Samwise Makers' News
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Miniaturizing the Atari 2600 Console
Nick Bild has taken a functional Atari 2600 and dramatically shrunk it — no emulation involved. By designing a custom PCB that retains all the original chips, Bild was able to remove the RF modulator and relocate the cartridge port, bringing the footprint to less than half the original console's size. The entire original 2600 hardware chain is preserved, so every original cartridge still works. This is only the first phase of the project; Bild's long-term goal is to build a true Atari 2600 handheld, complete with a built-in screen. No original hardware was harmed in the making of this project.
Homebrew 68K Machine Has a PCI Bus
Builder maniek86 has achieved something genuinely rare in homebrew computing: a Motorola 68000 system with a working PCI bus. Running the 68000 at 10 MHz with 1 MB SRAM and 4 KB ROM, the machine uses a Xilinx Spartan II FPGA (XC2S100) as the bridge between the processor and two 32-bit, 5V PCI slots. A Xilinx XC95144XL CPLD handles the glue logic, while an MC68681P UART rounds out the I/O. The whole thing is built on protoboard. The slots are interrupt-capable but don't support bus mastering — still, maniek86 has successfully tested Cirrus VGA and PCI serial expansion cards.
3D Printering: Why Is My PLA So Brittle?
If your PLA prints have been snapping like old cheese, Maya Posch has the science-backed explanation. PLA comes in two stereoisomers — PLLA and PDLA — but the degradation culprit is moisture. Through hydrolysis, water molecules cleave the polymer chains, making the material progressively more brittle. The glass transition temperature drops from around 65°C as degradation proceeds. A 2021 study found a clear verdict on storage: filament stored in vacuum-sealed bags showed no significant degradation over three years, while filament stored in standard zipper bags degraded substantially. The fix is simple but easy to overlook: invest in a vacuum sealer and use it consistently.
Foldable OLED Displays and the Bane of Dust
iFixit has published a teardown of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 that cuts to the heart of foldable phone anxiety. Using UV-reactive dust particles, the teardown team forced dust into every crevice of the hinge mechanism, then tried to fold the phone — producing an alarming crunching noise. The Z Fold 8 carries an IP48 rating, which means it's water-resistant but not protected against dust particles smaller than 1 mm. A UV scan after disassembly revealed the hinge was absolutely caked. Getting to the hinge required removing the flexible OLED, a destructive process. It's a reminder that the hinge is the foldable's Achilles heel.
Samsung Printer Is the Next Frontier of Minecraft Servers
Maker [vimpo] has squeezed a Minecraft server into a Samsung C410W laser printer — a machine with no business running one. The process required opening the printer to access debug serial ports, dumping the firmware, and finding a UDP overflow exploit. An LLM helped identify functions in the firmware dump but, after burning millions of tokens, the actual exploit work still required human intelligence. The result is UCraft, [vimpo]'s lightweight Minecraft server, now running on the printer. One important caveat: printing and Minecraft are mutually exclusive — sending a print job crashes the server. Both the server and exploit are published on GitHub.
Linux 7.2 Released: Cache Scheduling, Fair GPU Scheduler, USB4STREAM
Linus Torvalds has released Linux 7.2, bringing several high-impact changes to the kernel. Cache-aware task scheduling improves performance by co-locating threads that share data within the same Last Level Cache domain, reducing cache misses. A new Fair(er) GPU scheduler — inspired by the original CFS task scheduler — improves fairness for interactive clients running alongside heavy GPU workloads. USB4STREAM adds a new /dev/tbstreamX interface for transferring raw data directly over USB4/Thunderbolt cables without requiring network tooling. Finally, Swap Table Phase IV unifies anonymous and shmem swap handling, reducing static metadata overhead so dramatically that mounting a 1 TB swap device saves roughly 512 MB of RAM.
Sources: CNX Software · Comments
Why People Are Adding Apple Lightning Cables to Raspberry Pi Pico 2 Boards
If you've spotted Raspberry Pi Pico 2 boards fitted with Apple Lightning connectors, here's the explanation. The usbliter8 exploit, disclosed on June 18, 2026 by Paradigm Shift, is a hardware-level BootROM vulnerability affecting Apple devices with A12, A13, S4, and S5 chips — including the iPhone XS/XR/11 series. The Raspberry Pi RP2350 is the tool of choice because the underlying bug lives in the Synopsys DWC2 USB controller, which standard computer USB stacks cannot trigger. The original repository was taken down by a U.S. federal court order filed by Magnet Forensics, but forks proliferate on GitHub. Chinese vendors are already shipping RP2354A boards pre-wired for the exploit for around $10.
Sources: CNX Software · Comments
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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