The CircuitPython Show Episode 64 – CircuitPython Day 2026

Episode 64 of The CircuitPython Show is a replay of The Bootloader livestream that ran on Adafruit’s YouTube channel for CircuitPython Day. Host Paul Cutler and co-host Tod Kurt look back at the past year of CircuitPython releases and community projects. The episode uses screen sharing, so the video version is the one to watch.

The rundown covers the audio effects added in CircuitPython 10, updates in 10.1 and 10.2, and work moving upstream with MicroPython. Several segments center on the Adafruit Fruit Jam: Sean Carolan’s Pac-Man clone, Dan Cogliano’s Z-machine port for playing Zork, Cogliano’s screensavers, and Liz Clark’s video music player modeled on the Atari Video Music.

Other projects include picogame by Vladimir Smitka, Lorraine’s autonomous LEGO train using LIDAR, RV Circuit Studio by Armstrong Subero, and PicoTTY. Clark’s chiptune player gets its own segment, built on the Adafruit CircuitPython AY8912 library for playing VGM files.

See the video below and more on circuitpythonshow.com and content on GitHub.

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Rebuilding a 1995 GPS Time Server with Raspberry Pi and Python

A 1995 TrueTime XL-AK GPS time server has been rebuilt around a Raspberry Pi 5, and the writeup was published on jeffgeerling.com. The original unit was bought in June to learn about the history of GPS-based time. Sixteen days later, a similar GPS time server took down Australia’s cell service for 12 hours.

The restomod drops a Pi 5 and a GNSS HAT with a u-blox NEO-M9N into the chassis, then drives the vintage Densitron 16×2 LCD and the bicolor status LED from the Pi’s GPIO. Chrony and gpsd handle stratum 1 NTP duty using PPS. The build is reversible: two connectors swap the original TrueTime hardware back in.

Much of the tuning work went into oscillator stability. Insulating the bottom of the Pi, where the crystal sits, enclosing the board, running a fixed fan speed and setting force_turbo all helped. PPS interrupt handling was pinned to CPU3. The server also serves RFC 867/868 Time and Daytime, plus AppleTalk time for vintage Macs through timelord. Wiring inside the case was done with 30 AWG wire wrapping, since there was no vertical clearance for Dupont connectors.

See the video below and more on jeffgeerling.com and code on GitHub.

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Decompiler Explorer: try 13 decompilers on code

Decompiler Explorer is a web tool at dogbolt.org that runs one binary through many decompilers at once and shows the C-like output side by side. Upload a file, pick which decompilers to run, and compare how each one reads the same code.

The current lineup includes angr, Binary Ninja, Boomerang, dewolf, Ghidra, Hex-Rays, Kuna, RecStudio, Reko, Relyze, RetDec, rev.ng, and Snowman. That mixes free and open source tools with commercial ones, so it is a way to see what Hex-Rays or Binary Ninja produce without buying a license.

Uploads must be under 2MB, and the site says uploaded binaries are retained. If you would rather not hand over your own file, there are prepared samples covering x86 Linux CTF challenges, Hello World on Arm Linux, ping6 on x86_64 Linux, C++ vtables on x86 Windows, and test binaries for arm64 FreeBSD, arm64 macOS, and x86 Windows.

The service itself is open source. Boomerang, one of the decompilers in the list, is on GitHub as well.

See more at dogbolt.org and content on GitHub.

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Microsoft 6502 Basic released as open source a year ago

Dave Farquhar writes at The Silicon Underground that Microsoft released version 1.1 of its 6502 Basic as open source on September 3, 2025. The code went up on GitHub under an MIT license, so it is free to modify and reuse. It is 6,955 lines, written between 1976 and 1978.

This is the code behind Applesoft Basic on the Apple II and Commodore Basic on Commodore’s 8-bit machines, including the C-64. Jack Tramiel licensed it for a one-time $25,000 fee covering the PET and future 6502 machines, and it shipped in more than 15 million computers. Part of the deal required Commodore to send its changes back to Microsoft, and the release includes garbage collection bug fixes that came from Commodore.

Microsoft developed it on a DEC PDP-10, with assembler directives selecting the target platform. The same source could build for the Apple II, Commodore PET, Ohio Scientific Challenger, or MOS Technology KIM-1. Disassemblies have circulated since the 1980s, but Farquhar notes the value here is reading Microsoft’s own comments and seeing how one codebase served four machines from three manufacturers.

See more at dfarq.homeip.net and the released code is on GitHub.

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1960s Theory That Stonehenge Was a Prehistoric Computer

One of the earliest near-accurate depictions of Stonehenge by Lucas de Heere, image via Wikipedia Commons

 

Though now debunked, in 1966 Gerald Hawkins put forth the theory that Stonehenge was actually an ancient computer and the ring of circles could have been used to follow the Moon, and predict eclipses. Even though future research would prove Hawkins ideas false, the investigation is still interesting. Fun bit of history from BBC:

The meaning for those who built Stonehenge was, he believed, significant. “Eclipses are spectacular events that surely aroused the deepest emotions of our primitive ancestors,” said Hawkins. “The light of the Moon, which is, of course, borrowed from the Sun, is cut off. It passes into the Earth’s shadow. The Moon turns from silvery white to red. The ancients regarded it as blood red and attributed ominous meanings to it.”

Read more!

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Surprisingly STEM: Telescope Engineer

In this episode of Surprisingly STEM from Learn with NASA, Mechanical Engineer Caroline Griffin gives viewers an inside look at the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

Set your path to the stars with the Adafruit Learning System. In this project we’ll build the iconic SpaceX helmet! This helmet features an articulating top half that allows the wearer to lift the visor up. NeoPixel LEDs illuminate the face with motion activated animations.

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Developing Safer Alternatives to Lithium Batteries

Researchers Andong Liu (left) and Dian-Zhao Lin perform experiments in Yayuan Liu’s battery lab.
CREDIT: WILL KIRK / JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY via Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University and the Toyota Research Institute have teamed up to research and develop better batteries. Utilizing new AI tools, the researchers tested combinations to determine what will work well and ultimately be a safe alternative to lithium ion batteries.

The research team focused specifically on using electrolytes for fluoride-ion batteries, an emerging alternative to lithium-ion batteries. Such electrolytes for batteries are not the type found in sports drinks, but the concept is similar. They’re both liquids containing charged particles, but while sports drinks include minerals natural to the body, battery electrolytes contain chemicals dissolved in a solvent that allows electrical charges to move through a battery.

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