, my wife also has the same middle name as the
| women in my family, so the tradition is likely to continue.
| mrweasel wrote:
| I did not expect that to be the reason to be honest.
| otikik wrote:
| Wow you have a son and are able to do these things? That's
| impressive. I can barely do work and family already. Well
| done
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| The post should be tagged "2019" (@dang?) - I have
| noticeably less free time these days :)
| otikik wrote:
| Aaah gotcha. I hope the new "project" goes ok then :)
| omneity wrote:
| I am not familiar with the rules for names like this. If you
| don't mind me asking, how does it work? Are your first male
| descendants expected to be named the same until one of them
| changes his mind?
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| Yes exactly. I was free to name him whatever I liked, but
| at this point it's too neat to break the tradition.
| rvense wrote:
| Another question from a country where only the king does
| this: Is it part of your legal name, or just a
| convention?
|
| (Also, does it make your feel like royalty?)
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| I'd have to check to be certain, but I am pretty sure we
| didn't put it on birth certificates. It's convention only
| - some businesses (notably banks) have a "suffix" field
| to help disambiguate customers, but many of them are
| drop-downs which stop at "IV" for some reason.
|
| What _really_ makes me feel like royalty is not the name,
| it 's the throne room I had installed in my summer home
| in the Bahamas. That and requiring everyone I meet to
| call me "sire." (/s)
| xyst wrote:
| Cool concept. But no way am I plugging that into my computer
| without creating a sandboxed environment with no network access.
| Aspos wrote:
| I can see someone instantly hiring a guy with a linux-driven
| business card which pierces through the sandboxed environment.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| The fsf membership cards are also usbs with gnu-Linux on them
| de6u99er wrote:
| This was a novel idea once. But nowadays I would stay away from
| plugging in a usb device of someone I just met.
| [deleted]
| m00dy wrote:
| exactly. I was going to say the same thing, then I realised I'm
| in hacker-news and then afraid of getting down-voted.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| They're fake internet points, why does it matter?
| MountainMan1312 wrote:
| You can exchange the points for dopamine
| m00dy wrote:
| yes, you are right. The ultimate truth is Bitcoin. (I know
| downvotes are on their way)
| andirk wrote:
| When's the last time bitcoin got your rocks off?
|
| It can be exchanged for goods and services.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This is from a professional embedded systems engineer who is
| presumably only giving these to prospective clients because,
| obviously, they're more expensive than regular business cards.
|
| If you can't bring yourself to connect a USB device from _your
| embedded systems engineer_ then you shouldn't be working with
| that person. You're also going to have a difficult time working
| with them on just about any product.
|
| Maybe just appreciate this for what it is: A novel business
| card.
| indrora wrote:
| I had a run of Moo business cards made at one point, costing
| over $1/ea.
|
| As a gimmick for highly likely prospectives (or, alternately,
| a thank you for current clients) this is absolutely at a
| price point of "have 50 spun via pick and place" to have on
| hand.
| yafbum wrote:
| Looks fun, but who in their right mind would plug this into
| anything other than an air gapped sandbox ?!
| xg15 wrote:
| I had heard about that project before and was wondering how he
| managed to emulate USB devices on linux to a host system. TIL
| about the Linux Gadget framework: http://www.linux-
| usb.org/gadget/
| jxf wrote:
| Delightful, but in the simulataneous categories of "I would
| absolutely buy this" and "I do not have the time or energy to
| make this myself".
| gmac wrote:
| Also: incredibly cool, but next week's e-waste. :(
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| PocketBeagle is a cool very tiny (smaller than a business card)
| Linux SBC if you want something kinda similar:
| https://beagleboard.org/pocket
| yellow_lead wrote:
| 2019
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Really cool! It would be a pretty thick card though I imagine, as
| the USB connector requires an above-average board thickness and
| some of the components are also quite thick (especially that
| winbond chip, looks like NAND flash).
|
| Kudos on finding something that can run linux without having to
| deal with BGA by the way.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| PS: This was also submitted back in the day and got almost 400
| comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21871026
|
| Might make for interesting reading.
| Vaslo wrote:
| My memory isn't good on most articles that are more than a few
| years old but I remember seeing this a few years ago and being
| amazed.
|
| Author is probably a millionaire by now.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I'm surprised that Apple or Google hasn't integrated a business
| card app of some sort and accompanying file format. Like a
| digital rolodex. I don't need my plumber, accountant, dry
| cleaner, or a zillion random people I meet at a tech conference
| in my contacts/address book, even if they're grouped. Exchanging
| info by giving them my phone number/email is usually a lot more
| than I want, and URLs just get lost. A QR code or a peer-to-peer
| transfer with an open, stylized/formatted, .vcf style file that's
| meant for a business related info app seems like a non brainer.
|
| I want to have a conversation with the digital equivalent of:
|
| > _" That's bone. And the lettering is something called Silian
| Grail." _
|
| > _" It's very cool, Bateman, but... Egg shell, with Roman."_
|
| > _Now a third broker pulls out his card. It looks exactly like
| the first two, except it reads TIMOTHY BRICE: VICE PRESIDENT._
|
| > _" Raised lettering, pale nimbus."_
|
| > _" Impressive", Bateman mutters. "Let's see Paul Allen's
| card."_
|
| > _The room falls silent as the third broker produces an absent
| colleague 's card._
|
| > _<<Look at that subtle colouring. The tasteful thickness.>>_
|
| > _His face creases in horror._
|
| > _<<Oh my God. It even has a watermark.>>_
| rickstanley wrote:
| Look at that subtle circuit, the tasteful thickness of it... Oh
| my god, it even has a nano ARM!
| nforgerit wrote:
| Does it run Doom?
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| I have some business cards that are so valuable, I can't give
| them away.
|
| I was attending a conference with some vendor booths, and while
| it wasn't anything like a job fair, I thought I'd try my luck at
| pitching myself as a prospective hire. So I went to the most IT-
| oriented vendor that I could find, introduced myself, and proudly
| presented my solid plastic CompTIA A+ certification.
|
| The good fellow thanked me and promptly pocketed it! It all went
| downhill from there as I had to explain that was a credential and
| not a calling-card, so I got it back, and definitely didn't get
| hired for anything!
| halflings wrote:
| It's not necessarily why they didn't reach out, but waiving
| certifications and other random credentials (e.g. completion of
| some Coursera course) is usually not the best strategy to get
| hired.
|
| Talking about concrete work you've done (of interest to the
| company) is much more convincing.
| tyingq wrote:
| On the other hand, there's no shortage of (dumb) employers
| that insist on various certifications.
| MountainMan1312 wrote:
| Unfortunately for me I think my "concrete work" is what's
| keeping me from looking like an attractive employee to tech
| firms. Somehow they don't understand how construction and
| software development are extremely similar.
| AlbinoDaffy wrote:
| Reminds me of business card CDs which also were given away as
| promotional disks
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootable_business_card
| solarkraft wrote:
| Quite cool, but what are the chances people will plug a USB drive
| they just got from someone they just met into their computer?
| thih9 wrote:
| If it's in a conference setting, perhaps a solution would be to
| add some cheap retro computer as part of a booth, so that
| people could immediately insert the business card and play with
| it.
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