Top all-time · #337
Sprites mods
Personal blog · spritesmods.comhardwaregames
Sprites mods is a personal blog at spritesmods.com about hardware and games. Since 2009, 154 different Hacker News readers have linked it 207 times, most often “Hard drive hack provides root access, even after reinstall”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 8 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Sprites Mods, a hardware hacker's blog, mostly for its hard-drive firmware hacks, such as getting Linux running on a drive controller, and for other embedded projects.
- Recommended for · 8 comments
- One commenter says it's worth an RSS feed; another calls a post 'very interesting'; another an 'oldie but goodie'.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Hard drive hack provides root access, even after reinstall27 people · 28 mentions · first linked 2013-08-02
- Hard disk hacking18 people · 20 mentions · first linked 2013-08-05
- Hard disk hacking (2013)14 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2015-04-23
- Run Linux on hard disk firmware (2013)8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2016-08-11
- /?art=einkdisplay5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-03-23
- Mini Mac Plus5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-02-04
- /?art=hddhack&page=34 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2015-02-16
- /4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-09-06
- Hard disk hacking – Hooking up JTAG4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-10-04
- Installing Linux on a hard drive controller (2013?)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-02-17
What Hacker News says?
Brilliant demonstration from a few years ago of what's possible with a hard drive firmware hack. You're basically completely fucked. http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack&page=1
Comment linking /?art=hddhack&page=1
on “Lenovo Caught Installing Adware on New Computers”Submitted IKEA Frekvens LED box hack as a story · 574 points
HN discussionNowadays processors are so tiny and cheap, they're everywhere. # batteries IIRC most battery charging circuits also have a dedicated real time ~OS running. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlSBQ5b6Pdw # hard drives Also recently someone did run linux in its hard drive controller (which is a set of arm cores, ~v9 and m3) HaD intro : http://hackaday.com/2013/08/02/sprite_tm-ohm2013-talk-hackin... Direct link : http://s…
Comment linking /?art=hddhack
on “The second operating system hiding in every mobile phone”Submitted Hard drive hack provides root access, even after reinstall as a story · 472 points
HN discussionIt's updated monthly but really worth to have in your rss feed http://spritesmods.com/ The guy hacks and create stuff from time to time and it's very interesting to read. It's also more on the hardware side of things (I had to Google what's a shift register and how they work to understand one of the article)
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What are some good technology blogs to follow?”Submitted Hard disk hacking as a story · 275 points
HN discussion>It's just about impossible for an outsider to reverse engineer a hard drive, read the existing firmware, and create malicious versions. It's hard, but it isn't like this hasn't been done before: http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack&page=3 And to be honest, I think what they call "about impossible" is just a question of investing enough time and having a somewhat decent understanding of microprocessors and reverse-en…
Comment linking /?art=hddhack&page=3
on ““Equation Group” ran the most advanced hacking operation ever uncovered”Submitted Jello 3D Printer (2013) as a story · 198 points
HN discussionI feel like this is missing a link to spritesmod[0], which might use a little bit of a bigger platform (esp32) but a functional Mac plus that fits in your palm is absurd. I would never have thought you could do what OP did, rp2040 looks way too small, amazing work! [0]: http://spritesmods.com/?art=minimacplus&page=7
Comment linking /?art=minimacplus&page=7
on “MicroMac, a Macintosh for under £5”Submitted Building the Tamagotchi Singularity as a story · 175 points
HN discussionSprites Mods, great hacker, an inspiration for me : https://spritesmods.com/ Fabrice Bellard, creator of FFMPEG, QEMU, and lots of other amazing stuff : https://bellard.org/
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on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Reverse Engineering a Keyboard to Play Snake as a story · 165 points
HN discussionOkay, that was interesting reading. Now I actually know what Stuxnet did and how it worked. The un-named nls_933w.dll responsible for modifying firmware on "over a dozen" HDDs is only termed as Stuxnet- like however: https://securelist.com/equation-the-death-star-of-malware-ga... That's remarkably impressive though. HDDs aren't impenetrable walls - http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack - but reflashing firmware on ove…
Comment linking /?art=hddhack
on “Ask HN: What is your favorite CS paper?”Submitted Hard Disk Hacking (2013) as a story · 154 points
HN discussionFor the impatient, the final product is here: https://youtu.be/UCPUPO21Cwk?t=17 linked from the fifth page of the post: http://spritesmods.com/?art=frekvens&page=5 It's an eye that follows movement around, pretty cool.
Comment linking /?art=frekvens&page=5
on “IKEA Frekvens LED box hack”Submitted Using a tiny HC32L110 ARM chip as a story · 133 points
HN discussionI think you are: read https://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack&page=7
Comment linking /?art=hddhack&page=7
on “IKEA Frekvens LED box hack”Submitted Run Linux on hard disk firmware (2013) as a story · 129 points
HN discussionThis is the same guy that installed Linux on his hard drive's controller. A very interesting read: https://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack
Comment linking /?art=hddhack
on “IKEA Frekvens LED box hack”Submitted Tiny PDP11 on an ESP32 as a story · 127 points
HN discussionI find it VERY weird that there's no mention of https://hackaday.io/project/176931-hp-printer-cartridge-cont... which is a CUPS-based 2D inkjet printer using the exact same print head and open source software and CERN license open hardware. Most likely, that's also precisely the reason why this product uses a very old HP print-head. (The one from HP DeskJet 1110, released December 2014.) Because that one has been re…
Comment linking /?art=magicbrush&page=3
on “Inkjet printer with DRM-free ink will be launched via a crowdfunding campaign”Submitted Hard disk hacking (2013) as a story · 89 points
HN discussionLove your list, here are a few other hardware people that put out great stuff: - Charles Lohr http://cnlohr.net/ mixed bag of art and hardware - Jeroen Domburg (SpriteTM) of http://spritesmods.com now at Espressif, an adept magician.
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on “Ask HN: Which developers do you closely follow?”Submitted Sprites mods – A tiny Pinball Fantasies table as a story · 88 points
HN discussionhttp://spritesmods.com/ Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but its simple and clicking through any project makes me to want to work with and/or hire him immediately.
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on “Ask HN: What are the best personal project websites you've seen?”Submitted Magic Printer Cartridge Paintbrush as a story · 84 points
HN discussionDo you mean this? https://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack&page=1 Searched "run linux on hard drive without cpu or ram" on Google - third result.
Comment linking /?art=hddhack&page=1
on “Apollo 11 vs. USB-C Chargers (2020)”Submitted Dumb to managed switch conversion (2010) as a story · 58 points
HN discussionThis has been the case for a while already. Even spinning-platter hard disks had some reasonably powerful CPUs to implement caching, bad-block remapping, and SMART data retention (among other features); SSDs pushed this to another level by demanding higher performance and more complex remapping. Chances are that this Samsung device isn't even using different hardware from their standard SSDs -- just different firmwa…
Comment linking /?art=hddhack&page=1
on “Samsung Announces Key-Value SSD Prototype”Submitted Hard Disk Hacking (2013) as a story · 43 points
HN discussion
