In my recent twiddlings with Microcontrollers a project has emerged. picSimon! A re-implementation of the classic toy using a single chip, a few discrete components, a few switches, and 4 LEDs. So far it is quite a hit at home and the office. Shawn (my 6 year-old son) has gotten up to about 6 moves, I have gotten 18 (once) and at the office 12-15 seems to be the range.

This project was a nice little Christmas present for my kids, and a prototype for Me. Using MAME, the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, I built a “universal” arcade machine. The style of the case is a 3/4 scale version of Defender, one of my favorite arcade games.

An implementation of John Conway’s cellular automota know as Life. The application was originally done as an example and project for a Java Programming class I taught (quite a while ago now). I never assigned this one for homework or anything, but it was interesting and a good use of many of Java’s features. Of course it is based on John Conway’s Life game from Scientific American.

This is a 40/80M Amateur Band CW (continuous wave) transmitter built from parts and board provided by Rex Harper (W1REX). It was a preparation for a QRPme club project.

Many programs are modified during their useful life, either to correct errors or to extend their capabilities. It has been estimated that as much as 80% of the cost of software development is incurred by such modifications during the so-called “maintenance period” of the software life cycle. In most cases, the programmers making the modifications are not the authors of the program, and their task is eased if the code has been written to be understood. We here discuss a few techniques which help to make the source code of a program more intelligible. Part of your grade on the programming assignments for this course will be determined by how thoughtfully you incorporate these ideas in your solutions to the problems.

A Java Applet that plays the ancient African game of Mancala. It was done as a project and example for COS246 Java Programming (now renumbered as COS244) class (which it was assigned for their final exam).

Well after some playing around in my "side yard" my Big Ugly Dish (BUD) is up and receiving. This page is the story of how it all happened. Perhaps it will contain some helpful hints for other newcomers to the BUD world. Maybe not, but here it is anyway.