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mabster 21 hours ago [-]
I went to the page expecting to rant about how it's not actually credit card size because of the thickness and was for once pleasantly surprised! Kudos to the author! It looks great!
ghrl 15 hours ago [-]
I was thinking all that too and considering commenting about being sick of those credit card size claims, but after seeing the footage I am genuinely impressed. Great work there.
krauseler 10 hours ago [-]
Love how the point of this entire thing comes across!
majorchord 8 hours ago [-]
I'll be that guy I guess then... they stated on their page that credit cards are 0.8mm while the muxcard is 1mm and yet they still claim it is "literally the size of a credit card"... not to mention that they carved out an NFC card, not a credit card.
Yes it's still impressive either way, I'm not debating that.
rendaw 7 hours ago [-]
It said that the specification states 0.8mm, but that many real world cards are thicker. Are credit cards actually 0.8mm?
mabster 7 hours ago [-]
I did notice that difference too. But previous "credit card size" projects have all been several mm (as in couldn't fit a wallet designed for credit cards). So 1 mm is... pretty sweet!
cbdevidal 24 hours ago [-]
What fun!
I’d love to also go the opposite direction, a full-sized laptop with an ESP32 running tiny386 and Windows 95 ^_^
This could be great if the rest of the chassis was filled with batteries.
poulpy123 4 hours ago [-]
The laptop is 4kg but the battery life is 6 months
cbdevidal 10 hours ago [-]
Now you’re talking!
asdefghyk 1 days ago [-]
This post - the title made me remember ... ( as a credit card is about the same size as a business card )
A Linux Business Card CD is a miniature, credit-card-sized optical disc containing a stripped-down, bootable Linux operating system. They hold around 50MB to 100MB of data and were highly popular in the early-to-mid 2000s
I had one of those - I think it is still in my office desk.
dredmorbius 19 hours ago [-]
Seth Schoen (<https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=schoen> at HN) was lead dev in building one of the best-known instances of these, the Linuxcare Bootable Business Card (LNX-BBC), and has occasionally commented on that here:
These things were cool! I believe I had some drivers installed via some of them, and a Kubuntu livecd.
krauseler 23 hours ago [-]
Developer here :)
Just saw this and love how I got the 100th or so "Does it run DOOM?". Even now officially an issue on GitHub. Does that mean I now have to deliver?
Muhammad523 23 hours ago [-]
> Does that mean I now have to deliver?
Well, if you'd like to, you're free to do so! If not, somebody else could do it. You're not your audience's slave
I know it was intended as a joke but still..
abdullahkhalids 19 hours ago [-]
How optimal is the PCB density? Do you think there is significant room for improvement to have a smaller PCB and larger screen and/or battery?
krauseler 10 hours ago [-]
The PCB can be way smaller, but finding a flexible screen is the issue, there is a 2.9 inch one almost twice as big but the battery would suffer :/
IAmBroom 21 hours ago [-]
So... it's not DOOM-complete?
Teenage Alan T. would be so disappointed... :D
sargstuff 9 hours ago [-]
Well, using something related/similar to turing-complete correspondence:
----
If it can fetch/display files from the internet, yes, it can run doom[5]. Or make use of curl, curl-doom[18]
-----
stripped down doom can run in 4MB (doom on a smart toothbrush[7]). ESP32 has support for up to 4MB external PSRAM[1]. ESP32 port of doom[2]. lcd screen might provide for faster refresh / less blury images under magnifying glass.
Alternatively, adding an expansion port to be able to use 'doomchip' might make it easier hide game play while at work[8] / stay awake between screen frame refreshes. (and/or simulateously play tetris & 1d pacman; add Badgey functionality[19] )
But should one go with micropython[3], reflectionsOS[4] or not waste space and use a 2 stage 512k bootloader for dns.doom[5]?
contikiOS[6] for dns.doom[5] might be the correct fit without needing to add 4mb psram / doomchip expansion port(s).
-----
Misc doomchip information:
doomchip non-tech article(2020)[11].
doomchip developer comments[12]. Should be able to get at least 2fps!
doomchip better expanded upon in a 'heads up, 7up' thread -> slice[9]/doomchip[10].
----
Surprised there's no dns doom.wad / I.D.Software Application (IDSA) rfc "Spit.wad: A DNS string encoding using Unicode for doom.wad graphics" version of rfc3492: "Punycode: A bootstring encoding of Unicode for Internationalizaed Domain Names in Appliations" (IDNA) [13]
(IDSA) rfc might permit formally unifying things like unicode-line-stacker[14], stacked diacretics generator[15], unicodeart[16] and "awesome symbols and characters in a bash prompt"[17].
Thanks! This project is cool enough that I think we can tolerate another thread about it, especially since that post didn't get too much frontpage time. I'll put a link to it at the top though.
gnabgib 10 hours ago [-]
Is this an ops we shouldn't have put this dupe in the SCP, or an ops the original submission should have been a different URL?
dthdthdtejdz 12 hours ago [-]
Thanks! Arbitrary application of rules is nothing short of what I would expect from CCP LOVER DANG.
sargstuff 8 hours ago [-]
... but both threads are DOOMed ...
lxgr 22 hours ago [-]
> A fully working computer that is literally the size of a credit card.
Nit: A (chip) credit card is already a fully working computer :)
ZiiS 21 hours ago [-]
Only if it is inside a specially designed radio field and with no independent IO. Feels like a battery and IO justify the 'fully working' differentiation.
lxgr 20 hours ago [-]
Interesting philosophical question: Is a tower PC that's not plugged into anything (neither power nor a keyboard or monitor) a computer? Does computation happen if nobody can perceive it? And is a computer a computer even between two CPU cycles?
> no independent IO
I would challenge that! How is a smartcard different from a server in a qualitative sense? Both get all their I/O over the network.
Some cards even have a display, fingerprint reader, or can blink an LED (the latter unfortunately only indiscriminately when powered up, not in response to any computation, I'm afraid).
Rohansi 20 hours ago [-]
Is a bare SoC a computer? You can poke the pins to provide power and I/O.
The interesting thing about this project is that this computer can function independently within a credit card sized space.
sargstuff 8 hours ago [-]
asic computer doesn't have cpu cycles. So, a computer is still a computer between two cpu cycles.
IAmBroom 21 hours ago [-]
I've never heard a definition of a computer to include its power source.
IO is of course required.
realo 19 hours ago [-]
Very cool! Love it...
But...
The battery is likely to be squeezed quite a bit after this is put in my wallet, and in my pocket.
Lithium batteries do not like to be squeezed. They tend to signal their distress with some type of heat, usually accompanied with a small fire and probable smoke as well.
A distressed battery is very insistent upon everyone to see it's state of mind...
skavi 19 hours ago [-]
This is discussed in the post.
z3ugma 22 hours ago [-]
Hidden in here is the coolest part, that the author made flex PCBs at home
aidenn0 5 hours ago [-]
> For the first prototype, I soldered each wire individually...
I salute you sir. Did you have a better solution for later versions?
firesteelrain 22 hours ago [-]
Just in time for DEFCON. We built many of these types of badges
Prologium is depositing thin film solid state batteries onto flexible ceramic insulators. They have some demos of single cells that appear to be thinner than 1mm continuing to operate after bending in half.
That looks like it's the size of a smartphone. It's 7 times thicker... I'm not sure that qualifies as a little thicker, plus all the other dimensions.
jansan 1 days ago [-]
I think that there could be a wider screen if such formats are available. Once we have betavoltaic batteries, the entire card can be screen.
rbanffy 1 days ago [-]
I'm not sure beta voltaics will ever reach LiPo densities. All materials I know would be unwise to place in your wallet, or anywhere near your body.
If we are OK with a battery and a beta voltaic source, a tritium one is reasonably safe and can trickle charge the battery when the device is in deep low power mode. The battery can still be charged by the induction coil.
mmmehulll 1 days ago [-]
love this. would be cool if we can see and perform all kinds of banking txns on this. Think ledger but all in one card. Super cool. Even cooler would be card to card money transfer without use of swipe machines
resonious 24 hours ago [-]
If "ledger on card" interests you, then you might enjoy Japan's FeliCa cards. They store balance locally on the card so you can pay very quickly, no network required.
abdullahkhalids 19 hours ago [-]
Do these cards solve the electronic cash problem (in a completely different way than cryptocurrencies)? What I mean is that
- Are the card readers special/trusted issued by bank/govt in some way? Or you can transfer money from one card to another yourself fully offline?
- Is there any requirements that the transfers have to be eventually communicated to the bank by one of the parties to be fully resolved?
- Has someone managed to create fake cards with fake money in it, or this is impossible by design?
csande17 3 hours ago [-]
As I understand it, these cards work basically the same way as transit card systems in other countries, like the SF Bay Area's "Clipper" cards.
The overall model is similar to tap-to-pay debit cards. They're only used for consumer-to-business payments. When you tap the card, the card sends over an account number / signature / etc, which the merchant sends to a central clearinghouse to finalize the transactions.
The main difference is that the card itself keeps a running balance of how much money the customer has available to spend. In many cases, this gives the merchant enough confidence to e.g. let you through the train turnstile without actually waiting for the central clearinghouse to confirm the transaction. (I think in practice they usually send all the transactions in batches, daily or weekly or something.)
The readers do some trusted-computing/secure-enclave type stuff but are not especially hard to obtain; I think there have even been cases where companies like Nintendo have built them into consumer products, so that you could e.g. tap your card to your Nintendo 3DS to buy a video game.
I imagine there's a bit more security on the machines that let you load money on the cards, but it's probably not completely impossible to make a fake card. But the low value limit (usually a couple hundred dollars, depending on the card provider), the inability to get cash out of the system (often you can't even buy things like postage stamps), and the fact that you'll get caught relatively quickly (once the central clearinghouse notices the transactions don't match up) make it unattractive to do it in practice.
voidUpdate 1 days ago [-]
It seems like it might be a little expensive for a business card...
bird0861 23 hours ago [-]
Let's see Paul Allen's card.
yesbabyyes 15 hours ago [-]
Or, it would be interesting to see how this would fare in American Psycho.
fph 1 days ago [-]
How do you recharge it? Do you have to swap the battery?
krauseler 23 hours ago [-]
Hey, developer here :)
I used an ultra thin LiPo, so you can actually charge it. USB is obviously not an option but it uses magnetic pogo pins on the back side ^^
frankest 22 hours ago [-]
Try NGK EnerCera for battery.
stavros 23 hours ago [-]
This is great, and I love it, and I hate to be saying this, but it's not literally the size of a credit card, it's 0.2mm thicker.
krauseler 21 hours ago [-]
Fair enough, but I acknowledged that and it's 0.24mm thicker if we want to be exact. Here's a quote from my Git Repo:
"Official ISO7816 smartcards are specified at 0.76mm thickness, but many real-world cards slightly exceed this in practice. The target for this project was simple: Stay around ~1mm total thickness and preserve the illusion of a normal card."
stavros 21 hours ago [-]
Hey, works for me, I just got OCD from the title's usage of the word "literally".
iberator 24 hours ago [-]
Run Unix v6 on it :) 16 bit and works with like 80kb of ram
__This__ is where all those trusted app parts should go - a smart card with e-ink display that can provide high security assurance level and where I won't mind that it's locked down because it has only one purpose.
__Not__ to my smartphone, effectively preventing me from modifying the system in the name of security. A banking app can use a card like this and on the display I could for example see where a transaction would go and then I could accept it, possibly even with a biometric identification.
This would enable me to keep my smartphone customizable and banking apps secure at the same time.
[apologies for the rant]
NetMageSCW 14 hours ago [-]
And it would communicate using?
acrophiliac 19 hours ago [-]
dyi = Do Yourself It?
sargstuff 8 hours ago [-]
selfie thing.
aa-jv 1 days ago [-]
I want this, but only for one thing: email.
I already use an pwnagotchi, and it works great for this - but its a bit bulky.
If I can get this set up and working, it'll be my main interface to email.
suzukivenom 1 days ago [-]
legendary
pslab 24 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
22 hours ago [-]
swordlucky666 21 hours ago [-]
[dead]
flintenmuschi 22 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
goodpoint 1 days ago [-]
It's not a computer.
cbdevidal 24 hours ago [-]
It’s got more horsepower than my first desktop computer
bigfishrunning 23 hours ago [-]
In what way is it not a computer?
krauseler 23 hours ago [-]
Right, it doesn't compute. Apologies for the lie.
antonvs 22 hours ago [-]
Your definition of "computer" is incorrect.
mrbluecoat 23 hours ago [-]
First thought: cool!
Second thought: e-waste
(same reaction as single-serve coffee pods, circa 2023)
krauseler 23 hours ago [-]
Good point. Ideally it would be the opposite of waste if it can save you from several cards. But banks would never certify such a multi-card system unless a big company pushes it forward.
Otherwise I'm sure people might use this to hack some terminals :P
Yes it's still impressive either way, I'm not debating that.
I’d love to also go the opposite direction, a full-sized laptop with an ESP32 running tiny386 and Windows 95 ^_^
https://www.hackster.io/news/he-chunhui-s-tiny386-turns-the-...
A Linux Business Card CD is a miniature, credit-card-sized optical disc containing a stripped-down, bootable Linux operating system. They hold around 50MB to 100MB of data and were highly popular in the early-to-mid 2000s
More info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootable_business_card
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REX_6000
<https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>
Just saw this and love how I got the 100th or so "Does it run DOOM?". Even now officially an issue on GitHub. Does that mean I now have to deliver?
I know it was intended as a joke but still..
Teenage Alan T. would be so disappointed... :D
----
If it can fetch/display files from the internet, yes, it can run doom[5]. Or make use of curl, curl-doom[18]
-----
stripped down doom can run in 4MB (doom on a smart toothbrush[7]). ESP32 has support for up to 4MB external PSRAM[1]. ESP32 port of doom[2]. lcd screen might provide for faster refresh / less blury images under magnifying glass.
Alternatively, adding an expansion port to be able to use 'doomchip' might make it easier hide game play while at work[8] / stay awake between screen frame refreshes. (and/or simulateously play tetris & 1d pacman; add Badgey functionality[19] )
But should one go with micropython[3], reflectionsOS[4] or not waste space and use a 2 stage 512k bootloader for dns.doom[5]?
contikiOS[6] for dns.doom[5] might be the correct fit without needing to add 4mb psram / doomchip expansion port(s).
-----
Misc doomchip information:
----Surprised there's no dns doom.wad / I.D.Software Application (IDSA) rfc "Spit.wad: A DNS string encoding using Unicode for doom.wad graphics" version of rfc3492: "Punycode: A bootstring encoding of Unicode for Internationalizaed Domain Names in Appliations" (IDNA) [13]
(IDSA) rfc might permit formally unifying things like unicode-line-stacker[14], stacked diacretics generator[15], unicodeart[16] and "awesome symbols and characters in a bash prompt"[17].
-------------------------------------------------------------
[0] : "Can it run doom?" : https://canitrundoom.org/
[1] : https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/esp32/...
[2] : https://www.techeblog.com/doom-electronic-badge-emfcamp/
[3] : https://github.com/NoosaHydro/2.4inch_ESP32-2432S024/tree/ma...
[4] : https://github.com/frankcohen/ReflectionsOS[5] : https://undercodetesting.com/dns-can-run-doom-how-2000-dns-r...
[6] : https://contiki-os.org/
[7] : doom on a smarth toothbrush : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO-Are8053g[8] : https://hackaday.com/2020/05/13/the-doom-chip/
[9] : https://github.com/sylefeb/Silice
[10] : https://github.com/sylefeb/Silice/blob/master/projects/READM...
[11] : doomchip article : https://www.techeblog.com/doom-chip-game/
[12] : https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1258808333265514497.html
[13] : https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3492/
[14] : https://github.com/axesilo/unicode-line-stacker
[15] : https://codepen.io/lingyloll/pen/ooMaYO
[16] : https://www.unicodeart.com/gallery/
[17] : https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/25903/awesome-symbo...
[18] : https://codeberg.org/xsawyerx/curl-doom
[19] : https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Badgey
Nit: A (chip) credit card is already a fully working computer :)
> no independent IO
I would challenge that! How is a smartcard different from a server in a qualitative sense? Both get all their I/O over the network.
Some cards even have a display, fingerprint reader, or can blink an LED (the latter unfortunately only indiscriminately when powered up, not in response to any computation, I'm afraid).
The interesting thing about this project is that this computer can function independently within a credit card sized space.
IO is of course required.
But...
The battery is likely to be squeezed quite a bit after this is put in my wallet, and in my pocket.
Lithium batteries do not like to be squeezed. They tend to signal their distress with some type of heat, usually accompanied with a small fire and probable smoke as well.
A distressed battery is very insistent upon everyone to see it's state of mind...
I salute you sir. Did you have a better solution for later versions?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/m5stack/cardputerzero
https://prologium.com/tech/core-technology/
And yes, if you accept ~0.7FPS
If we are OK with a battery and a beta voltaic source, a tritium one is reasonably safe and can trickle charge the battery when the device is in deep low power mode. The battery can still be charged by the induction coil.
- Are the card readers special/trusted issued by bank/govt in some way? Or you can transfer money from one card to another yourself fully offline?
- Is there any requirements that the transfers have to be eventually communicated to the bank by one of the parties to be fully resolved?
- Has someone managed to create fake cards with fake money in it, or this is impossible by design?
The overall model is similar to tap-to-pay debit cards. They're only used for consumer-to-business payments. When you tap the card, the card sends over an account number / signature / etc, which the merchant sends to a central clearinghouse to finalize the transactions.
The main difference is that the card itself keeps a running balance of how much money the customer has available to spend. In many cases, this gives the merchant enough confidence to e.g. let you through the train turnstile without actually waiting for the central clearinghouse to confirm the transaction. (I think in practice they usually send all the transactions in batches, daily or weekly or something.)
The readers do some trusted-computing/secure-enclave type stuff but are not especially hard to obtain; I think there have even been cases where companies like Nintendo have built them into consumer products, so that you could e.g. tap your card to your Nintendo 3DS to buy a video game.
I imagine there's a bit more security on the machines that let you load money on the cards, but it's probably not completely impossible to make a fake card. But the low value limit (usually a couple hundred dollars, depending on the card provider), the inability to get cash out of the system (often you can't even buy things like postage stamps), and the fact that you'll get caught relatively quickly (once the central clearinghouse notices the transactions don't match up) make it unattractive to do it in practice.
I used an ultra thin LiPo, so you can actually charge it. USB is obviously not an option but it uses magnetic pogo pins on the back side ^^
"Official ISO7816 smartcards are specified at 0.76mm thickness, but many real-world cards slightly exceed this in practice. The target for this project was simple: Stay around ~1mm total thickness and preserve the illusion of a normal card."
Works on the RISC-V 32-bit processor, sometimes.
__Not__ to my smartphone, effectively preventing me from modifying the system in the name of security. A banking app can use a card like this and on the display I could for example see where a transaction would go and then I could accept it, possibly even with a biometric identification.
This would enable me to keep my smartphone customizable and banking apps secure at the same time.
[apologies for the rant]
I already use an pwnagotchi, and it works great for this - but its a bit bulky.
If I can get this set up and working, it'll be my main interface to email.
(same reaction as single-serve coffee pods, circa 2023)
Otherwise I'm sure people might use this to hack some terminals :P