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DIY Warriors Saluted And Sought

Posted by timothy on from the bending-brazing-booting dept.

WaveDave writes "I have found some really inspiring pages out there by folks who are hacking together amazingly cool low-cost hardware/software/etc projects (reminiscent of the old homebrew computer club days). With the cost of IC's, sensors, microcontrollers, and PC's falling through the floor, we've entered a time where the barriers to entry on hacking neat projects are lower than they've ever been. There are a lot of indicators of the excitement in these projects, including the recent announcement of the upcoming Make Magazine from O'Reilly. Initially blown away by Matthias Wandel's projects, I've begun to put together a small collection of links to other creative DIY-ers out there, as well as resources for finding parts, getting stuff made (like PCB's and machined stuff). My current list is here - what are some of your favorite creatives and resources?"

3 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Sharp Zaurus by MountainMan101 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's a lot of DIY hacks that use Palms and iPAQs. Not seen so many using the Zaurus (which runs Linux). I have one, and would be interested in following someones example to learn myself.

    The Zaurus 5500 should be an excellent choice for hacking as it have CF socket (could be used to add a hacked PCMCIA card supplying USB host), IR port and Sharp I/O which can be a serial port or USB client.

    Then with the option of QT, Java or C (and even Python and Ruby). It would be easy to prototype on a laptop and then port to Zaurus.

    I built a Garmin GPS to Zaurus cable. But that wasn't exactly challenging!

    Anyone have any interesting links like this?

  2. Diy Amplifier by 2$+Crack+Whore · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you are interested in high quality audio, try making a gainclone amplifier - this website has more details:
    http://www.decdun.fsnet.co.uk/
    I made one and the sound quality is fantastic - better than any of the amps I have previously owned.

  3. check this out, then by mattdm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Back in the days of the Homebrew computer club, you literally did build a PC. These days, whacking a load of PCBs into a case isn't quite the same level of complexity. I remeber telling people I built PCs where I worked and they looked amazed. As far as I was concerned, it was nothing more complex than Lego with static. The hardest part was installing software.

    Things have definately changed.

    Yeah, totally. Which was why I was surprised when I heard that one of my co-workers has designed and built (well, is building -- it's a work in progress) one ompletely from scratch. Although he doesn't mention it on the page, he's written games for it and everything. (I said, "does it have games?" and the next week it did). It's pretty much the most amazingly geeky thing I've ever seen, and seriously deserves to get slashdotted. :)