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Five Things Not to Miss at Wuthering Bytes 2017

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With this year’s Wuthering Bytes festival about to get off to a start in a little over 2 weeks time here is a quick list of five things that are not to be missed!

Technology History at Festival Day

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Detail of the Harwell Dekatron Computer, source: tnmoc.org

There’s something for everyone at Festival Day, but anyone with an interest in technology history is in for a particular treat, with talks on the early history of computing in Britain, the Harwell Dekatron Computer, and the Computer Literacy project which gave birth to the BBC Micro.

The opening keynote will be from Dr David Hartley of the Computer Laboratory at University of Cambridge, who will be taking us on a journey from wartime experiences at Bletchley Park and TRE Malvern, to achievements at Manchester, Cambridge and NPL. Before finally considering Britain's legacy and taking a look at the rebuilding of landmark machines, so that future generations may learn from and enjoy them.

The Harwell Dekatron Computer is a glorious sight to behold, with mesmerising, spinning dekatron tubes, soundtracked by a chorus of clicking and whirring electromagnetic ingenuity. We’ll be treated to unique insights into its charmed life and operation from Kevin Murrell, one of the founders of The National Museum of Computing based at Bletchley Park.

The BBC Micro is a computer which needs no introduction, but we have David Allen and his colleagues to thank for its coming into existence and the incredibly positive effect it had on so children of the 1980s — many of which subsequently went on to work in computing and electronics. David will be asking the questions, why did the BBC embark on one of its most ambitious projects, what is the legacy, and how did the work benefit BBC technology?

AI, Machine Learning and Robots

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A soldering workshop at Open Source Hardware Camp

The robot overlord theme is strong at Open Source Hardware Camp this year, which features talks and hands-on workshops on AI and machine learning (ML) in embedded systems, plus Robot Operating System (ROS). Not to mention plenty of other fantastic talks and workshops.

For details and to register, see the event page on oshug.org.

All Things LoRaWAN and The Things Network

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Monday 4th September it’s the first ever Things Happening, a one day symposium that will explore the potential of Long Range Wide Area Networks. From building the underlying infrastructure to deployment of sensors and devices. It is an opportunity to see what is being developed and learn from the people who are doing it. Featuring an opening keynote from none other than Wienke Giezeman, Co-founder of the Things Network.

For further details and to register, see the Eventbrite page.

Chip Hack EDSAC Challenge

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Chip Hack 2013, London

The first ever Chip Hack was hosted in London in 2013 and sold out in a matter of days. As did the second event hosted the following year in Cambridge. After a hiatus of a few years Chip Hack now returns to join the Wuthering Bytes technology festival, and is being expanded upon to take the form of a special one-off event that will coincide with the BCS 60th anniversary celebrations.

Chip Hack provides a gentle introduction to FPGA programming using the Verilog hardware description language (HDL), which has previously culminated in participants bringing up an OpenRISC system-on-chip (SoC) design. This year instead the objective will be to bring up a model of EDSAC, the first practical general purpose stored program electronic computer.

EDSAC was operational by the late 1940s and in service until July 1958. The landmark computer’s design was led by Prof. Sir Maurice Wilkes, who later went on to become the BCS first ever president. Although he only just missed EDSAC, Dr David Hartley, who is giving the opening keynote on Festival Day, got to work with its replacement, EDSAC 2.

The workshop will be based around the myStorm FPGA board which was the focus of a talk and workshop at Open Source Hardware Camp 2016.

For details and to register, see the Eventbrite page.

ORConf – The Open Source Digital Design Conference

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ORConf 2015 at CERN, Geneva

This year the festival concludes with ORConf, the annual open source digital design conference which in 2016 was hosted at University of Bologna and the year before at CERN in Geneva. Talk topics will include many-core computing, PULP (a RISC-V platform), copyleft licensing for HDL, ZipCPU, LibreCores, cycle-accurate models of RISC-V cores, open source low volume ASICs, Universal VHDL Verification Methodology and much more.

The event runs over the course of 2 ½ days and there is a conference dinner on the Saturday evening.

For further details, to register or propose a talk, please see the ORConf website.

Hope to see you there!

Andrew Back

With thanks to DesignSpark for sponsoring Wuthering Bytes, RS Components for sponsoring ORConf, and all the other sponsors who make the festival and participating events possible.

Open source (hardware and software!) advocate, Treasurer and Director of the Free and Open Source Silicon Foundation, organiser of Wuthering Bytes technology festival and founder of the Open Source Hardware User Group.
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