Gadget Factory

FPGA

  • VGA Out Hacked Into Virtual Boy Console Using FPGA

    Here’s a new one. Retro game console enthusiast and hardware hacker Furrtek created a great hack with his Nintendo Virtual Boy 3D console. He knew the Virtual Boy didn’t have a stock video output so he decided to use his Altera DE-1 FPGA board to make his own. One problem though – he wanted to…

  • New Update For Hamster’s I3C2 Programmable I2C Controller

    Mike Field/Hamster has got an important update to the last article we posted (Intelligent I2C Controller Project) that we thought we’d share. You can view the full rundown in two parts over at All Programmable Planet, and there are also project resources via Hamsterworks and on the Gadget Factory forums. Check out what’s new since…

  • Intelligent I2C Controller Project

    The Hamster man, Mike Field has a new project up that is an intelligent I2C controller. It is a small programmable controller that makes it quick and easy to talk to I2C devices. The controller has a single I2C bus, 16 binary inputs, 16 binary outputs and writes I2C data to 32 8-bit registers. The…

  • Introduction To Crystals And Oscillators

    At the heart of any FPGA you will have an oscillator that creates a stable clock signal. This signal is generated from a physical crystal (quartz) which once run through with electricity, will oscillate at its resonant frequency.  Oscillators contain both the resonator (crystal) and the electronic component (the amplifier) which are both required to maintain the oscillations. In reference to the…

  • Hardware And The Bitcoin Goldrush

    Bitcoin is an experimental digital currency, best described as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Bitcoin is known for its volatility – values of the currency can fluctuate wildly in a relatively short period of time. But there’s a virtual goldrush going on these days for the stuff, and the tools used to get at the…

  • The Basics You’ll Need To Start Hacking With FPGAs

    It’s well known that FPGAs can be difficult to get started with, to the point of being downright intimidating.  We’re always on the lookout for information that can help make the learning curve a little less… curvy.   Today we’ve got an easy-to-follow information compilation for understanding FPGAs and how they work, courtesy of FPGAhacker.  Let’s just call it some…

  • How To: Using State Machines With FPGAs

    We found a great article by Adam Taylor (Principal Engineer, EADS Astrium) that illustrates in detail how to implement state machines with your FPGA board. For anyone that is interested, Mr. Taylor provides a comprehensive tutorial on using the two classes of state machines (Moore and Mealy), state machine definitions, state machine encoding, and much…

  • User Created Audio Wing For Papilio

    Hi! We’re back from a nice, much-needed holiday break! We hope your holidays were wonderful for you and your families as well. We’ve got a great wing project here to show you, courtesy of JR from JR’s EE Blog, who has created his own audio wing for the Papilio hardware. JR writes, “For a while…