Hackaday.com

If you’ve ever thought about the nomenclature of electrical components, potentiometer stands out as a strange name, etymologically suggesting something like a voltmeter. In fact, the component took its name …read more

Once upon a time, telephones were primarily point-to-point communications systems. There were options for three-way and conference calls out there, but by and large the plain old telephone system was …read more

[Mansour] presents an interesting idea in his essay A Common Thread — just as USB-C has become the “One Connector To Rule Them All” in the world of electronics, so …read more

For the past three years [Christopher Mitchell] has been working on his replica of a British Rail Class 800 control cab for a physical train simulator, with the July blog …read more

Who says an old dog can’t do new tricks? The Atari ST has got to qualify as an “old dog” 41 years after launch, and if playing Full Motion Video …read more

Styrofoam – or closed-cell extruded polystyrene (XPS) foam if you want to be precise – is one of those materials that is both super versatile for packaging and insulation, but …read more

If you’re flying high in the sky, it’s useful to know if there’s turbulence, heavy rain, or other nasty weather ahead. Onboard weather radar is a useful tool that pilots …read more

As strong and light as carbon fiber-epoxy composites are, the same can’t always be said of carbon-fiber reinforced 3D printer filaments. Of those that do improve over stock filament, the …read more

If you used a serious computer pre-IBM PC, there was a fair chance its operating system was CP/M. CP/M was a staple among 8080 and Z80 computers and while there …read more

Over the years I have been to many hacker camps and done a lot of very cool things, but BornHack 2026 brought me something entirely new: Radio. By which I …read more

In the 1980s, France was the stage for one of the boldest public computing projects of the era. Minitel was the French take on viewdata, and instead of making it …read more

Trains and the railways they run on are a great way to move lots of stuff, or lots of people, a long way. Steel wheels on steel rail can shift …read more

Although Li-ion cells have become a lot cheaper over the years, if you wish to buy hundreds of high-quality ones for that performance go-kart project, you may feel financially pressured …read more

[Les] likes lasing lasers, and who doesn’t? [Les] likes larger lasers than lots of folks, with his current project being an Nd:YAG (that’s Neodymium:Yttrium Aluminum Garnet) flash pumped laser intended …read more

The PDP-11 was a 16-bit minicomputer that was very influential in its time. That’s what inspired [vanheusden] to start working on an emulator for the machine in 2018, which has …read more

In semiconductor technology, a base material like silicon is permanently modified to induce certain electrical behavior. In comparison a topological insulator material could be used to create temporary circuits using …read more

Taking a break from ogling microscopic features in Intel’s semiconductor processors, [Ken Shirriff] is back to instead poking at decidedly macroscopic pluggable modules from the 1948 IBM 604 Electronic Calculator. …read more

Circuit bending is a chaotic art. At its simplest, it can just involve making connections between random points on a circuit board to create weird sounds in musical hardware. Or, …read more

[David] has a young child who is clever enough to use a computer to play music, but he doesn’t quite want to hand over the mouse just yet. Thus, he …read more

Apparently you all love lasers just as much as we do. We put out a challenge to use, build, or otherwise abuse our favorite coherent light sources, and you responded. …read more