Security system gives you a call when it senses intruders

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[Dimitris] decided to build a homemade alarm system, but instead of triggering a siren, sending an SMS message, or Tweeting about an intrusion, he preferred that his system call him when there was trouble afoot. He says that he preferred a call over text messaging because there are no charges associated with the call if the recipient does not pick … Read the rest

This marriage proposal is the best PCB design ever

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While you will often see hacks on this site that feature high voltage, fire, and metal, that doesn’t mean that hackers, makers, and electronics geeks don’t have a soft side. In fact, we find the opposite to be true the vast majority of the time.

Take for instance [Bill Porter].

You may have seen his projects and tutorials featured here … Read the rest

Engine Hacks: Riquimbilis, or: what we’d do if we couldn’t buy a car

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After the United States enacted a near-total economic embargo against Cuba in 1962, American export of Detroit Iron came to a halt. Since then, some Cubans have been lucky enough to own a classic Chevy or Buick. Soviet imports of Volgas stopped in the 1990s. With a dearth of any sort of motorized transport (and a public transport system that’s … Read the rest

Recovering data for a homemade Cray

In our hubris, we pat ourselves on the back when we’re able to pull data off our old SCSI drives. [Chris Fenton]‘s attempt to get an OS for a homebrew Cray-1 puts us rightfully to shame.

Last year we saw [Chris]‘ fully functional 1/10th scale Cray-1 supercomputer built around FPGA. While the reproduction was nearly cycle-accurate, [Chris] hasn’t had an … Read the rest