In the world of social media, “keeping receipts” refers to the practice of storing evidence that may come in handy for a callout post at a later date. For [Teddy …read more
In the 1980s there were an incredible number of personal computers of all shapes, sizes, and operating system types, and there was very little interoperability. Unlike today’s Windows-Mac duopoly, this …read more
[Mike Stewart] powers up a thrust meter from an Apollo lunar module. This bit of kit passed inspection on September 25, 1969. Fortunately [Mike] was able to dig up some …read more
Modern passenger airliners are essentially tubes-with-wings, they just happen to be tubes that are stuffed full with fancy electronics. Some of the most important of these are related to keeping …read more
[Codeolences] tells us about the FORBIDDEN Soviet Computer That Defied Binary Logic. The Setun, the world’s first ternary computer, was developed at Moscow State University in 1958. Its troubled and …read more
While we’re 100 years past Edison’s fear, uncertainty, and doubt campaign, the fact of the matter is that DC is a bit easier to wrap one’s head around. It’s just …read more
An accessible 3D printer for metals has been the holy grail of amateur printer builders since at least the beginning of the RepRap project, but as tends to be the …read more
Before DOOM would run on any computing system ever produced, and indeed before it even ran on its first computer, the game that would run on any computer of the …read more
Despite faster CPUs, RAM and storage, today’s Windows experience doesn’t feel noticeably different from back in the 2000s when XP and later Windows 7 ruled the roost. To quantify this …read more
For various reasons, crypto mining has fallen to the wayside in recent years. Partially because it was never useful other than as a speculative investment and partially because other speculative …read more
Over the decades we have seen many DIY clocks and wrist watches presented, but few are as likely to get you either drawing in the crowds, or quietly snickered at …read more
As locked-down as the Amazon Echo Show line of devices are, they’re still just ARM-based Android devices, which makes repurposing it somewhat straightforward as long as what you want is …read more
Elliot was of at Europe’s largest hacker convention: Chaos Communication Congress. He had an awesome time, saw more projects than you might think humanely possible, and got the flu. But …read more
Thanks to the Raspberry Pi, we have easy access to extremely inexpensive machines running Linux that have all kinds of GPIO as well as various networking protocols. And as the …read more
There’s folk wisdom in just about every culture that teaches about renewable energy — things like “make hay while the sun shines”. But as an industrial culture, we want to …read more
Hardware hackers tend to have loads of hookup wire, and that led [firstgizmo] to design a 3D printable wire and cable spool storage system. As a bonus, it’s Gridfinity-compatible! There …read more
Just because LEGO Technic is technically a toy doesn’t mean that you cannot do solid engineering with it, like building air-powered engines. After first building a simple air-powered piston engine, …read more
Programmers hold to a wide spectrum of positions on software complexity, from the rare command-line purists to the much more common web app developers, and the two extremes rarely meet. …read more
These days ready-to-use DC-DC converters are everywhere, with some of the cheaper ones even being safe to use without an immediate risk to life and limb(s). This piques one’s curiosity …read more