Mysterious Files PH

With the recent release of its GPT-6 Astra model, OpenAI explicitly pushed the claim that it is capable of designing complete circuit boards in KiCad, starting from a provided schematic and outputting a fully routed PCB that theoretically could be sent off to be manufactured. This of course raises the question whether this is just a nifty party trick that works under strictly controlled conditions like most auto-routing tools, or whether there’s more to it. In a recent [EEBench] blog post, OpenAI’s claims are put to the test.

Back in 2024, we looked at how LLMs handle circuit board design, starting with the schematic. The conclusion was that you might as well just do it all by hand. Tracking progress here, [EEBench] is an electrical engineering agent benchmark that tests how effective these so-called AI agents are at performing useful hardware engineering work. As their methodology already makes clear, creating a populated and routed PCB from a schematic is just one step of many.

Consequently, GPT-6 Astra scores 69.3% (+/- 10%) on their benchmark, roughly in the same ballpark as Claude Opus 5, albeit cheaper and faster. It should be noted that [EEBench] is run by the developers behind Atopile, which is a code-based system for creating PCBs in KiCad with a strong focus on use by such AI agents.

Despite this, the blog post makes it clear that there is still a long way to go before hardware engineers can receive their pink slips and take up another profession. After all, while vibe-coding a quick prototype PCB can be a nice shortcut, for a one-off project PCB, most boards are expected to handle all the edge cases, be fully validated by multiple independent engineers, and have passed stringent testing before committing to a production run.

(Top image: from OpenAI GPT-6 Astra KiCad video)

The computer business in 1984 was a bizarre mix of hobby-level companies, a few small companies that had made it big, and a lot of big companies starting to take notice of personal computers. Plenty of money followed, which led to strange products and even stranger ads. [Such Bad Tech Ads] reveals a very bad ad from that time for a product we have barely heard of: the Spartan. The Spartan’s job was to convert your Commodore 64 so it could run Apple ][ software. The ad campaign had, inexplicably, a mime. We think. Or maybe a clown. Hard to say.

On the face of it, the Spartan might not be a bad idea. In 1984, there was plenty of Apple software. Well, relatively, anyway. But a Commodore computer was far cheaper. Other conversion kits like the Intel Inboard/386 managed to find some success in the market later. The problem, outside of strange ads, was one of timing.

If the product was available in 1984, it might have worked out better for the Canadian company, Mimic, behind it. Instead, it was about two years before an actual piece of hardware would show up in anyone’s hands. By that time, there was a ton of software for the Commodore 64. Not to mention that even when Mimic announced the Spartan, Apple had discontinued the Apple ][+ computer.

Why use a mime to promote a product that turns your Commodore 64 into a keyboard and monitor? We have no idea. But he was in all the ads and even on the product box. Strange.

We’ve seen the Spartan before, naturally. Being late usually has bad consequences. Ask FedEx.

Although we often find ourselves drowning in a seemingly unending sea of portable devices that are effectively e-waste once an internal component gives out, it’s good to remind ourselves that there are a few examples out there by large brands that manage to tick all the fancy feature boxes, while still being very much repairable. Case in point the Pixel Watch 5, a smart watch which much like its predecessor gets a 9/10 on [iFixit]’s repairability score.

Despite featuring an IP68 rating, opening it is as easy as taking out a few screws to release its latch. This allows the back to swing open, with not a drop of glue in sight, just an O-ring gasket that keeps moisture out and can be reused many times. Digging into the guts, there are color-coded screws that guide one’s hand as the very modular design is taken apart in a matter of minutes.

Being able to simply unlatch the back, and also easily obtain spare parts are two aspects that are a very welcome sight indeed. Although it’s much easier to just glue everything together, something like this latch-and-gasket approach is something that we hope that more manufacturers will copy for these small devices.

It’s potentially also an idea for one’s next DIY smart watch project, as tempting as reaching for that tube of glue may seem.

[Adafruit]’s Voicebox FX gadget is a fun, well-documented project that serves another useful purpose: being a fantastic reference design for audio on CircuitPython, with I²S audio components. Be sure to check it out if you have a project that involves any of that and could use a few pointers, or if you just want to jog a few ideas loose.

I²S (Inter-IC Sound) is a protocol aimed squarely at moving audio data between components as digital signals. Our own [Jenny List] can tell you everything you need to know about I²S. It’s a relatively simple interface that is not at all fussy about actually being used for audio, and that has led to it being put to some unusual uses.

The Voicebox FX uses an I²S microphone, an I²S amplifier, and an RP2350 microcontroller to record and play sound as well as offer a variety of effects controlled by physical inputs. It’s all wrapped up in a slick 3D printed case, and while it’s a fantastic reference design, it looks like a fun toy in its own right.

A fun trick with a pole is to try to balance it so that it can stand on one end. This can be done in a few ways, such as by exerting a force on either end to counterbalance any force that threatens to make it fall over. The approach that [Peter Ryseck] chose was to cobble together what is effectively a flying drone for on top of a standing pole, without cheating such as by simply lifting it off the ground.

Getting to the point where the drone could react quickly enough to changes in the pole’s orientation was the hardest part, as the quieter, larger propellers also have a lot more inertia. This ruled out using 10″ blades, while triple 5″ blades seemed to work well enough. For the avionics a standard quadcopter control board and software is used, with the programming such that it’ll react appropriately without causing additional instabilities.

Naturally making this work took some trial and error, with issues like oscillations plaguing the system. One unexpected problem was that the pole – taken from a pool fishing net – was flexible enough to add its own instabilities to the system. In the video all these issues and their solutions are explained in detail, along with the ultimate result. One very neat solution here for example is to have the pole lean into the wind, which is a more stable configuration than insisting on having the pole be at a perfect ninety degrees with the ground.

Delidding a CPU involves removing the integrated heat spreader (IHS) that’s put over the bare die and the substrate that it is mounted on. The reason for this is usually to improve cooling performance, as the IHS is effectively a small heatsink between the die and the large heatsink, adding more problematic thermal interfaces. If delidding is done improperly it can cause severe damage to the substrate, as in the case of a very nice 1.3 GHz Tualatin Pentium III CPU that [Bits und Bolts] got in an eBay lot with nasty delidding damage.

With the delidding enthusiast presumably having used brute force and ignorance combined with a prying implement, around a dozen of tiny traces on the substrate got severed, requiring tedious trace repair to fix. After confirming that with the severed traces the CPU is indeed busted, enough of the soldermask is removed to make a repair.

Any traces that were still good got covered with soldermask, while for the remainders the thinnest available copper wire was used to create new traces. Although very much doable with a good microscope and a steady hand, this is definitely one of those things that’s much easier to prevent than to fix.

With IHSes having become standard on CPUs, delidding continues to this day, with increasing risks of severed traces and ripped-off capacitors should it go wrong. Although those newer CPU substrates are probably not repairable, repairing these older CPUs instead of tossing them as e-waste seems plausible at least.

As the calendar turns a leaf into September, Elliot Williams is joined by Jenny List for our weekly look at all things Hackaday.

In the news, our retrocomputing competition is well under way, but there’s plenty of time to get an entry in if you’ve got a cool old-style project to show us. And then Elliot’s been chasing seismic surveyors in Munich, where they’re looking for geothermal energy.

In the stand-out hacks there’s a discussion of smoothing 3D prints using frickin’ lasers, the effect of unreasonably high RAM and storage prices on the single board computer ecosystem, and an unfortunate air conditioning system that’s tricked into believing it’s a hot day. Finally, we look in depth at PETG, and take a dive into reverse Polish notation.

Download your own personal version of the podcast right here.

Episode 384 Show Notes:

Mailbag:

In out mailbag this week we had [Kevin Opalka] asking about roadtrip hacks and [Matthew Rowberry] explaining that most versatile yet underrated prototyping medium: the humble Lego brick. Which in turn gives us the chance to mention Lego House: Right Next To Denmark’s Legoland, But Way Cooler, a trip we made back in 2019.

Got something to say? Send an e-mail or an audio clip to mailbag@hackaday.com.

News:

• Announcing The 2026 Hackaday Retrocomputing Challenge
• Seismic investigation for Munich’s geothermal project.

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Laser Your Way To Smoother FDM 3D Prints
  • Has FDM 3D Printing Hit Its Peak?
• Has the time of esoteric operating systems arrived?
  • Haiku OS Releases Beta 6
  • ReactOS Gets An Upgrade
  • Amiga-Inspired AROS Goes Bare Metal On Raspberry Pi
• Tricking An Air Conditioner Into Cooling
• Wikipedia On A Cheap Yellow Display
• HDMI For The Color Computer 2
• RAM And EMMC Prices Are So High, Pine64 Has Stopped Linux Device Production

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  • Doubling Thermal Printer Resolution By Wiggling
  • A Defrag Simulator In Your Browser
  • Reactive Heat And Wind Come To VR, Thanks To Smart Plugs
  • Get Your Monitor Transmitting VHF With A Browser Tool
• Jenny’s Picks:
  • Digital “Film” For Your Pi Camera
  • Giving The NES An Optical Data Storage Add-On
  • How A 1981 RAM Expansion Worked

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• PETG: The PLA Filament Alternative That Just Works
• “I’m Not Dead Yet!” Reverse Polish Notation Calculators You Can Still Buy
  • Teardown With A Twist: 1975 Sinclair Scientific Calculator
  • Reverse Polish Notation And Its Mildly Confusing Elegance