The winner of last month’s name that ware is Karl, who nailed it in the first post, and very helpfully followed up with the plaintext of his md5sum’d answers, which made judging a lot easier. Congrats, and email me to get your prize!

Last month’s ware was indeed my digital tachometer for my old ’92 Toyota Corolla. The lead-acid battery pack was used during testing before I opened a hole in the console to tap power for the device. Does it look improvised? Yes. Sinister? No. Is it a bomb? No.

That thing was a lot of fun. A firware revision on the tach actually plotted along the bottom a time-history graph of the engine RPM, so you could see how quickly and efficiently you were shifting. The police officers also found it pretty interesting as well. I would get pulled over sometimes just because the officer was curious, and then he’d give it a chuckle and send me on my way because he knew I was “one of those MIT guys”. I had been thinking about putting one of these in my current car, but I just haven’t had the time to get under the hood and hack it (and I suppose now I run the risk of being pegged as a terrorist and whisked off to Guantanamo Bay). I think if I were to make one again, I would still use a VFD. There’s just something timeless about a Vacuum Fluorescent Display. Fortunately, it looks like Noritake still makes them. Actually, now that ODB-II is prevalent, I probably don’t even have to get under the hood anymore. Bonneville, here I come!…oh wait, I have to ship chumbys first…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 9:47 pm and is filed under Hacking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.