In the 1980s, France was the stage for one of the boldest public computing projects of the era. Minitel was the French take on viewdata, and instead of making it …read more
Trains and the railways they run on are a great way to move lots of stuff, or lots of people, a long way. Steel wheels on steel rail can shift …read more
Although Li-ion cells have become a lot cheaper over the years, if you wish to buy hundreds of high-quality ones for that performance go-kart project, you may feel financially pressured …read more
[Les] likes lasing lasers, and who doesn’t? [Les] likes larger lasers than lots of folks, with his current project being an Nd:YAG (that’s Neodymium:Yttrium Aluminum Garnet) flash pumped laser intended …read more
The PDP-11 was a 16-bit minicomputer that was very influential in its time. That’s what inspired [vanheusden] to start working on an emulator for the machine in 2018, which has …read more
In semiconductor technology, a base material like silicon is permanently modified to induce certain electrical behavior. In comparison a topological insulator material could be used to create temporary circuits using …read more
Taking a break from ogling microscopic features in Intel’s semiconductor processors, [Ken Shirriff] is back to instead poking at decidedly macroscopic pluggable modules from the 1948 IBM 604 Electronic Calculator. …read more
Circuit bending is a chaotic art. At its simplest, it can just involve making connections between random points on a circuit board to create weird sounds in musical hardware. Or, …read more
[David] has a young child who is clever enough to use a computer to play music, but he doesn’t quite want to hand over the mouse just yet. Thus, he …read more
Apparently you all love lasers just as much as we do. We put out a challenge to use, build, or otherwise abuse our favorite coherent light sources, and you responded. …read more
Norton was always a PC company — Norton Commander, the file manager that launched a thousand clones, was only ever available for DOS, like the rest of the company’s offerings …read more
You may have a 4K television. Perhaps you have even bought an 8K screen, despite the shortage of things worth watching in 8K. A 16K display is, today, a rarity. …read more
Launch a single static binary executable, send someone a QR code or URL (or failing that, text a numerical code or shout it across a room), and they’ll get an …read more
Emacs is one of the big classic text editors, right up there next to vi. It’s famous for its interface and its ubiquity across the *nix world. It’s such a …read more
As easy as it is to make a late 1980s-style game console using a modern microcontroller, there’s arguably more fun in doing things the traditional way. This is the challenge …read more
The Theremin is that classic electronic musical instrument that makes those weeee-ohhhhh noises which were so popular in mid-century science fiction movies. Mid-last-century, that is, because this century is just …read more
About a month ago, we brought you word that the commercial rescue mission designed by Katalyst Space to save NASA’s Swift gamma-ray observatory had reached orbit and early indicators were …read more
[Jumpor] lives in a part of India where the water infrastructure is a little frustrating to use. Water gets delivered to underground tanks outside of homes, and must then be …read more
One of the best parts about DIY chemistry and physics projects is that you get to decide how early in the supply chain you want to begin, such as with …read more
Many of us will be used to the idea of a KVM, a device that pipes keyboard, video, and mouse over the network from a remote machine to your own. …read more