Following on from previous articles where I had worked out UART connectivity to the Pip-Boy 3000 Mk.V, and then more recently working out how to run custom code at boot time, I decided to do a quick proof of concept tying some of these things together to demonstrate the art of the possible.
Looking around the collection of electronics on my desk I noticed that I had a PA1010D GPS board (which is actually destined for my Pip-Boy 2000 Mk.Ever since getting my hands on the PipBoy 3000 Mk V one of the main things I wanted to achieve was to make it easier for other people to be able to modify them, initially that started out with creating this series of articles as a deep dive into the inner workings of the device and then off the back of that I started to create a more simplified set of User Documentation containing the more relevant information.The most important piece in the puzzle when it comes to this terminal build has to be the choice of display, I already knew that I wanted a legitimate green phosphor cathode ray tube but I was also going to need something that was an appropriate shape and size and was also something I could interface with to actually produce images.
I wasn’t really sure where to start but I figured I needed some idea of the size I was looking for, I don’t think a huge variety of sizes of green CRTs exist anyway but to get some idea I started out by loading the game model and trying to establish a scale.As if I didn’t already have enough ongoing projects on my plate, I decided recently hey what’s one more, and this time rather than another Pip-Boy why not look at some more of RobCo’s product catalog and do something slightly different. To that end the classic terminal seemed like a fun project. It isn’t something that hasn’t been done before, I’ve seen a few takes on it, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything that has the feel about it that I’m personally looking for.You may notice that the entry number on this article is out of sequence with the dates, that is because it has taken me over a month to finish writing to a point where I felt any sort of conclusion was drawn…
In part 1 we left off trying to work out what device was at address 0x16 on the I2C bus, we had already worked out that 0x63 was the FM radio chip, so this time around we’re going to delve deep to try and understand this other address.In my last entry I spent some time going over the physical layout of the board for the Pip-Boy 3000 Mk V and seeing where there was opportunity to modify and hack additional hardware into these devices. One set of traces that I did not cover previous has so far turned out to be one of the most accessible places to add additional expansion.
On the back of the board are a series of test points near the Micro SD card slot, as previously discovered there’s the footprint for the JST connection to add Serial Wire Debug (SWD) which I believe traces SWD and CLK over to A13 and A14 on the MCU, and of course 5V and GND.To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the day I finally got my PipBoy 3000 Mk.V it was in pieces within an hour of me opening the box, so, maybe I can save everyone else the risk and satisfy some curiosity by describing what I found and a bit more information about how it works.
Dissasembly Disassembly of the PipBoy 3000 was fairly straightfoward, the soft cuff parts pop straight out and then the plastic backing from behind it also just pops out.The Pip-Boy FM FM Radio upgrade module was an optional addon by by The Wand Company to their Pip-Boy 2000 Mk VI. I bought mine quite a few years ago now for £30 GBP but I’ve since seen them go for almost 10 times that on eBay which has kind of put me off hacking on mine given the scarcity of them.
That said, I’ve always been curious about the four exposed pads in a hole on one end—could I power it from them?Initial Disclaimer So I was in two minds about whether to write this entry or not because I didn’t want to cause any harm or upset to a company I admire so much, so I reached out to Chris the CEO of The Wand Company who put me in touch with one of the engineers over there, Richard, and they have given me their blessing to write about the upcoming Pip-Boy 3000 Mk V.I recently acquired one of the rare, albeit flawed, Fallout 4 Deluxe Bluetooth Edition Pip-Boy 3000’s that were originally supplied by ThinkGeek and as I understand it were limited to 5000 units worldwide. Seemingly these units were flawed from day 1 and lots of people had issues with them failing, the one I acquired was one of these defective units, but I took it on board with the mind that one way or another I’d make something of it.
