Al Williams
- Indexed articles, last 90 days
- 50
- Latest publication
- Sep 28, 2026
- Outlet visibility, for Hackaday
- Top 50K sites
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 6, 2026
Latest articles
The FPGA Chronicles: Exploring The Tang Nano 20K (opens the original)
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FPGAs used to be mysterious, expensive devices, but these days you can buy surprisingly capable boards for very little money. Some years ago, I did an FPGA Bootcamp over on Hackaday.io. Much of that material still applies, but the hardware is dated. So I decided it was time to update it, using the inexpensive Tang Nano 20K and its GOWIN GW2AR-18 FPGA as the main platform, with perhaps a few excursions into other FPGAs. Once upon a time, if you wanted to have a custom IC, you went with a wheelbar
Hackaday Links: September 27, 2026 (opens the original)
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It isn’t quite hailing frequencies open, but researchers from Harvard claim they’ve picked up a radio signal directly from a nearby exoplanet. Before you get too excited, planets in our solar system also emit RF, so no one credible is claiming these are extraterrestrial reruns of their version of I Love Lucy, but it is the first time they’ve localized a radio signal to an exoplanet, in this case, Beta Pictoris B. Speaking of space, the asteroid formerly known as 1981 EC26 is now sporting a new m
Hackaday Podcast Episode 388: RAM-Swapping On Raspberry Pi, Raindrops On Radar, And A Fine Mesh (opens the original)
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This week, Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams had a lot to talk about. From advice for a young hacker to using a laser to break into a microcontroller, there was plenty to cover from the week in Hackaday. From the “Point/Counter Point” department, there were dueling posts about how big a deal it is for Raspberry Pi to lock out RAM chip swapping. Ever want to do interactive debugging in MicroPython? For intellectual exercise, there’s the physics of raindrops becoming a radar antenna
Sony’s First Computer (opens the original)
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In 1982, desktop computers were coming into their own, and no clear leaders had emerged. But everyone knew they wanted a piece of the action. This led to, among other things, Sony’s SMC-70, which, frankly, for 1982, was a good-looking, if not oddball, machine. [Tech Tangents] shows the machine off in a recent video. From the front, the computer looks more-or-less like everything else. But as you move backward, you can see this computer wasn’t another typical entry into the market. One of the thi
Rosy Retrocomputing (opens the original)
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Most of us are guilty of romanticizing the past. Do you long to be the captain of a tall ship? Just as long as you don’t mind weevils in your food, vitamin deficiencies, and death from an infection when there were no antibiotics. Want to be a medieval knight? Even worse. But surely, retrocomputing is as fun as we remember, right? Turn your computer on, and it comes up with BASIC! Ready for you to write your own programs. None of this GUI foolishness. Of course, this is just another example of ro
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