Chapelier Fou

Articles in the Hardware category

An enhanced 3D-printed NAS

22/01/2020 | Category: Hardware | Tags: 3D Printing, Raspberry Pi
I got numerous comments about my 3D printed NAS. An issue encountered by multiple people is that it is now virtually impossible to come around a similar USB hub. Indeed, I used a store brand one and the product has been discontinued for some time...

Let's build an enhanced version solving that issue!

The finished NAS

The first version of the case was designed with OpenSCAD and 3D-printed. I modified it to accomodate a new wider 4-port USB hub and a more efficient 40mm fan at the rear instead of the small one on the lid. You can download the new SCAD source files and STL files here (licensed under GPLv3).

3D models of the enhanced case

In addition, we'll use the following elements:
- A Raspberry Pi Model B (2, 3, 3+ or 4), obviously
- A 4-Port Ultra Slim USB 3.0 Hub with USB charger from Anker (warning, there is also a version without the micro-USB charger port, you need model A7518111 or A7518311 to power the NAS through the hub)
- Two 2.5" SATA to USB adapter cable IB-AC6033-U3 from Icy Box
- Two 2.5" SATA hard disks …
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A High-Tech Minitel

27/10/2019 | Category: Hardware | Tags: Minitel, Vintage, Raspberry Pi

This article is the continuation of my Minitel series: a Minitel as a Linux terminal, and a Minitel 2.0.

It's rather easy to remove legacy electronics and unmount the cathodic tube from the Minitel to replace them with a Raspberry Pi and a flat screen. However, the difficult part would be adapting the Minitel's proprietary keyboard.

Therefore, in this article, we will first make a generic USB keyboard controller for the Minitel 1B out of an Arduino board. We'll use an Arduino Pro Micro. It is roughly equivalent to the Pro Mini, except it has an on-board USB transceiver, which will allow us to configure it as a USB Keyboard. Then, we'll fit a 8-inch LCD panel to replace the old CRT. I chose an Innolux HE080IA-01D panel with driver board. Its dimensions and 1024x768 resolution make it a perfect candidate for our use case here.

The Minitel's keyboard is a simple matrix one. Key presses close circuits, and by continuously scanning the matrix, the controller can deduce which keys are pressed. Sadly, the matrix is non-standard, so we have to retro-engineer it...

The keyboard contact board extracted from …

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A Minitel 2.0

21/07/2019 | Category: Hardware | Tags: Minitel, Vintage, Raspberry Pi

This article is the continuation of my previous article on the Minitel.

These are dark times we live in. Far from the original design of the Internet whose cornerstone was decentralisation, the Web has created a split between servers and clients, between service providers and service consumers, between the ones who harvest data and the ones who are harvested. To use the expression forged by Benjamin Bayart (in French), the Internet is bascially converging back to a Minitel 2.0.

Let's take the statement literally and build an actual Minitel 2.0!

My idea is simple: there is an unused extension bay at the rear of the Minitel 1B where we can lodge a Rasberry Pi connected to the Minitel as its terminal. This will effectively add modern Ethernet, Wifi, and USB connectivity to a 35-year-old Minitel.

To hold the Pi, I designed and 3D-printed a replacement for the rear panel. The OpenSCAD source and the STL models are available here (under GPLv3).

Replacement for the rear panel holding the Raspberry Pi

The support piece is printed separately, then clipped and glued to the panel before the Pi is secured …

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A Minitel as a Linux terminal

12/06/2016 | Category: Hardware | Tags: Minitel, Vintage

The Minitel (from the French Médium Interactif par Numérisation d'Information Téléphonique) was an interactive videotex online service accessible through phone lines, operated in France from 1982 by the state-owned PTT (Postes, Télégraphes et Téléphones), the ancestor of France Télécom. The service was retired in 2012, after more than 30 years of existence. It might have been the world's most successful early online service, before the World Wide Web era. It offered services like telephone directory, purchases, reservations, mail, and chat just like the Web offers today.

The Minitel, starting from model 1B, can be used as a VT100-compatible Linux terminal with the proper wiring. So let's try...

The first version of the Minitel, made by Telic Alcatel. So 80s.

Before starting to tinker, it's interesting to recall that the story behind the Minitel is actually pretty tragic despite its success. In the 70s, France was leading research on packet-switched networks. The CYCLADES project, directed by Louis Pouzin, inventor of the datagram, designed an early datagram-based packet communications network. In parallel, the French PTT was developing Transpac, a packet network based on virtual circuit switching with the emerging X.25 standard …

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A small 3D-printed NAS

19/08/2015 | Category: Hardware | Tags: 3D Printing, Raspberry Pi
EDIT: I published an updated version of the NAS in a more recent article.

Network-Attached Storages (NAS) are very handy devices on a home network. They offer a simple way to share or synchronize files, and can host various useful services at the same time provided they are generic enough. A NAS being nothing more than a specialized file server, we will actually build a small home server than will be able to do anything.

The functions can be the following:
- File server (FTP, NFS, SMB/CIFS...)
- Streaming server (audio or video on the local network)
- Personal web server (to host a website, synchonize contacts or send files to people)
- Local seedbox (to download torrent files)
- Domotic hub (for instance by adding a Zigbee USB dongle)
The server will be pretty simple in its technical design: a Raspberry Pi 2 model B with two hard disks connected with USB adapters.

The finished NAS featuring a Raspberry Pi 2

The Raspberry Pi is actually not able to power the two drives over USB, since we would need 500mA per drive, so 1000mA overall, and the Pi can only supply 600mA over …
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