If you need to generate DTMF tones and have a Parallax Propeller chip handy, there’s an object for that! Thomas E. McInnes has coded up this DTMF generator object for the Propeller. Written in Spin, the object includes functions for dialing individual digits or a preprogrammed phone number, along with the required Synth object as […]
Category Archives: open source
2011 DCC – Practical Software Radio
This talk is from the 2011 Digital Communications Conference (DCC) held last September in Baltimore, MD. The speaker is Matt Ettus who heads up Ettus Research, manufacturers of the USRP family of SDRs. His talk is an in depth technical explanation of “Why Things Don’t Always Match the Textbooks” in SDR. Matt is affiliated with […]
Avoiding worthless forks on GitHub
Avoiding worthless forks on GitHub: GitHub is great for finding code and then forking it, however one issue is that there are a significant number of idiots forking projects and then making insignificant formatting changes, maybe they want to see their name up on the web or even claim that they are part of the […]
MUN Sailbot autonomous sailboat
Jordan S (who scored one of our VFD tube sets) is part of a bunch of students from Memorial University, St.John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, trying to build an autonomous sailboat instead of focusing on their studies. Their project is known as Munsailbot. “As a team we are designing, fabricating and programming a fully autonomous vessel which […]
Open source hardware presentation by Erik de Bruijn
Erik let us know about his presentation on open-source projects. It uncovers some of the motivation behind an open source project, as well as the means to achieve your goals in open source. I talk about the non-rival nature of information and how a culture of sharing enables the emerging phenomenon of open hardware. Via […]
A President in favor of open source
“”He who receives an idea from me receives it without lessening me, as he who lights his candle at mine receives light without darkening me.”” – Thomas Jefferson Happy President’s Day!
A culture of ethics in open source hardware?
Phillip Torrone of Adafruit and Make wrote a piece on the culture of ethics in open source hardware: I spend most of my days working on open source hardware in some way, and I wanted to talk about some of the {unspoken} rules we all, well, many, seem to follow. Why? Because the core group […]
Open Hardware Journal second issue
Open Hardware Journal is a quarterly online magazine dedicated to open hardware. So far the second issue is out now, and a third is expected in May. Issues are about 30 pages long and feature various open source hardware projects in detail. The Journal and the project articles are, of course, open source licensed. Via […]
28c3: the FreedomBox
This lightning talk from the recent 28C3 conference in Berlin is a general introduction and status update on the development of the FreedomBox project. The FreedomBox is a personal server running a free software operating system and free applications, designed to preserve personal privacy by providing a secure platform upon which federated social networks can […]
OpenCurrent helps accurately measure low current
Most multimeters, even the high priced ones, measure low current poorly. The OpenCurrent is a multimeter adapter that increases the precision of low level current measurement. Update: Based on the uCurrent by Dave Jones of EEVblog. Read more here [PDF].
New liquidCrystal Arduino library
Francisco Malpartida, an Arduino enthusiast from Spain, has posted a new liquidCrystal library for Arduino. The main differences are a claimed increase in speed of LCD operations and the ability to control the LCD display via an I2C bus expander or a Shift Register Extender in addition to the usual 4- and 8-bit modes. Via […]
28C3: Cellular protocol stacks for internet — demystified
Harald Welte presented this talk at the 28C3 Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. While we use packet oriented transmissions daily over cellular networks, unlike TCP/IP and Ethernet many even in the hacker community are not familiar with the actual protocol stacks for those cellular packet networks. The purpose of this talk is to give an […]
Jail breaking is not a crime petition
You bought it. You own it. Tell the Copyright Office: let me install whatever software I want on my phone, tablet, or video game system. bunnie Huang, author of Hacking the Xbox, is standing with the Electronic Frontier Foundation to defend users’ right to jailbreak. Will you sign on to bunnie’s letter to show the […]
Processing + Arduino + touchOSC
Adrianmb from Make-a-tronik has written a tutorial on how to how to communicate between your mobile device (Android / iOS device) or a PC and Arduino through a protocol known as OSC (Open Sound Control). The project uses Processing, Arduino, and an LED RGB device. TouchOSC must be installed on the computer or iDevice you […]
Open source USB stack for PIC18F and PIC24F updated
JTR released a major updated to the open source USB stack that’s been brewing in the forum. It’s been designed to work with a generic echo demo, the Bus Pirate v4, the USB IR toy, the LCD Backpack, the Locgic Shrimp, and the Logic Sniffer. So far only the CDC class is supported, meaning only […]
Bus Pirate mentioned in Bruce Perens open hardware lecture
Bruce Perens, the author of the Open Source Definition, and co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, held a lecture on the topic of “The State Of Open Source, And Introducing Open Hardware”. He mentions the Bus Pirate and our CPLD breakouts as positive examples of open hardware. The Gadget Factory’s Papilio One FPGA development board […]
DIY geomagnetic storm monitoring
With the recent increase in solar storm activity, Alexander Avtanski bring our attention to his DIY magnetometer project. The activity of the Sun varies on a cycle with a period of approximately 11 years. Periods of low solar activity are followed by a few years of sharply increased number of solar spots, flares, and coronal […]
Use PICKIT2 to program PIC32’s
Hak8or writes regarding his experiences with pic32prog, a flash programming utility for Microchip PIC32 microcontrollers. For everyone who is still stuck with a PICKIT2, like me, instead of buying a pickit3 we can all use this with a PICKIT2 to program the more high end PIC32’s. I am not exactly sure at the current state […]
DuinoMite: MaxiMite-compatible BASIC computer
Olimex has introduced the Duinomite line of dev boards. DuinoMite is a MaxiMite Compatible Basic computer, originally designed by Geoff Graham, with additional features and Arduino shield-like layout. DuinoMite allows you to program in the BASIC language and have VGA and Keyboard interface, so you can develop and write your code in Basic without the […]
MakerBot announces The Replicator
Bre Pettis from MakerBot Industries reveals their latest product offering, The Replicator! The MakerBot Replicator is the ultimate personal 3D printer, with dual extrusion (2-color printing)–and a bigger printing footprint, giving you the superpower to print things BIG! Assembled in Brooklyn by skilled technicians, the MakerBot Replicator™ is ready within minutes to start printing right […]