Debug mode lurking inside AMD chips

Looks like some hardware enthusiasts have worked out a method to enable debug mode within AMD processors. The original site isn’t loading for us, but the text has been mirrored in this comment. Getting the chip into debug mode requires access passwords on four control registers. We’ve read through the writeup and it means very little to us but … Read the rest

Final Take on the Machine: winners

It’s finally here, the last episode of Scion’s Take on the Machine with Mitch Altman. In this episode all the teams are given a recap over their success and failures, and the clear winner is placed on top. We’re not ones to spoil the surprise so you’ll just have to click the link and watch to find out.

But lets … Read the rest

Kinect and TISCH combined for multitouch

[Florian] sent a link to his proof of concept in creating a multitouch display using the Kinect. He’s the one behind the libTISCH multitouch package and that’s what he used to get this working along with the recently released Kinect drivers. He did this on an Ubuntu machine and, although it’s not a turnkey solution he was kind enough … Read the rest

Lots of spinning POV goodness

[Retrobrad's] spinning POV display has long been our favorite. When it popped up on our radar again this morning we were surprise to see we never ran a feature on it! But now there’s so much more to share. Hit the projects icon at the top of his page and you’ll not only get the 8×85 RGB display’s build instructions, … Read the rest

Nixie tubes live in a cool box

This set of four Nixie tubes display the number of people following bildr on Twitter. That’s neat; it uses an Arduino and some open source driver boards. But what caught out eye is the enclosure. The image above shows only half, but when assembled it’s a nice little cube that keeps the insides safe. This was laser cut using the … Read the rest

Lessons in Electric Circuits

Are you looking for a good source of information to get started into making and hacking electric circuits? We would like to refer you to Lessons in Electric Circuits. Even if you have good knowledge of electronics, this is another tool you can use. The book is a work in progress and will have some incomplete and pending areas, … Read the rest