Hackaday 10th Anniversary: Quinn Dunki And Veronica

October 5, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 19 Comments

In case you haven’t been reading Hackaday for the last few weeks, we just had an amazing 10th anniversary party in Pasadena this weekend, full of workshops, talks, and a party that reportedly went until four in the morning. One of the amazing hackers we invited to give a talk was [Quinn Dunki], creator of Veronica, the modern 6502 computer stuffed inside an old radio.

We first saw Veronica a few years ago, but [Quinn] figures she’s been building her computer for about five years now. She’s a software developer by trade that decided one day to dip her toes into the murky seas of hardware development and build a computer from the ground up. She chose the 6502 as the brains of her contraption, laid out everything on single-sided boards etched in a kitchen, and connected everything with a backplane. Right now it has a USB keyboard, (technically a PS/2 keyboard with a USB plug), NES controllers, a VGA display, and a monitor and Pong in ROM. [Quinn]’s goal was to build a computer that could program itself, and after five years, she’s accomplished that goal.

[Quinn] admits her software background was responsible for a few of her admittedly bad design choices; the VGA is generated by an ATMega microcontroller, working under the theory that if she could clock the micro fast enough, she could do VGA. She now believes an FPGA would have been a better choice for video output, but now that the video circuit is done, she probably won’t revisit that problem.

There is one thing missing from Veronica, and something that [Quinn] will be working on in the future: mass storage. Right now every program Veronica can run is either stored in ROM or entered via the keyboard. A hard drive is the next problem to solve, either with an SD card, or a Compact Flash or IDE hard drive.

Share Your Hackaday Story As We Celebrate 10 Great Years

October 3, 2014 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

Tomorrow we mark 10 wonderful years of reading Hackaday. Share your experience by recording a 1-2 minute video about how you discovered Hackaday and your favorite hack from all the greats that have hit the front page. Tweet the link to your video to @Hackaday with the hashtag #10years and we’ll add it to the playlist.

It doesn’t need to be anything special (but go nuts if you wish). I recorded a one-shot talking-head format as an example.

If you are lucky enough to be in the LA area, get a free ticket for Saturday’s event. In addition to all the clinicians and speakers, there’s a small collection of the Hackaday crew in town.

Unreal Line-up And Live Stream Of Hackaday’s 10th

October 1, 2014 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

10th-Anniversary-Lineup-scaled Yeah, check out that line-up poster. We’re so lucky to have an unreal collection of talented people pitching in to make this event happen. This Saturday is going to be Epic! Good thing since we’re celebrating 10-years-of-Hackaday!

What’s that you say? You don’t live in Los Angeles and are going to miss out? We’ll be live-streaming the event on:

Hackervision #1

Hackervision #2

You should put this feed on in the background while you hone your solding skills on that project you’ve been meaning to finish.

We will also be recording and posting the talks so that you may watch at your leisure.

Here’s a quick run-through of all that we have going on:

The day will start with three workshops, the first is a tiny-robot build based on [shlonkin’s] design. The second is a lockpicking workshop hosted by [datagram] and [Jon King]. And the third is a Lithium charger workshop and build hosted by [Todd Black].

The afternoon brings the mini-conference with major talks by [Ryan ‘1o57’ Clarke], [Steve Collins], [Quinn Dunki], [Jon McPhalen], and [ThunderSqueak]. There will be Lighting Talks by [Tod Kurt] and [Arko], as well as special appearances by Hackaday head editors from the past decade.

In the evening we’ll move into party mode. Music is presented by [The Gentlemen Callers] with interactives by [Deezmaker] and [Two Bit Circus].

Of course there will be a handful of the Hackaday writers in town for the event as well. [Adam Fabio] will be leading the robot workshop, [James Hobson] will be leading a build-off throughout the day, and [Mike Szczys], [Brian Benchoff], and [Bil Herd] will be on hand to do whatever is needed.

If you are interested in attending there may still be tickets available. We have been sold out but we’ve asked anyone who is unable to attend to cancel their ticket so new tickets become available as that happens. Yep, fans of Hackaday are courteous people. Yet another reason to celebrate.

[Poster Art by Joe Kim — Full Resolution 15.5MB]

Speakers At Hackaday’s 10th Anniversary

September 25, 2014 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

It is with great pleasure that we are able to announce the final slate of speakers for Hackaday’s 10th Anniversary on October 4th in Pasadena. There are still around 30 tickets left for the conference so get yours now!

The most recently confirmed speaker is a man of many names. [Ryan Clarke] may be better known as [LosT], [1o57], or [Lostboy]. For years he has been driving the flagship contest at DEFCON by generating cryptographic puzzles that run far and deep through the 4-day conference and beyond. His talk will venture into the art and science of putting together these challenges, and the lengths at which determined hackers will go to solve them. His site gets taken over each year for DEFCON, so you might want to explore his Twitter account if you’re looking to learn more about this mysterious figure.

The other four speakers have already been mentioned in the initial announcement and last week’s follow-up. [Steve Collins] will discuss how his early interest in hacking led him to become an engineer at NASA. [Quinn Dunki] will have her scratch-built Veronica computer on hand and explain the adventure of the impressive project. [ThunderSqueak] will help us wrap our minds around the concept of non-binary computing, and [Jon McPhalen] will present the benefits of multi-core embedded processing versus traditional interrupt-based design.

We can’t wait for this amazing afternoon of talks which is just one week from Saturday. We hope to see you there!

Hackaday’s 10th: The Celebration Is Imminent

September 17, 2014 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

We’re celebrating 10 Years of Hackaday with a day-long event in Pasadena. It’s not too late to get in on the action. If you’re in the LA area on October 4th, 2014, you can attend the mini-conference in the afternoon and the party that evening.

It’s free, but you must secure a ticket for yourself.

A small group of hand-picked hackers will begin the day building alternative gaming controllers for use at the party that evening. The morning will be occupied by a trio of workshops focusing on robot building, lock picking, and LiPo cell charging.

Things start to really pick up steam in the afternoon with a mini-conference. There are a few dozen tickets left so get yours now! As we mentioned in our last post, [Steve Collins] will talk about how early hacking led him to a career with NASA, [Quinn Dunki] will discuss Veronica the 6502 Computer, and [Jon McPhalen] will present the benefits of mult-core embedded development.

To the list of speakers we can now add [ThunderSqueak]. You may remember her CO2 laser build that used a lot of hardware store parts. We’ve asked her to talk about her work on a non-binary computer. We covered the project back in June but this type of through-the-looking-glass subject fares better as a live talk with Q&A.

We hope to announce one more speaker soon, and already have a few lightning talks (one on a Demoscene board and another on hardware dev that ended with a successful Kickstarter). We’ll keep you posted!

Call for Art

We have space for a few pieces of art for the event. We would prefer things that are interactive and ‘glowy’ or self lit as the space will be fairly dark. There are two areas that we would like to fill right now, one is a small room approximately 9′ square with an 8′ ceiling. The other is a much larger space about 24′ square with a very high ceiling. We also have a couple of walls on which we could hang things or do projections. If you have something interactive and fun that you can get to the LA area on the week leading up to October 4th please let us know.

UPDATE: Poster

[Jim K.] asked for the printable version of the posts. Here’s a link to the .ai file. This is the work of our illustrator [Joe Kim]. He really gets us and has a bunch more artwork to be found around here. Some of our favorite is the “story” art he did in the description of the two classic t-shirts, and the original designs for the premium tees.

Celebrate Hackaday’s 10th Anniversary: October 4th In Pasadena

September 5, 2014 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

We’ve had a bit of fun today with a post about our 10th Anniversary, now here’s the real deal.

If you happen to be in the Los Angeles area on Saturday, October 4th you should join us to help commemorate 10 years of happy hacking. The day-long event comes in many pieces. We’ve put together workshops, a mini-conference, a day-long build, and we’ll cap it all off with a party.

Hackaday is a global community though. If you can’t be there in person you should set the day aside to do some hacking in your lair, or maybe even get the Hackaday readers in your area together and see what comes of it!

Without further ado, here’s what we have planned:

Continue reading “Celebrate Hackaday’s 10th Anniversary: October 4th In Pasadena” →

Call For Proposals: Hackaday 10th Anniversary

July 30, 2014 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

call-for-proposals

On October 4th Hackaday is celebrating our 10th anniversary. We’ll be hosting a live event in Pasadena that day which includes some hardware hacking, some workshops, a mini-conference, and a party. Details to follow on most of this, but we are putting out a call for proposals to those who would like to present a talk at the mini-conference. We plan to record the talks, workshops, and events so that those unable to attend can also enjoy the festivities.

The mini-conference will be about 3 hours long on the afternoon of Saturday, 10/4. We are looking for approximately four talks on topics interesting to the Hackaday community. These will be no more than 20-minutes in length with a short Q&A after.

In addition to the talks we will invite a limited number of hackers to give 7-minute lightning presentations on hardware projects they bring with them to the event.

Talk Proposals

Please email your proposal of no more than 350 words to conference -at- hackaday.com. Preference will be given to speakers who are able to be at the event in person. Exceptional presentations given via video-chat will also be considered. Talk proposals should be submitted before Friday, August 22nd. Please specify whether you will present in person or via video.

Hardware Project Lightning Talks

Please email your proposal of no more than 350 words to conference -at- hackaday.com. Your proposal should mention what stage of development/operation your hardware is currently in. Lighting talks must be presented in person.