After a near-death experience in 1977 helped trigger a spiritual awakening, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens (and the man long ago known as Steven Demetre Georgiou) converted to Islam and retired from secular music-making in 1979.
From a man who had used it to create a "smart" cat feeder able to recognise each of his cats and give them the correct amount of food, to quadcopters used to transport things from one African village to another, access to a cheap microcontroller was creating a buzz in the maker community, he said.