John Tarbox found this open source software for designing and simulating logic circuits known as LogicCircuit. According to the developer’s website, “LogicCircuit is free, open source educational software for designing and simulating digital logic circuits. It has an intuitive graphical user interface allowing you to create unrestricted circuit hierarchy with multi-bit buses, debug circuits behavior […]
Author Archives: the machinegeek
Arduino and the Web using NodeJS and SerialPort2
Bangon Kali posted this article on how to listen for signals from an Arduino through the Serial Port (Linux, Mac) or COM Port (Windows) using the SerialPort2 Node.JS module and serve signal data to the web in real time using Socket.IO. Via The Code Project.
O’Reilly webcast: Applying Old Video Game Performance Techniques to Modern Web-based Games
O’Reilly is offering a free webcast relating vintage video gaming techniques to today’s web-based games. “Back in the day, game developers were in a similar position to where web-based game developers using HTML5 Canvas are today; Graphics rendering methods were slow and they had to come up with very clever techniques to squeeze every single […]
Low-tech Arduino based cell phone trigger
William Finucane of revoltlab.com posted this article describing a simple low-cost means of activating devices remotely via telephone. I wanted to be able to call my house and turn on the lights and television during nights when I was away on vacation. What’s more, I didn’t want to spend any money on cell phone bills […]
OSHW haptic interface
Diego Spinola writes, “Here’s a project I’ve just “completed” that I think you’ll like, it’s an OSHW haptic interface! It’s called VIMPHIN and it’s pictured in action above. Guess what logic sniffer I used to debug the actuator’s bus?” Our money would be on the open workbench Logic Sniffer! For more videos, info and links […]
RTL-SDR and Backtrack5 R2
Inspired by the securestate article “All Your 900 MHz Are Belong to Us”, the hack4fun crew wondered about the potential for using the RTL-SDR dongle with Backtrack5 Linux distro. They were able to easily install the drivers and related software to use the RTL-SDR with GNU Radio and GNU Radio-companion and have written this article […]
Interesting radio frequency: pirates on SATCOM — 255 MHz
This video highlights another interesting frequency to try with your SDR dongle: 255 MHz. trylleklovn reports that, “Using gqrx with my newsky dvb-t dongle (rtlsdr) to listen to the geostationary SATCOM which is frequently utilized by Brazil radio pirates.” Gqrx is a free and open source SDR for Linux and Mac designed by amateur radio […]
Interesting radio frequency: ankle monitors on 314.2 MHz
Now that dongle-based SDRs are exploding in popularity, why not start exploring outside the usual frequency bands? With 64 to 1700+ MHz at your disposal there’s a lot of territory to cover. You’ll find that a number of unusual services occupy some of the lesser know bands not covered by conventional radio scanners. One example […]
Freescale demo board for S08P family
Freescale is offering their
28C3 – Introducing Osmo-GMR: Building a Sniffer for the GMR Satphones
In this video from the 28C3 Conference in Berlin, Sylvain Munaut describes the latest member of the Osmocom-family projects, osmo-gmr. This project focuses on the GMR-1 (GEO Mobile Radio) air interface used in some satellite Phones. Sylvain discusses the GMR protocol, the Thuraya network that uses this protocol in the Eurasian/African and Australian continents and […]
EEWeb: Bus Pirate as low-cost JTAG programmer
Victor Joukov noticed this article on the EEWeb electrical engineering community about Programming With Low-Cost JTAG Tools, referencing the Bus Pirate. Notable is the Bus Pirate from Dangerous Prototypes. Originally designed as a tool to sniff, monitor, inject or bus protocols like SPI, its open platform has meant that the ‘community’ has developed an XSVF […]
May 25: National Geek Day
It’s National Geek Day / Geek Pride Day! According to Wikipedia, “Geek Pride Day is an initiative to promote geek culture, celebrated on 25 May. The date was chosen as to commemorate the release of the first Star Wars film, A New Hope on 25 May 1977 (a/k/a Star Wars Day), but shares the same […]
SDR#: C#-based SDR app
Here’s a new open source Windows SDR application. According to the developers, “SDR# (read SDR Sharp) is a simple, intuitive, small and fast PC-based DSP application for Software Defined Radio. It’s written in C# with both object design correctness and performance in mind. The main purpose is to offer a simple proof of concept application […]
RIP — Heathkit
After announcing last fall that they were re-entering the electronics kit business, it is now being reported that Heathkit Educational Systems has officially ended operations. According to the ARRL, it appears that the company discontinued operations in March or April, 2012, having previously laid off most of their workforce last December. This is certainly sad […]
Openmoko USB product ID and IEEE OUI (Ethernet MAC address) range available
Kelvin informs us that Openmoko is making available USB Product ID and IEEE OUI (MAC Address) allocations to the community. According to the Openmoko wiki, “As the Openmoko products have been discontinued, Openmoko Inc. is opening up the use of its Vendor ID for use by the Free and Open Source software and hardware communities. […]
Scalable 12V solar power system and battery charge controller
Squonk writes about this scalable solar charger he’s located: An unconventional, scalable high efficiency 12V solar power system and battery charge controller with low voltage cutout to protect the battery. (ideal for systems of 50W or less). The most common solar charger consists of a Schottky diode to prevent the battery from draining into the […]
DCC 2011 – PhoneSat: sub $10k spacecraft
Mike Safyan is an amateur radio operator KJ6MVL who works at NASA. In this talk from the 2011 ARRL/TAPR DCC in Baltimore, Mike describes the PhoneSat project, whose goal is to produce a functioning satellite module for under $10,000. Picture a Nexus Android phone, Arduino and RF transmitter inside a 10cc standard flight-safe housing cube […]
Picaxe 08M tone signal generator
VK4ADC is an Australian amateur radio operator whose on-air activities include weak signal/microwave work. As such, he needed a reliable tone generator to modulate his transmitted RF carrier to permit receiving stations to peak their station’s antenna for maximum signal. So he decided to design his own multi-function tone generator around the Picaxe 08-M. Accustomed […]
App Note: Mixed signal circuit board layout considerations
Hli located an interesting app note from Cypress called “Mixed Signal Circuit Board Layout Considerations”. “It discusses how to layout a board to have good analog performance, even if you have digital stuff on the same board. Some parts are specific for the Cypress PSoCs, but much of the advice is applicable generally. The PSoCs […]
DIY electomagnetic interference detector
Popular Mechanics presents this simple DIY electromagnetic interference (EMI) detector project. It’s Arduino based and requires only an 8-ohm speaker, 1-megaohm resistor and 3–5 feet of insulated solid core wire. Details on this easy beginner’s project can be found on the Popular Mechanics website, with links to the Arduino sketch on the author’s Github page.