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New group project for December meeting…

Thanks to 801Labs @_bashNinja for a wonderful holiday gift idea.

I’d love to do this at the November meeting, but I sincerely don’t believe the parts will be here in time. 801Labs announced they are doing this project as a December group build, and they are offering the kits for $10. I thought I’d play along and do it through our group as well.

I couldn’t justify sourcing enough to get the price QUITE that low. I can do them for $15/each. If there’s enough interest.prepayment I’ll order more. Like 801, this is a group build in person, I’m not doing shipping for these.

So if anyone wants to participate in the group build for these, I should have all the parts in time for the December meeting. Any leftovers will be held for future meeting attendees.

It’s a simple but elegant LED marquee display in a 3d-printed case using a Wemos D1 mini Wifi IOT module and a 4-in-1 dot matrix LED module. I ordered them in white PLA and red LEDs, just like the photo. By default it will display time, bitcoin price, random advice, weather, maybe a few other configurable things, but once you get it in place, you can likely make it do display anything you want. I was thinking it might be fun to add in a display when someone logs into the DC540 Citadel BBS.

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cDc has got me a little verklempt.

So I’m finally getting around to digging into the cDc book, which I preordered and was looking forward to.

I’ve only completed the first few chapters, but reading this book is like reading my own story. Trafficking in MCI numbers, hoarding esoteric text files, running multiple BBSes over the years. Close calls, and learning from the mistakes of others. Familiar names.

I feel like it’s time to release a set of text files about MY history, and see what comes out of the woodwork.

They’ll be on the citadel. There is no better place for them. If it takes five years for the right people to find them, then so be it.

I might drop some knowledge on different techniques that might be used to carve a successful career on your own from a disadvantaged position.

Last DC540 of the year!

Last DC540 of the year — rescheduled from 12/23, which is too close to the end-of-year holidays. Please register here, the RSVPs are closed on Meetup. Contact me directly if you have trouble with the registration system.

DEFCON DC540 Stone Ridge Pre-Thanksgiving

This is a reschedule of the 11/25 meeting, which would have been the Monday before Thanksgiving. Several members proposed moving it a week back. If this proposed date is okay with you, please RSVP here.

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BSidesDC?

How many of us are going to BSidesDC next weekend? I’m volunteering Saturday and Sunday mid-day, but I’ll have some time before and after to wander and maybe have a drink with some of y’all, especially those of you who can’t make the Monday night meetup in Stone Ridge.

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Retrocomputing: Altairduino

I picked up this Altairduino unit back in 2017 or 2018 I think. The original came with a narrow bamboo case, and I ran into fitment issues and took a break from the project, although I had gotten the electronics portion working. At its core, the project uses an Arduino Due, and simulates the loading of 8″ floppies from files on a micro SD card.

Recently, a blue and white case was made available to simulate the original Altair 8800 case. It’s a bit deeper as well, and comes with an expansion board with a hardware terminal emulator, external serial port, VGA, PS2 keyboard socket, etc. I finally got around to put my Altairduino into a box.

Now I’m struggling with the serial port functionality and/or the SD card reader. But even without those, I can play kill-the-bit and pong with the switches and LEDs on the front panel.