2026-03-14 16:00:29
The physicist William Shockley is perhaps today best known for three things: his role in the invention of the transistor, his calamitous management of Shockley Semiconductor which led to a mass defection of employees and precipitated the birth of the Silicon Valley we know, and his later descent into promoting eugenics. This was not the sum of his work though, and [David Prutchi] has been experimenting with a now-mostly-forgotten device that bears the Shockley name (PDF), after finding one used in an early heart pacemaker circuit. His findings are both comprehensive and fascinating.
The Shockley diode, or 4-layer diode as it later became known, is as its name suggests a two terminal device with a 4-layer NPNP structure. It can be modeled as a pair of complementary transistors in parallel with a reverse biased diode, and the avalanche breakdown characteristics of that diode when a particular voltage is applied to it provide the impetus to turn on the two transistors. This makes it a voltage controlled switch, that activates when the voltage across it reaches that value.
The PDF linked above goes into the Shockley diode applications, and in them we find a range of relaxation oscillators, switches, and logic circuits. The oscillators in particular could be made with the barest minimum of components, important in a time when each semiconductor device could be very expensive. It may have faded into obscurity as it was superseded by more versatile 4-layer devices such as the PUJT or silicon-controlled switch and then integrated circuits, but he makes the point that its thyristor cousin is still very much with us.
This appears to be the first time we’ve featured a 4-layer diode, but we’ve certainly covered the genesis of the transistor in the past.
2026-03-14 13:00:24
Although the Apple II range of computers were based around the 6502 processor, they could still run x86 software using expansion cards that were effectively self-contained computers. This way an Apple IIe owner, for example, could install an Intel 8088-based AD8088 co-processor card by ALF Products and run CP/M-86 as well as MS-DOS. Unfortunately, as [Seth Kushniryk] discovered while digging into this MS-DOS option, there don’t seem to be any remaining copies of the accompanying MS-DOS 2.0 software.
The obvious response to this is of course to try and port it once again, which [Seth] did. So far he got it to boot, though it’s not quite ready for prime-time yet. Although the AD8088 card is fairly self-contained, it still has to talk with the Apple IIe system, which poses some challenges. To help with the porting he’s using the MS-DOS 2.0 OEM Adaptation Kit that was released along with the sources a while back.
The Apple II has to first load the basic MS-DOS files into the 8088’s RAM before handing over control, which works now along with the basic functionality. Before [Seth] releases the port to the public he still wants to fix a number of issues, in particular the clock. ProDOS on the Apple IIe encodes the year differently than MS-DOS, so that the latter’s clock is off by a few years, and the console driver is still not quite as robust as [Seth] would like it to be.
Beyond this there is also working with the other cards in the Apple II2 system, including the Super Serial Card, and working with the ProDOS filesystem.
2026-03-14 10:00:32
Ford does sell an electric pickup, but not very many of them. We can’t say for sure, but it’s possible that if the F150 Lightning had the classic cool of [ScottenMotors] 1977 F150 SuperCab conversion they’d have better numbers.
On Reddit, [Scotten] shares the takeaways from his conversion effort, which involved a custom Tesla-cell battery pack and a new rear axle assembly to house the Tesla SDU (Small Drive Unit). A Large Drive Unit (LDU) would probably fit, but the SDU already puts out 264 HP, which compares rather favourably to the 156 HP this truck’s malaise-era V8 put out stock. The old F-bodies were great trucks in a lot of respects, but even an die-hard ICE enthusiast is probably not going to be sad to see that motor go.
Choosing to put the integrated drive unit in the rear axle complicates the build compared to other conversions that re-use the
stock transmission and differential, but saves you all the losses associated with that frankly unnecessary powertrain hardware. The takeaway there is to figure out all the mechanical work on the chassis, because the EV stuff is actually the easy part. [Scotten] had the wheels turning a full year before he got the brakes figured out, because even if they’re just the rears and even if there’s regen– you want all the breaks to work on your test drive.
With the 100kW power pack, he’s getting about 220 miles of range. From the pictures, it looks like he’s filled up most of the hood space with that battery, but we can’t help but wonder if there’s room under the bed where the gas tank(s) lived to squeeze in more cells for those of us who need to go further.
Sadly the design isn’t open source, but [ScottenMotors] is apparently doing conversions on commission and open to selling kits; you can check that out on their website. In that, he’s following in the series-hybrid footsteps of Edison Motors.
While we respect the hustle to design an all-new rear end in this hack, you don’t even have to pull the internal combustion engine if you want to play on easy mode. You don’t need to be a nanoscience professor like [ScottenMotors] to pull off an electric truck, for the record– [Mr.G]’s high school class did a great job on a kei truck.
Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip!
2026-03-14 07:00:04
The Tesla turbine is a bladeless centripetal-flow turbine invented by Nikola Tesla in 1913, using the boundary-layer effect rather than having a stream of gases or a fluid impinge on blades. Recently [Jamie’s Brick Jams] constructed one using Lego to demonstrate just how well these turbines work compared to their bladed brethren.
Since it uses the boundary-layer effect, the key is to have as much surface area as possible. This means having many smaller discs stacked side by side with some spacing between them.
Interestingly, the air that is directed against the turbine will travel inwards, towards the axle of the discs and thus requiring some way to vent the air. In the video a number of design prototypes are tested to see how they perform before settling on a design suitable for a functional generator.
The first discs are printed in PLA with an FDM printer, which are put on a shaft with 1 mm spacers. What becomes clear during testing is that these turbines can reach ridiculous speeds, but torque is really quite weak until you hit very high RPMs, well beyond 10,000 RPM. This is a bit of an issue if you want to drive any load with it, especially on start-up, but managed to propel a walker robot as a quick torque test.
After all that testing and experimenting, the right material for the turbine discs was investigated, with PLA pitted against ‘PLA tough’, PETG, PC and TPU. Of these PLA Tough got the best results in terms of RPM at the same air pressure. This was assembled into a basic generator, but the turbine struggled to generate enough torque.
Here the solution was to create a custom generator that would be much easier to spin up. To this was added a much larger turbine with 0.3 mm thin discs, using which ultimately some power could be generated, along with a considerable amount of torque. To adjust the RPM into the generator from the turbine a CVT initially was used to provide a gradual adjustment, but this had to be replaced with metal gears.
After this change the generator was good enough for a power output of about 14 Watt at 30 V with 85 PSI as input. Which is more than enough to charge a smartphone or light up a big LED panel. The design files for all of these turbines are provided on MakerWorld, such as for the big turbine.
Although Tesla turbines never made much of a splash as turbines, they are quite nice as pumps that can take a bit of abuse, including ingesting debris that would wreck other types of pumps. As a turbine they remain a fun hobbyist toy, with us covering various designs over the years. Take for example this one from 2011 based on HDD platters, or a micro turbine out of metal.
2026-03-14 04:00:23
Remember those brick cellphones in the 1990s? They were comically large by today’s standards. These phones used the 1G network to communicate and, as such, have been unusable for decades now. However [Alan Boris] has resurrected this classic phone to operate today.
Originally costing as much as today’s top-of-the-line phones, but instead of weighing just a few ounces this classic Motorola DynaTAC 8000 Classic 2 tips the scales at a hefty 1.5 lbs. [Alan Boris] decided to not just bring the electronics back to life, but to even stuff a modern cellphone inside it to make it fully functional. Given the size of this phone, finding room for the new innards wasn’t much of a challenge. In fact, after the retrofit there was less in the phone than when it started life.
Using a perfboard and some tactile switches he was able to sense the button presses on the phone’s keypad and relay those to a Raspberry Pi Pico 2. The Pico in turn drove a small color LCD to replicate the original screen and controlled a pair of ADG729 boards used to dial the BM10 cellphone within this cellphone. The BM10 is a cellphone about the size of a 9V battery, making it easy to put inside the DynaTAC and bring the handset back to the modern cellular network.
Thanks [Alan Boris] for the tip! Be sure to check out our other cellphone hacks as well as some of our other retrofit hacks.
2026-03-14 01:15:41
Join Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi as they cover their favorite hacks and stories from the week. The episode kicks off with some updates about Hackaday Europe and the recently announced Green Power contest, as well as the proposal of a new feature of the podcast where listeners are invited to send in their questions and comments. After the housekeeping is out of the way, the discussion will go from spoofing traffic light control signals and the line between desktop computers and smartphones, all the way to homebrew e-readers and writing code with chocolate candies. You’ll hear about molding replacement transparent parts, a collection of fantastic tutorials on hardware hacking and reverse engineering, and the recent fireball that lit up the skies over Germany. The episode wraps up with a fascinating look at how the developer of Pokemon Go is monetizing the in-game efforts of millions of players.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Download this episode in DRM-free MP3 so you can listen to it while doing unpaid labor in Pokemon Go.
