If you're looking for a quick and easy solution to add VGA functionality to your project, have a look at SECON's MicroVGA.

It's an affordable way with very few requirements, and you'll have it up and running with only a few wires.  Today we'll interface one with a microcontroller and build ourselves an old-fashioned "dumb terminal".

Ok, yet another LED article. Just starting to learn by Arduino and one can never get enough LED tutorials, right?

Since it's holiday season, let's create som flicker on the LEDs that can be used to emulate campfire. Great for putting inside gingerbread house for example :P

I got a question about transistors in the Blinking LEDs using electronics article, so I thought I'd write up a little tutorial on transistors and how they ca be used as a electronic switch.

A transistor is a nifty little invention that changed our technology forever. Before that bulky vacuum tubes were used, and they had a rather high power consumption and were very fragile (you could destroy one just by touching it), so transistors are regarded  as one of the most important inventions of the modern age. Cool stuff, huh? So what can these transistors be used for, you may ask.

So now you know how to make a LED blink using a PIC, but how can you do it purely in electronics?

Actually it is not too hard, and you don't need too many parts either.

Parts you will need:

• Two 200-470 Ohm resistors
• Two resistors around 39k Ohm
• Two 10 uF capacitors
• Two LEDs
• Two NPN transistors of some kind (preferably identical), for example BC549/BC550. Any should work, really.

Right! Got that sorted, lets dive into the wonders of electronic circuits!