New, Inexpensive DSO now shipping

Seeed Studio’s line of hacker-friendly tools has expanded by one, they’ve announced that beta units of their DSO Quad oscilloscope are now available for shipping. The DSO Quad is about the size of a thick iPod yet packs impressive features such as two 72MSPS analog channels and a signal generator. By far the coolest ‘feature’ of the DSO Quad is … Read the rest

LED build monitor helps keep an eye on your servers

build_status_board

In his line of work, Hackaday reader [Pedantite] often has to monitor the build status of several continuous integration servers throughout the day. One afternoon, he got the idea to install a set of stop lights in the office in order to monitor the status of the servers, but filed it away as a “wouldn’t it be cool if…” project.… Read the rest

Homebrew Z80 computer inspires awe

How this one missed us, we’ll never know.

[GG] built himself a retro-styled Z80 nanocomputer over two years using all 1980′s tech. Laid out on one of the largest pieces of perfboard we’ve ever seen on a project, the computer uses a vintage Z80 CPU running at 2.5MHz, 8K ROM, 16K RAM, RS-232 and Parallel ports, an EPROM burner, and … Read the rest

Dishwasher notifier for the absent-minded

dish_o_tron_6000

[Quinn] over at BlondiHacks is admittedly pretty absent-minded when it comes to household chores such as emptying the dishwasher. She often can’t remember if the dishes are dirty or ready to be put away, so she decided it was time to devise a mechanism that would help keep her on task. She originally considered a double-sided sign that said “Clean” … Read the rest

Prototyping with a GPS module

[Oneironaut] is trying out a new GPS module with the prototype seen above. It’s a San Jose Navigation device identified as FV-M8 and sold by Sparkfun for just under a hundred bucks. That’s it hanging off the bottom-right of the breadboard seen above. They’ve packed a lot of power into the small footprint, and made it very easy to control … Read the rest

Geohot case settlement

It looks like Sony and [George Hotz] have reached an out-of-court settlement in the case brought against the hacker who is more well-known as [Geohot].

This is the end (we think) of an ongoing saga that originally drew our ire when Sony remove OtherOS support as a sledge-hammer-type fix for holes that [Geohot] found in the security system used by … Read the rest

Do your projects violate International Traffic in Arms Regulations?

From time to time we consider the ramifications of hacking prowess being used for evil purposes. Knowledge is a powerful thing, but alone it is not a dangerous thing. Malicious intent is what takes a clever project and turns it to a tragic end. Conscientious hackers realize this, and [George Hadley] is one of them. While working on a new … Read the rest