Electronic Etch-A-Sketch, No Microcontroller Required

In a lot of ways, Etch-A-Sketch is the perfect toy; simple, easy to use, creative, endlessly engaging, and as a bonus, it’s completely mechanical. We find that last attribute to be a big part…

A 555-Shaped Discrete Component 555

While the “should have used a 555” meme is strong around these parts, we absolutely agree with [Kelvin Brammer]’s decision to make this 555-shaped plug-in replacement for the 555 …

Keeping Track Of The Night Sky With Discrete Logic Chips

As hobbies go, stargazing has a pretty low barrier to entry. All you really need is a pair of Mark 1 eyeballs and maybe a little caffeine to help you stay up late enough. Astronomy, on the other ha…

MikroLeo, A 4-Bit Retro Learning Platform

MikroLeo is a discrete TTL logic-based microcomputer intended for educational purposes created by [Edson Junior Acordi], an Electronics Professor at the Brazilian Federal Institute of Paraná, Brazi…

Should’ve Used A 555 — Or 276 Of Them

When asked to whip up a simple egg timer, most of us could probably come up with a quick design based on the ubiquitous 555 timer. Add a couple of passives around the little eight-pin DIP, put an L…

Thousands Of Discrete MOSFETs Make Up This Compact CPU-Less Computer

How long has it been since a computer could boast about the fact that it contained 2,500 transistors? Probably close to half a century now, at a guess. So in a world with a couple of billion transi…