Although we hackers will sometimes deliberately throw away our passwords and then try and hack our own phones / WIFI systems for self amusement, for many people including the actual inventor of the password, Fernardo “Corby” Corbató (1926-2019), passwords have become extremely burdensome and dis-functional. Sadly, Fernando (according to the internet) died on July 12th, […]
A piano keyboard can be much more than a linear row of white keys and black keys. Over the history of the keyboard, different arrangement have been made, and in the late 19th century, the Janko keyboard was developed. This keyboard that was a series of buttons laid out on a hexagonal grid. The idea […]
If you ask most people to explain the Fourier series they will tell you how you can decompose any particular wave into a sum of sine waves. We’ve used that explanation before ourselves, and it is not incorrect. In fact, it is how Fourier first worked out his famous series. However, it is only part […]
There was a time when high voltage in electronic devices was commonplace, and projects driving some form of vacuum or ionisation tube simply had to make use of a mains transformer from a handy tube radio or similar. In 2019 we don’t often have the need for more than a few volts, so when a […]
Digital Equipment Corp.’s PDP-11 is one of the most important computers in history. It’s the home of Unix, although that’s arguable, and it’s still being used in every application, from handling nuclear control rods to selling Ed Sheeran tickets on Ticketmaster. As the timeline of PDP-11 machines progressed, the hardware did as well, and by […]
With July slipping away and the deadline approaching, the Project Egress builds are pouring in now. And we’re starting to see more diversity in the choice of materials and methods for the parts being made, like these two latches made with very different methods by two different makers. For the uninitiated, Project Egress is a […]
One of the joys of electronics as a hobby is how easy it is to get parts. Literally millions of parts are available from thousands of suppliers and hundreds of distributors, and everyone competes with each other to make it as easy as possible to put together an order from a BoM. If you need […]
If you read Hackaday on a regular basis, there are some names you will have seen more than once. People who continually produce fascinating and inventive projects that amaze and delight us, and who always keep us coming back for more. One such hacker is [Jeroen Domberg], perhaps better known in these pages by the […]
Coherers were devices used in some of the very earliest radio experiments in the 19th century. Consisting of a tube filled with metal filings with an electrode at each end, the coherer would begin to conduct when in the presence of radio frequency energy. Physically tapping the device would then loosen the filings again, and […]