https://www.terracrypt.net/feeds/tags/reform.xmlTag: reform2026-03-01T20:46:16Zhttps://www.terracrypt.net/posts/custom-pocket-reform-lids-have-arrived.htmlJonathan Fredericksonjonathan@terracrypt.net2024-07-15T22:32:00Z<p>The custom Pocket Reform lids I was working on have arrived, and I think they came out pretty well!</p><p><img src="../images/pocket-scheme-lid-pcb.jpg" alt="A picture of the manufactured Pocket Reform lid held outside in thesunlight" /></p><p>I made the mistake of not paying extra to avoid having a serial number silkscreened on it (and not putting dummy text to tell them where to put it), and unfortunately they put it on the front. Maybe at some point I'll have more made without that, but it's at least fairly unobtrusive. I'm pretty happy with them overall! :)</p>https://www.terracrypt.net/posts/customizing-my-pocket-reform.htmlJonathan Fredericksonjonathan@terracrypt.net2024-07-11T22:04:00Z<p>My <a href="https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/pocket-reform">MNT Pocket Reform</a> hasn't arrived yet, but ever since I read <a href="https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/pocket-reform/updates/on-open-source-hardware-community-building-and-making-pocket-reform-your-own">this post</a> I've been wanting to put together my own custom Pocket Reform lid. The post made it seem so easy. And, well, turns out it kind of is once you get the hang of the tools!</p><p>I had also gotten a <a href="https://www.elderwoodacademy.com/product/dungeon-journal-atlas/">Dungeon Journal</a> a little while back, and I really liked the look of rune-looking text behind a central design, so I figured I wanted something that looked kind of like that. At the same time, I've been (once again, slowly) going through SICP recently, so the yin/yang motif for metacircular evaluation was top of mind. Could we combine these things somehow?</p><p>So yep, here's the final result, and I've just put in an order for fabrication!</p><p><img src="../images/scheme-backplate-front.png" alt="A white PCB render with a yin/yang symbol in the middle and cryptic-looking gold text behind it" /></p><p>I found this neat script called the <a href="https://www.omniglot.com/conscripts/magi.htm">Alphabet of the Magi</a>, which dates from the 16th century. (So it looks like it could be a modern fantasy script, but it's not!) Seemed perfect for representing Lisp programs as spells/incantations.</p><p>Inkscape is my tool of choice for vector art; I've found it to work well for the laser cutter at Hive76, and it worked pretty well for this too. One thing that did turn out to be somewhat tricky is that Kicad doesn't seem to know about SVG masking, so when I tried to cut the design off around the border Kicad couldn't see that I'd done that at all. I later found out that I was stressing about this for nothing, because it's totally fine to have a design that goes over the edge of the board! Those parts just get ignored when you export your board for fabrication.</p><p>So the design on its own looks like this:</p><p><img src="../images/scheme-cover-design.png" alt="The same yin/yang and text design from the image above, but black and white" /></p><p>I'm looking forward to see how these turn out! I'm getting 15 of them made, so I might give some out or something. <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~jfred/scheme-reform-backplate">The files are up here</a> if you want to make your own or modify it. :)</p>