Making Innovation Accessible: How Arduino & Adafruit Support Creators Everywhere by Fabio Violante. Open source is love — and at the heart of Arduino’s 20-year journey is an incredible global community driven by knowledge, creativity, and passion. On the final day of our celebration, we pay tribute to the educators, makers, and learners who bring our philosophy to life through every project, lesson, and discovery.
This week Ladyada updates the TLV320DAC3100 design, developed a triple-matrix bonnet for Raspberry Pi 5 HUB75 RGB matrices, and successfully integrated a u-blox SAM-M8Q GPS module with UART/I2C and UBX interface, exploring GNSS modules with built-in antennas for quick prototyping.
🎄💾🗓️ Day 18: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar - Commodore 64🎄💾🗓️
The Commodore 64, released in 1982, is one of the ones we keep hearing got many people their start in their own computing history. Powered by a MOS Technology 6510 processor at 1.02 MHz and featuring 64 KB of RAM, it became the best-selling single computer model of all time, with an estimated 12.5–17 million units sold.
🎄💾🗓️ Day 14: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar - Atari 400/800🎄💾🗓️
The Atari 8-bit computer line was launched in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. Both were advanced for home computers at the time. Both were driven by a 1.79 MHz MOS Technology 6502 CPU, with ANTIC and CTIA/GTIA custom chips for advanced graphics and the POKEY chip handling sound and input/output duties.
We've always wanted a portable scope cart (https://vintagetek.org/scope-carts/) for our workspace to have our test equipment either by the desk for firmware work or at the soldering worktable for rework debugging. At our new office, we finally have space for one!
We've locked it next to our desk so we have more desktop space, and it's easy to peek over as we bring up new boards like the metro RP2350 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/6003). We'll also get the VGA output into our video streaming setup to show off signals we're working on.
We picked up this 'dental cart' (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DM8P2PDT) - It is not super fancy, but it is metal, and it came together fairly easily. We like the mini top shelf for the scope and the second shelf underneath for the power supply and electronic load. The drawer can hold leads or probes.
Its kernel was monolithic, and the system was primarily written in C++. It featured a 64-bit journaling Be File System (BFS), which supported metadata and allowed rapid file queries and fast performance for multimedia tasks. Despite its technical strengths, including support for symmetric multiprocessing and a responsive graphical user interface, BeOS struggled to gain market traction.
🎄💾🗓️ Day 10: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar - BeOS 🎄💾🗓️
BeOS, developed by Be Inc. in the mid-1990s, was an operating system for multimedia applications, multitasking, and multithreading. Initially designed for the BeBox—a proprietary hardware platform featuring dual PowerPC processors—BeOS was later ported to the Macintosh and x86 architectures.
Supporting KiCad helps the development of features, bug fixes, and community-driven improvements, empowering engineers, educators, and hobbyists worldwide. Consider donating to KiCad to strengthen the open-source hardware community and help make high-quality EDA tools accessible to everyone.
KiCad is an open-source software suite for electronic design automation (EDA), enabling users to design schematics and printed circuit boards (PCBs). KiCad is a great, free, open tool for creating complex designs, from hobbyist projects to professional-grade hardware. As an open-source initiative, KiCad promotes accessibility and collaboration, making advanced EDA tools freely available.
Limor "Ladyada" Fried - Adafruit is a USA Manufacturer, open-source hardware, certified Minority and Woman-owned Business Enterprise (M/WBE) Teaching, sharing, #engineering #DIY #electronics #opensource #opensourcehardware #hardware #python #circuitpython #arduino, #raspberrypi #art #hacking... account is managed by @ladyada @ptorrone no bots, all toots are from either ladyada or pt, blame them :) This month lots of #MARCHintosh !