Manta: An Open On-FPGA Debug Interface

We always can use more tools for FPGA debugging, and the Manta project by [Fischer Moseley] delivers without a shadow of a doubt. Manta lets you add a debug and data transfer channel between your c…

Logic Analyzers: Decoding And Monitoring

Last time, we looked into using a logic analyzer to decode SPI signals of LCD displays, which can help us reuse LCD screens from proprietary systems, or port LCD driver code from one platform to an…

Decoding The 8088

There is a lot to like about open software, and in some areas, a well-thought-out piece of software can really make a huge impact. A great example of this is the Sigrok project. Creating simple dev…

Bus Sniffing The Model 5150 For Better Emulation

At the risk of stating the obvious, a PC is more than just its processor. And if you want to accurately emulate what’s going on inside the CPU, you’d do well to pay attention to the res…

$13 Scope And Logic Analyzer Hits 18 Msps

We aren’t sure what’s coolest about [Richard Testardi’s] Flea-Scope. It costs about $13 plus the cost of making the PCB. It operates at 18 million samples per second. It also does…

Reverse-engineering The Milwaukee M18 Redlink Protocol

In an ideal world, every single battery pack for power tools would use the same physical interface and speak a clearly documented protocol with chargers. Since we live in a decidedly less-than-idea…

Logic Analyzers: Capabilities And Limitations

Last time, we’ve used a logic analyzer to investigate the ID_SD and ID_SC pins on a Raspberry Pi, which turned out to be regular I2C, and then we hacked hotplug into the Raspberry Pi camera c…

Logic Analyzers: Tapping Into Raspberry Pi Secrets

Today, I’d like to highlight a tool that brings your hacking skills to a whole new level, and does that without breaking the bank – in fact, given just how much debugging time you can s…

Op-Amp Challenge: Light Up Breadboard Shows Us The Signals

Most Hackaday readers will no doubt at some point used a solderless breadboard for prototyping. They do the job, but sometimes their layout can be inflexible and keeping track of signals can be a p…

Reverse Engineering The Apple Lightning Connector

A frequent contributor to the hacker community, [stacksmashing] has prepared an excellent instructional video on reverse engineering Apple’s Lighting connector proprietary protocol. The video…

Dishwasher Repair Nightmare: Chasing Down 3 Faults

It all started with a vague error code (shown in the image above) on [nophead]’s Bosch SMS88TW01G/01 dishwasher, and it touched off a months-long repair nightmare that even involved a logic a…

When Your Logic Analyzer Can’t Tell Good And Bad Signals Apart

[Avian] has picked up a Miniware LA104 – a small battery-powered logic analyzer with builtin protocol decoders. Such analyzers are handy tools for when you quickly need to see what really is …

Pico Makes Capable Logic Analyzer

A common enough microcontroller project is to create some form of logic analyzer. In theory, it should be pretty easy: grab some digital inputs, store them, and display them. But, of course, the de…

Anyone Can Be The Master Of This Master Lock Safe

[Etienne Sellan] got one of these lovely $5 logic analyzers. As with any shiny new tool, he started looking for things to investigate with it, and his gaze fell on a Sentry Safe (produced by Master…

Exporting Data From Old Gear Through LCD Sniffing

[Jure Spiler] was at a flea market and got himself a spectrophotometer — a device that measures absorbance and transmittance of light at different wavelengths. This particular model seems to …

Need A Logic Analyzer? Use Your Pico!

There’s a slew of hardware hacker problems that a logic analyzer is in a perfect position to solve. Whether you’re trying to understand why an SPI LCD screen doesn’t initialize, w…