This is a C implementation of the neural network for handwriting recognition outlined in the free online book by Michael Nielsen.

It was written as a learning exercise, and is essentially a port of Michael's Python implementation.

• Install the GNU Scientic library, GCC, G++

• Download the training data:

wget http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/train-labels-idx1-ubyte.gz
wget http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/train-images-idx3-ubyte.gz

• Unzip the data into ./dat:

gunzip -c train-images-idx3-ubyte.gz > dat/train-images-idx3-ubyte
gunzip -c train-labels-idx1-ubyte.gz > dat/train-labels-idx1-ubyte

• Build using cmake eg. from the project directory:

  • cd build
  • cmake ..
  • make

• Run from the project folder:

  • Tests with ./tests
  • Train the network with ./run

• Read the book!