'70s-Style Console Gives Your Software Launch the Fanfare It Deserves

Pushing code into production can be a stressful and/or momentous event. While such an action would normally take place with a few keystrokes, this certainly seems a bit anti-climactic. After joking around with about making a more whimsical way to deploy code over the course of several years, hacker ‘sethvoltz’ finally decided that he had the skills to make this happen. He constructed a panel that uses a Yubikey for authentication, along with an “arm” switch and button to give his code the theatrical introduction that it certainly deserves.

The device is powered by a Raspberry Pi with other hardware soldered to a perfboard on top. When a Yubikey is inserted into a faux mechanical key slot, it’s authenticated by Yubico servers, and in response, the Pi-based hardware pulls a solenoid pin out of the locking mechanism. This allows the key to physically twist and activates a microswitch. In addition to the arm/authenticate/launch inputs, there’s an alphanumeric segment display built into the housing that spits out words like “AUTH” and “-GO-” to guide you on your journey — and give it even more of a '70s-era secure electronics motif.

More info on the project can be found on GitHub, including some rather beautiful conceptual/detail sketches. The two clips below outline how it physically works, along with the physical locking mechanism design.