301 Moved Permanently

Posted November 3, 2011 by Syd

“This article will be the first in a series of software articles describing the process of organizing your music collection. I’ve decided to write the application in Python for a number of reasons: I’ve never used Python myself, Python has modules for reading and writing mp3 tags, and Python is easy to install and configure.”

Posted November 2, 2011 by Chris

“The Adventure Vision is a cartridge based, electronic hand held video game that was manufactured in 1982 by Entex Industries, Inc. The system measures about 13 1/4″ X 10″ X 9″ and uses one vertical strip of 40 red LEDs and a spinning mirror to produce an apparent screen resolution of 150×40 (drawn at 15 frames/sec).”

Posted November 1, 2011 by Chris

“This electronic project based only on 74LSxx family and IC 555 as clock source. It’s a digital logic circuit which means to build this Traffic Light Control you don’t need a microcontroller or processor.” The article describes the project in a lot of detail, so it’s a good resource for anyone looking to brush up on their raw digital design skill-set.

Posted October 31, 2011 by Chris

“Initially, the POV was created using 8 red LEDs, a shift register and an Arduino. This allowed for single color text based images. Once I gained experience and learned the concepts the design moved on to use 8 RGB LEDs. For this I used 8 common-cathode RGB LEDs, 3 shift registers (parallel out), and an Arduino.”

Posted October 29, 2011 by Chris

“This morning I decided its about time I learnt how to use the UART hardware in most PIC micro- controllers. I started off with a USB-RS-232 converter that I got for US$3 from DealExtreme.” A good look at how to hack a USB-to-Serial converter to mess around with a PIC’s UART module.

Posted October 28, 2011 by Chris

“The PDP-10/X is a re-build of the PDP-10, with 512KW of memory, a line-frequency clock, an interface to an RS-232 terminal, and an interface to an ATA-2 disk, that I designed and built just for fun.” The PDP-10 was a widely used mainframe computer way back in the day. Any re-make of the computer is purely for nostalgia for the few who remember what a legend it was.

Posted October 27, 2011 by Chris

Touch screens seem to be the must-have innovation of the decade as they’re seen in almost every new gadget and gizmo that comes out. But how exactly do they work and how can we use them? This PyroElectro article explains how a standard 4-wire resistive touch screen works and how to get the X/Y coordinates of a touched point using a PIC 18F452 microcontroller.

Posted October 26, 2011 by Chris

“Parallax’s Basic Stamp is the mainstay for hobbyists wanting to add intelligence to everyday devices. A new system called Arduino provides the benefits of the Basic Stamp at a greatly reduced cost, increased speed, and is entirely open-source.” A classic read for electronics hobbyists looking for the most functionality at the best price.

Posted October 25, 2011 by Chris

“This paper introduces a different approach to the measurement of the time-of-flight of ultrasonic signals. Frequency variation monitoring and recording is used to determine accurately the arrival time of the ultrasonic signal. A high speed D.S.P. is used for both: transmission and direct measurement of the frequency of the incoming signal in every single period and with an accuracy of about 0.1%.”

Posted October 24, 2011 by Chris

“This circuit is a digital sound level meter with a LCD screen, capable of displaying 80 characters (4 rows with 20 characters on each). You can build this LCD display. It also provides more debugging information, such as the minimum and maximum analog-to-digital samples that were measured during each period.”