this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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In the tech sense- what is your favorite way that someone has used systems in unintended ways to do something cool?

I like the one where a guy used a wiimote for head tracking.

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[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 11 points 11 hours ago

I hacked my CPAP. I removed the cancer causing material and did work getting the software in a better state. Also removed the mobile chip that communicates with the original company. Fun times.

[–] Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Swap Magic case mod for the PS2 made me feel like a wizard when I was 12.

Someone else? Anything Posy or Benn Jordan put out. They are audio visual technomancers bending light and sound to their will.

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 32 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
[–] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 27 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

While it wasn't unintended, the Atari 2600 only had 39 bits of memory to draw 160x192 graphics to the screen. It accomplished that task using the fact that CRT screens displayed images by rapidly moving a beam of light across the screen. Knowing the beam could only be in one spot at any time, the Atari system held just enough space in memory to draw 20 pixels. As the beam moved across the screen, the system updated the colour of the next pixels immediately before they needed to be drawn in a method that became known as Racing the beam.

It was built that way because having enough memory to draw the entire screen at once would have made the Atari 2600 prohibitively expensive for consumers.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 11 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Almost, but close enough. It had hardware to draw background solid blocks, two one-pixel dots and two sprites that had width but interestingly no height. The background was repeated or mirrored by hardware registers so if you wanted different patterns on left and right half of the screen, you need to switch the correct values at the right time at every line. Any positing of graphics would be in X position only so you'd have to do it by the line when the raster hit it. It had no interrupts except that you could forcibly wait for next frame to render and then you keep track of the clock cycles to render each line. And it has 128 bytes of RAM, less than the number of characters in this comment, while games were 1,2 or 4 KB on ROM cartridges, needless to say very efficiently coded directly in 6502 machine code. Oh, and the sound chip had no chromatic division of frequencies but weird intervals that aren't even close to any scale we know. Yet programmers managed to create great games on the platform. It's absolutely crazy.

[–] Justdaveisfine@midwest.social 22 points 17 hours ago

I know a guy that took a security camera and hooked it up to watch his lawnmower, which is set to automatically mow a certain area as guided by the camera.

So he just hits a button and watches his lawn get mowed.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 21 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I use a system of cameras and QR codes printed onto cardboard that I wear on my wrists, waist and ankles to achieve full body tracking in VR using what I had on-hand without buying anything extra for it. All possible because of the free and open source Apriltag software that does all the actual tracking.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 7 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

So it's like a really simple motion capture because it sees the QR codes and knows where your left arm is sticking?

Could it be that basic and effective?

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 9 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

It's probably not as good as, like, the Pico trackers or other expensive 3rd party units you wear, but it's been perfectly functional for me. It tracks better than the headset itself does my bare hands through its sensor array.

I have nothing else to compare it to, though, because I am cheap and found this before breaking down and just buying something 🤣

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 5 points 12 hours ago

Sounds like an ingenious way to avoid shelling out a fat wad of cash. Well done!

[–] borokov@lemmy.world 30 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

We had big powerful workstation at work but we were denied to heat up the temperature in winter to save electricity bill. So we end up running useless heavy computation on our machines.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 9 points 14 hours ago

I worked in a building designed to be heated by that generated from the mainframe in the basement.

...then computers got smaller ;-)

[–] Emanothep@lemm.ee 14 points 18 hours ago

BOINC would combine the useful with the pleasant.

[–] jewbacca117@lemmy.world 22 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

One of my personal favorites is the casino that got hacked through a wireless fishtank thermometer. Hackers managed to find the high roller databases. Segment your networks, people.

[–] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 15 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Commander Adama tried to warn us.

[–] riot@lemmy.world 10 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)
[–] jewbacca117@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago

SO SAY WE ALL

[–] sirico@feddit.uk 7 points 16 hours ago

My first one was psx I found how to play back ups using I the inside of a biro wedged in the lid to hold the lid button down. Pop a demo disc in swap when it stops after the PS1 logo with a backup. My friends at the time were paying for modchips and they would play games in black and white etc. One of those things that make me think I got dumber over time.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 5 points 18 hours ago

Didn't he end up getting hired to work on Kinect?