Although plenty of us have our preferred language for coding, whether it’s C for its hardware access, Python for its usability, or Fortran for its mathematic prowess, not every language is specifically built for problem solving of a particular nature. Some are built as thought experiments or challenges, like Whitespace or Chicken but aren’t used […]
Although the idea of containing a plasma within a magnetic field seems straightforward at first, plasmas are highly dynamic systems that will happily escape magnetic confinement if given half a chance. This poses a major problem in nuclear fusion reactors and similar, where escaping particles like alpha (helium) particles from the magnetic containment will erode […]
Our hacker [Andrew Zonenberg] reports in on his open-source high-speed Ethernet switch. He hasn’t finished yet, but progress has been made. If you were wondering what might be involved in a high-speed Ethernet switch implementation look no further. He’s been working on this project, on and off, since 2012. His design now includes a dizzying […]
For all that “should have used a 555” is a bit of a meme around here, there’s some truth to it. The humble 555 is a wonderful tool in the right hands. That’s why it’s wonderful to see this all-analog stylus synth project by EE student [DarcyJ] bringing the 555 out for the new generation. […]
There’s a section of our community who concern themselves with the technological aspects of preparing for an uncertain future, and for them a significant proportion of effort goes in to communication. This has always included amateur radio, but in more recent years it has been extended to LoRa. To that end, [Bertrand Selva] has created […]
Normal people binge-scroll social media. Hackaday writers tend to pore through online tech news and shopping sites incessantly. The problem with the shopping sites is that you wind up buying things, and then you have even more projects you don’t have time to do. That’s how I found the MAKE-roscope, an accessory aimed at kids […]
What can you do if your circuit repair diagnosis indicates an open circuit within an integrated circuit (IC)? Your IC got too hot and internal wiring has come loose. You could replace the IC, sure. But what if the IC contains encryption secrets? Then you would be forced to grind back the epoxy and fix […]
In the early days of the World Wide Web – with the Year 2000 and the threat of a global collapse of society were still years away – the crafting of a website on the WWW was both special and increasingly more common. Courtesy of free hosting services popping up left and right in a […]
There was a period in the 1990s when it seemed like the personal data assistant (PDA) was going to be the device of the future. If you were lucky you could afford a Psion, a PalmPilot, or even the famous Apple Newton — but to trap the unwary there were a slew of far less […]
Here’s something fun. Our hacker [Willow Cunningham] has sent us a copy of his homework. This is his final project for the “ECE 574: Cluster Computing” course at the University of Maine, Orono. It was enjoyable going through the process of having a good look at everything in this project. The project is a “cluster” […]