2026-03-19 07:00:31
Devices that were limited to only run a web browser were relatively common around 2000, as many people wanted to surf the Information Super Highway, but didn’t quite want to get a regular PC — being in many ways the retro equivalent of a Chromebook. The Compaq iPAQ IA-2 from 2000 that [Dave Luna] got is no exception, with a Microsoft CE-based OS that is meant to be used with Microsoft Network (MSN) dial-up, which amusingly is still available today.
In order to get a more useful OS on it, like Windows 98, you have to jump through quite a few hoops, as [Dave] found out. Although there is an IDE connection on the mainboard, this cannot be booted from, likely due to BIOS limitations. This means that he had to chain boot via the 16 MB NAND Flash drive that the original OS booted from, which was done by writing MS-DOS to the Flash drive using another workaround as it’s not a standard IDE device either.
From this you can then boot Windows 98 from an IDE drive by pretending that it’s an ATAPI IDE device to dodge a limitation on IDE devices. The system’s hardware isn’t really going to make it into a blazing fast retro computer. It only has a 266 MHz Geode GX1 CPU and supports up to 256 MB of SDRAM. The IA-2 is also limited to 800×600, which required the use of an external monitor (as seen above) hooked up to the internal VGA port to set the proper resolution in the OS.
But at least it can run DOOM, so that bare minimum requirement can be ticked off.
2026-03-19 04:00:58
The BC250 is what AMD calls an APU, or Accelerated Processing Unit. It combines a GPU and CPU into a single unit, and was originally built to serve as the heart of certain Samsung rack mount servers. If you know where to find cheap surplus units of the BC250, you can put them to good use for AI work, as [akandr] demonstrates.
The first thing you’ll have to figure out is how to take an individual BC250 APU and get it up and running. It’s effectively a full system-on-chip, combining a Zen 2 CPU with a Cyan Skillfish RDNA 1.5 GPU. However, it was originally intended to run inside a rackmount server unit rather than a standalone machine. To get it going, you’ll need to hook it up with power and some kind of cooling solution.
From there, it’s a matter of software. [akandr] explains how to get AI workflows running on the BC250 using Ollama and Vulkan, while noting useful hacks to improve performance like disabling the GUI and tweaking the CPU governor. The hardware can be used with a wide range of different models depending on what you’re trying to achieve, it just takes some careful management of the APU’s resources to get the most out of it. Thankfully, that’s all in the guide on GitHub.
We’ve already seen these AMD APUs repurposed before for gaming use. Unfortunately the word is out already about their capabilities, so prices have risen significantly in response to demand. Still, if you manage to score a BC250 and do something cool with it yourself, be sure to let us know on the tipsline!
2026-03-19 02:30:53
This week Jonathan chats with Valentyn Danylchuk about BreezyBox — an interactive shell and toolkit that provides various tools and a compiler on an ESP32 microcontroller. What was the inspiration for this impressive project, and what direction is it heading? Watch to find out!
Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or have the guest contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.
Direct Download in DRM-free MP3.
If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode.
Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
2026-03-19 01:15:15
Hackaday Europe is approaching, and we’re putting tickets on sale now. “But wait, you haven’t selected the talks yet!” we hear you saying. Indeed! And that’s why we discount the first round of entries for our True Believers
– the hard core who know that it’s going to be a fantastic event and turn up regardless. So if you want to come to Hackaday Europe on the cheap, go snap up your ticket before they’re gone.
Of course, giving a talk is always the best way to attend a hacker gathering like this. And we know that we said that today was the deadline for talk submissions. But we also know that many of you have advanced degrees in procrastineering, so we’re giving you a week’s extension.
Selected speakers get in free, and we’ll reserve you an early-bird ticket for putting together a legit talk proposal either way. So if you’re a first-time presenter or a wizened pro, and you have something that you’d like to say to an audience of like-minded hackers, we’d all like to hear from you. We won’t extend the deadline twice, though, so get your proposal in before March 25.
(A few people have reached out to us, wanting to avoid the Google login that the above form requires. If you’re in the same camp, write to us directly and let us know!)
In case you don’t know, Hackaday Europe started out as a bi-annual event that we first held a decade ago in Belgrade. It has been such a success that we’re now doing it every year, and leap-frogging around Europe to spread the love. The last two events have been in Berlin, and this is our first time in Lecco, Italy. This year, it runs the weekend of May 16th and 17th, with a pre-event on the evening of the 15th, to be announced.
What stays the same? We have a fantastic crowd who bring their passion projects with them, a fun badge to hack on, and of course food, drink, music, and merriment all along. Oh, and the talks. (You are submitting your talk, right?)
We’ll have more details coming your way in the next few weeks, so stay tuned. After March 25th, we’ll get to selecting talks, and let you all know. Get your tickets now – we can’t wait to see you all in eight-and-a-half weeks!
2026-03-18 23:30:46
How often have you pulled out old MCU-based project that still works fine, but you have no idea where the original source code has gone? Having the binary image and the source code as separate things to keep track of usually isn’t a problem, but there’s something to be said for adding the source — and documentation — to this image if you have some flash to spare. This is basically what the Forgetfulino Arduino library by [Nader Al Khatib] does.
Essentially, the library compresses the source files and assigns it to be burned onto the flash alongside the binary. There is also a bit of code added to the firmware so that this code can be retrieved via the serial port at any time, negating the need for a firmware dump and manual disassembly. For ease of use, the library has an Arduino IDE extension that automates the process. The basic idea could also be adapted to different environments should anyone wish to take up the challenge.
You probably wouldn’t want debug builds to feature this additional payload as writing it to flash will eat up time and write cycles. But for a release build that will be put out in the (literal) field for a few years or even decades, it could be very convenient. After all, you never know when that Git repository that you relied on might go AWOL.
2026-03-18 22:00:24
In the early days of the Internet, having a high-speed IP connection in your home or even a small business was, if not impossible, certainly a rarity. Connecting to a computer in those days required you to use your phone. Early modems used acoustic couplers, but by the time most people started trying to connect, modems that plugged into your phone jack were the norm.
The problem was: whose computer did you call? There were commercial dial-up services like DIALOG that offered very expensive services, such as database searches via modem. That could be expensive. You had a fee for the phone. Then you might have a per-minute charge for the phone call, especially if the computer was in another city. Then you had to pay the service provider, which could be very expensive.
Even before the consumer Internet, this wasn’t workable. Tymnet and Telenet were two services that had the answer. They maintained banks of modems practically everywhere. You dialed a local number, which was probably a “free” call included in your monthly bill, and then used a simple command to connect to a remote computer of your choice. There were other competitors, including CompuServe, which would become a major force in the fledgling consumer market.
While some local internet service providers (ISPs) had their own modem banks, when you saw the rise of national ISPs, they were riding on one of several nationwide modem systems and paying by the minute for the privilege. Eventually, some ISPs reached the scale that made dedicated modem banks worthwhile. This made it easier to offer flat-rate pricing, and the presumed likelihood of everyone dialing in at once made it possible to oversubscribe any given number of modems.
Once consumer services like CompuServe, The Source, and AOL started operations, the cost was less, but still not inexpensive. Some early services charged higher rates during business hours, for example. There was also the cost of a phone line, and if you didn’t want to tie up your home phone, you needed a second line dedicated to the modem. It all added up.
By the late 1990s, a dial-up provider might cost you $25 a month or less, not counting your phone line. That’s about $60 in today’s money, just for reference. But the Internet was also booming as a place to sell advertising.
Today, a few large companies dominate online advertising. However, in 1990, the field was crowded, and everyone was rushing to find a way to effectively advertise to Internet users.
A company called FreeInet thought it had the answer. Give people free dial-up service and make them watch ads to generate revenue. NetZero bought the company in 1998 and helped it grow explosively. You could argue that FreeInet was the first successful free dial-up company.
There were other companies in the space, too, such as Juno (which started out offering only e-mail) and BlueLight, which was run by retailer K-Mart, hoping that people would use their free Internet access to shop at K-Mart (spoiler: they didn’t). K-Mart actually cobranded with a free ISP called Spinway, and it was widely reported that people who used the service were not more likely to buy from K-Mart. Instead, they went where everyone went: chat rooms, music download sites, and, of course, adult sites.
But the free market was mostly NetZero and Juno. NetZero even advertised on TV, as you can see below. NetZero even had a patent. They sued Juno over that patent, although the two companies would eventually merge.
At least the ad wasn’t as suggestive as the one we remember from Juno.
Of course, this is all in the US. In the UK, where, at the time, there were no free local calls, Freeserve became a big player in free Internet access in conjunction with a major British electronics retailer.
Some free providers showed ads in a window or otherwise inserted them into your browsing experience. They could gather demographic data on where and how you were browsing, and that was also a viable product. If nothing else, if you were at a car website, the service could show you ads for cars, for example, and either charge the advertiser more or, at least, expect a better result.
There were other earlier schemes like Bigger.net, which promised lifetime access for $59. What could go wrong? There were limited tests of ad-supported access, and even a company that wanted to give you network access bundled with long-distance service. That lasted a month.
Of course, there were hacks. You could move the ad window off-screen, for example. There were programs that would keep the connection alive since most would time out rather quickly.
While Internet ad rates were artificially high, the concept made sense. At the time, people were trying to map traditional print ads’ costs to the Internet. Not only was this too high, but it also overlooks the fact that the Internet is perfect for paying on performance. Just showing an ad to 1,000 people (some of whom have it blocked, anyway) isn’t worth much. You want clicks or, even better, conversions.
But the dot-com crash around 2000, along with a glut of online advertising venues, saw a collapse of the ad market. Even K-Mart started offering a limited amount of free service with a cheap plan if you needed more or wanted extra features. United Online, the fusion of NetZero and Juno, also switched to a “freemium” model.
The death knell of dial-up ISPs, including the free ones, came as broadband penetrated more and more households. Why tie up a phone line and dial up at 56K when you could have a connection “always on” and with speeds at least 20 times higher? Apparently, NetZero didn’t get the message, judging by the ad below.
NetZero does still exist, or at least, they have a home page. We couldn’t get any of the links to work.
However, these innovative free ISPs were trailblazers on ad-supported Internet services. They were also among the first to adopt freemium pricing. Even more, we suspect it drove more people towards the Internet. Everyone loves something for free, and while you might not want to pay AOL $22 a month just to see if you would like being online, you certainly would grab a free CD and get online.
Dial-up still hangs on, though. Even AOL offered it until recently.
