Last time, I talked about a simple kind of neural net called a perceptron that you can cause to learn simple functions. For the purposes of experimenting, I coded a simple example using Excel. That…

We think [Brek Martin] set out to build a handheld GPS and ended up adding an mp3 Player to it. Regardless, it's beautifully constructed. Hand built circuit boards and even a custom antenna adorn this...

Remember Big Mouth Billy Bass? That’s the singing fish with which you could torture family members by having it endlessly perform a rendition of either “Take Me to the River” or &…

Over the last year, Hackaday.io has seen an incredible project. It’s a migratory box of random electronic junk, better known as the Travelling Hackerbox. The idea behind this mobile electroni…

Hearing aids are probably more high-tech than you think. They are tiny. They have to go through a lot of trouble to prevent feedback. They need a long battery life. The good ones match their amplif…

When we think of an old-style computer terminal, it has a CRT screen: either one of the big 1970s VDUs with integrated keyboard, or maybe one from a later decade with more svelte styling. You would…

Remember when it was laser pointers? Well, now it’s drones. [Thinkerer] sent us this link to what’s essentially a press release for a company called Sensofusion that makes a UAV detecto…

If you are a musician and you are also a Hackaday reader, there’s a good chance you’ll own at least one MIDI instrument. A synthesizer of some description, maybe a keyboard, or perhaps …

Mass production was key to survival during the Second World War. So much stuff was made that there continues to be volumes of new unpacked stuff left over and tons of used equipment for sale at rea…

In the 1950s it seemed likely that the Cold War could at any minute take a turn for the worse, and we might all be consumed in the fiery conflagration of nuclear war. Fortunately neither the leaders o...

"The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from." Truer words were never spoken, and this goes double for the hobbyist world of hardware hacking. It seems that every module, ...

Back in the olden days, when video games still came on cartridges, the engineers and programmers making these carts had a lot of options. One of the most inventive, brilliant, and interesting cartr…

Head out in the normal “civilian” world and look at the shirts around you. I don’t want to be too nasty about about it, but let’s face facts — the T-shirts you see wil…

Halloween has come and gone, but this DIY voice changing Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet tutorial by [Shawn Hymel] is worth a look for a number of reasons. Not only is the whole thing completely self…

Most hardware hackers have a clock project or two under their belt. A pretty common modification to a generic clock is to add lights to it, and if the clock has an alarm feature, it's not too big of a...

[Agp.cooper] saw a vintage 4Kx4 bit RAM chip and decided that it needed a CPU design to match. The TTL design fits on two boards and has a functional front panel. This custom CPU project has a few …

What does it take to make

The 1970's was the decade that illuminated the threat of acid rain to the citizens of the US. It had been known to exist several years before, but the sources of the problem did their best to suppress...

Swear on broadcast television and they’re going to bleep out the audio to protect the sensibilities of the general public. Swear bleeps are fairly standardised at 1kHz, or so [mechatronicsguy…

Protel Autotrax is a PCB design tool first released for DOS in the mid-80s. Consider this a look at the history of PCB design software. I’m not recommending anyone actually use Protel Autotra…