It’s becoming somewhat of a running gag that any device or object will be made ‘smart’ these days, whether it’s a phone, TV, refrigerator, home thermostat, headphones or glasses. This …read more
Miniaturization is a trend that comes and goes in the cellular phone space. For a while, our phones were all getting smaller, then they started getting bigger again as screens …read more
Repairing vintage computers is bread-and-butter for many of us around here. The machines themselves tend to be fairly fixable, assuming spare parts are available and there hasn’t been too much …read more
Often, we face tedious tasks with no way around them. Sometimes, you just have to grit your teeth and push through. But small tweaks can make the onerous task a …read more
Ok, we’ll admit it. If you asked us what the first transistorized computer was, we would have guessed it was the TC from the University of Manchester. After all, Dr. …read more
Remember AOL? For a lot of folks, America Online was their first ISP, the place where they got their first exposure to the Internet, or at least a highly curated …read more
[Too Many Wires] has a custom computer he’s building. He wanted a mouse, but USB is a bit of a stretch for the fledgling computer. We might have opted for …read more
By virtue of its triple bond, acetylene burns hotter than any other common hydrocarbon when mixed with oxygen, but it isn’t the only flame hot enough for welding. With the …read more
We’ve all seen spectacular pictures of space, and it’s easy to assume that’s how it looks to the naked eye through a nice telescope. But in most cases, that’s simply …read more
Have you ever wished your hand had an extra feature? Like, maybe, a second thumb? A scope probe pinky maybe? Well, if you are building a robot effector, you get …read more
Modern handheld game consoles are impressive feats of engineering, featuring full fledged computers in near pocket-sized packages. So what happens if you take an original Xbox and sprinkle on some …read more
Drums! You hit them, and they vibrate. It’s kind of fun. Piezoelectric elements can create electric current when they vibrate. [Will Dana] put two and two together to try and …read more
The PIXO Aspire is a roughly $35 USD vape that can almost play DOOM, with [Aaron Christophel] finding that the only thing that realistically stops it from doing so is …read more
Nautical navigation has a long history of innovation, from the compass and chronometer to today’s computer-driven autopilot systems. That said, the poor compatibility of electronics with saltwater has consequently created …read more
Japan’s Venus Climate Orbiter Akatsuki was launched on May 21, 2010, and started its active mission in 2015 after an initial orbital insertion failure. Since that time, Akatsuki has continuously observed …read more
We feel for [Jeff Geerling]. He spent a lot of effort building an AI cluster out of Raspberry PI boards and $3,000 later, he’s a bit regretful. As you can …read more
There’s always some debate around what style of architecture is best for certain computing applications, with some on the RISC side citing performance per watt and some on the CISC …read more
Superlatives are tricky things. [mircemk]’s guide “How to make Simplest ever Oscilloscope Clock” falls into that category. It’s that word, simplest. Certainly, this is an oscilloscope clock, and a nice …read more
Fnirsi is one of those brands that seem to pop up more and more often, usually for portable oscilloscopes and kin. Their IPS3608 bench power supply is a bit of …read more
After [Ross] from FauxHammer miniature model fame got lured into reviewing laser engravers and similar via the Bambu Lab H2D’s laser module, he found himself getting slightly nervous about the …read more