Always technically impressive, not always useful: Our favorite bits of Frankentech

[View this email in your browser]( [Open Ars Technica in your browser]( [Ars Orbital HQ] Like any self-respecting geek, we adore [Jurassic Park]( but sometimes we feel the need to thumb our noses at Dr. Ian Malcolm's famous bit of wisdom: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should." [Twenty years ago]( Ars started as a forum for tinkers to trade tips and show-off incredibly nerdy and technical projects. And over the years, we routinely find ourselves still engaging in these heroic (albeit not always useful) kinds of weekend projects. People have gotten [Windows 95]( and [Half-Life 3]( running on smartwatches, the Android mobile OS [jumping to the desktop]( and [sprinkler systems depending on the Raspberry Pi](. Maybe [hacking a voice assistant to work with a beloved 1980s toy]( is your idea of a "nightmare" rather than "fun," but that doesn't make it any less of a technical achievement to run [BearDuino](. So for this week's Orbital Transmission, we're resurrecting more than Teddy Ruxpin. In light of our new favorite [Android-running handheld gaming device]( (aka the Nintendo Switch), we're revisiting some of the best Frankentech projects Ars has taken on in recent years. I don't think any of these will unleash a dinosaur population we can't control onto humanity, but tweeting from 1980s technology may be just as horrific to some. —[@NathanMattise]( [Advertisement]( [Image not meant for display] [Image not meant for display] [Powered by Live Intent]( [Ad Choices]( Orbital Transmission 08.15.2019 [Android running on the Nintendo Switch] The Switch is made of phone parts, so [let's run Android on it]( The Nintendo Switch's quad-core Nvidia Tegra X1 ARM SoC would be right at home in a smartphone or tablet, along with the 4GB of RAM, a 720p touchscreen, and a 4310mAh battery. Really, the only things that makes the Switch a game console are the sweet slide-on controllers and the fact that it is blessed by Nintendo, with actually good AAA games, ecosystem support, and developer outreach. But when two of the Internet's great hacking communities join forces—the Nintendo Homebrew scene combining with the Android custom ROM community—the popular handheld can finally get in touch with its phone-y roots. Ars Android Guru and Frankendevice Tinkerer Ron Amadeo [proves it's possible]( this week by walking the world through how his beloved mobile OS landed inbetween a pair of Joy Cons. [A tweet on an old TRS-80 Model 100]( Have you ever seen [a tweet from a 1983 TRS-80 Model 100]( If this looks like the interface from some vintage children's toy, be aware—people in 1983 called this a computer. The [TRS-80 Model 100]( (affectionately known among retro-computing buffs as the "T100") is the Radio Shack-branded version of an early "laptop" computer developed by Kyocera and Microsoft. In fact, it was the last system for which Bill Gates wrote a significant amount of code. And since Ars IT Editor Sean Gallagher has a well-documented [history of]( trying to drag 1980s technology into the 21st Century, he wasn't going to let a little thing like "no possible way of loading a TCP/IP stack" get in the way of connecting a TRS-80 Model 100 to the Internet. It took a little local electronics shop magic, a Raspberry Pi, a little bit of BASIC code, and a hidden file from the website of a certain Eric S. Raymond. Running Fuchsia—[Google's mobile OS enigma]( a Pixelbook Google currently has two OSes on the market: Android and Chrome OS. But the company is never one to leave a successful product alone in the marketplace, though, so it's also been developing a third operating system called "Fuchsia" for at least the past three years. Fuchsia one is an open source, real-time OS that sees Google dumping the Linux kernel in favor of a Google-developed microkernel called "Magenta." While ostensibly a mobile OS, Ars managed to push Fuchsia onto a Pixelbook last year to get a better look at where things stood in terms of features and functionality (it could barely load Ars at the moment). But remember, Android was "rushed" out the door and that took five years, Fuchsia is barely three. So if Fuchsia ever becomes a real product in the future, hopefully [this experiment]( will serve as a fun time capsule for where it was early in its development. [What the world looked like when Usenet was in vogue]( Major cloud services got you down? Look to the past—[Usenet]( Cloud backups these days are all the rage—for good reason. Rather than dealing with shuffling physical media offsite, you can simply back up the data offsite, where it can be stored in one of many professionally monitored data centers. Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, and plenty more offer this. Unfortunately, these kinds of service aren’t free, and the cost can be a barrier. However, there is a cost-effective way to store your cloud backups: [Usenet](. Obviously, this is not your typical method of cloud storage, and many may snicker or find it plain weird to tap into this vintage part of the Internet in such a modern way. But oddly enough, we have experience experimenting with this alternative offline storage when it comes to backing up a Linux system. And backing up your Linux system to usenet ultimately requires only a handful of steps. It's not only possible—it's scriptable, too. So to be clear, while no one’s advocating dropping your existing cloud backups, this is an interesting and available side path in cases where it makes some sense. [Advertisement]( [Image not meant for display] [Image not meant for display] [Powered by Live Intent]( [Ad Choices]( [Facebook Logo]( [Twitter Logo]( [YouTube Logo]( [Instagram Logo]( Copyright © 2019 Ars Technica / Condé Nast, All rights reserved. You are receiving our newsletter because you signed up at Ars Technica (). Our mailing address is: Ars Technica / Condé Nast 1 World Trade CenterNew York, NY 10007 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](. 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