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If you’ve ever looked at the bottom of a bank check, you probably glanced over some strangely formed numbers? If you’re a fan of science fiction or retro computers, you’ve …read more

The BASIC language may be considered old-hat here in 2025, and the days when a computer came as a matter of course with a BASIC interpreter are far behind us, …read more

Mechanical switches are pretty easy to understand—the contacts touch, the current flows, and Bob is, presumably, your uncle. But what about soft switches? Well, they’re not that difficult to understand …read more

We’ve all been there. That sad day when the zipper on our favorite hoodie, bag, or pair of pants breaks in some seemingly irreparable way. But there is hope, and …read more

LEDs were once little more than weedy little indicators with low light output. Today, they’re absolute powerhouses, efficiently turning a flow of electrons into a searing beam of light. Despite …read more

January 9 ended up being a very expensive day for a Culver City, California man after he pleaded guilty to recklessly operating a drone during the height of the Pacific …read more

The Camp Snap is a simple fixed-focus digital camera with only an optical viewfinder and a shot counter, which has become a surprise hit among photography enthusiasts for its similarity …read more

The Free Software Foundation is holding an auction to celebrate its 40th anniversary. You can bid on the original sketch of the GNU head by [Etienne Suvasa] and [Richard Stallman’s] …read more

A significant event in the world of high-power electrical engineering is under way this weekend, as the three Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, disconnect their common power grid from …read more

Prolific woodworking YouTuber [Matthias Wandel] makes some awesome mechanical contraptions, and isn’t afraid of computers, but has never been a fan of CNC machines in the woodshop. He’s never had …read more

We were surprised when we read a post from C++ creator [Bjarne Stroustrup] that reminded us that C++ is 45 years old. His premise is that C++ is robust and …read more

With so many cheap oscilloscopes out there, the market for old units isn’t what it used to be. But if you have a really old scope, like the Heathkit O-10 …read more

Like many pieces of lab equipment, oscilloscopes are both extremely useful and rather intimidating to a fledgling user. Unlike a digital multimeter with its point-and-measure functionality, digital storage oscilloscopes (DSOs) …read more

It seems obvious once you think about it, but if you can spin your cell phone and coordinate the display with the motion, you can create a 3D display. [Action …read more

When you see a ventriloquist like [Jeff Dunham], you probably expect to see him with a puppet. This time – spoilers ahead – you won’t. Besides his fame on stage, …read more

The MP3 file format was always encumbered with patents, but as of 2017, the last patent finally expired. Although the format became synonymous with the digital music revolution that started …read more

Open source software can be fantastic. I run almost exclusively open software, and have for longer than I care to admit. And although I’m not a serious coder by an …read more

Generally speaking, writing your own games for retro consoles starts with C code. You’ll need to feed that through a console-specific tool-chain, and there’s certainly going to be some hoops …read more

In days gone by, a common retail hack used by some of the less honorable of our peers was the price tag switcheroo. You’d find some item that you wanted …read more

Graphene always sounds exciting, although we aren’t sure what we want to do with it. One of the most promising features of the monolayer carbon structure is that under the …read more