Clik here to view.
Amateur Astronomer Images Spy Satellite
As anyone who’s looked at the sky just before dawn or right after dusk can confirm, for the last seventy years or so there have been all kinds of artificial satellites floating around in low-Earth...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Linux, Now In Real Time
Although Linux runs almost every supercomputer, most of the web, the majority of smart phones, and a few writers’ ancient Macbooks, there’s one major weak point in the Linux world that will almost...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Digital Audio Workstation In A Box
Although it’s still possible to grab a couple of friends, guitars, and a set of drums and start making analog music like it’s 1992 and there are vacant garages everywhere yearning for the sounds of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reverse Time Back to the Days of RPN
While Texas Instruments maintains dominance in the calculator market (especially graphing calculators), there was a time when this wasn’t the case. HP famously built the first portable scientific...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Drive For Show, Putt for Dough
Any golfer will attest that the most impressive looking part of the game—long drives—isn’t where the game is won. To really lower one’s handicap the most important skills to develop are in the short...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Quake in 276 KB of RAM
Porting the original DOOM game to various pieces of esoteric hardware is a rite of passage in some software circles. But in the modern world, we can get better performance than the 386 processor...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Using the 555 for Everything
The 555 timer is one of the most versatile integrated circuits available. It can generate PWM signals, tones, and single-shot pulses. You can even put one in a bi-stable mode similar to a flip flop....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Access the Information Superhighway With a Mac Plus
For some time now, Apple has developed a reputation for manufacturing computers and phones that are not particularly repairable or upgradable. While this reputation is somewhat deserved, especially in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Self-Portaging Canoe is Part Bicycle
Normally when making a long voyage in a canoe, an adventurer would paddle the vessel as far as possible and then “portage”, or carry, the canoe over the short sections of land separating the bodies of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Parts Bin MIDI Controller in 24 Hours
Part of the reason MIDI has hung on as a standard in the musical world for so long is that it is incredibly versatile. Sure, standard instruments like pianos and drums can be interfaced with a computer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Design Process For A Tiny Robot Brain
As things get smaller, we can fit more processing power into devices like robots to allow them to do more things or interact with their environment in new ways. If not, we can at least build them for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Open-Source, 3D Printed Trackpad
Touchpads, or trackpads, have been around since the 1980s. Today, you can often find them in laptops and notebook computers as pointing devices. With no moving parts, a trackpad are easy to integrate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pac-Man Ghost Helps With Air Quality Sensing
In the past, building construction methods generally didn’t worry much about air quality. There were enough gaps around windows, doors, siding, and flooring that a house could naturally “breathe” and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Libre Space Foundation Aims to Improve Satellite Tech
There’s no shortage of movies, TV shows, and books that show a dystopian future with corporations run amok in outer space with little or no effective oversight. Dune, The Expanse, and The Dispossessed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Modern PC With a Retro OS
Despite the rise of ARM processors in more and more computers from embedded systems to daily driver PCs, the x86 architecture maintains a stronghold in the computing space that won’t be going away...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Artificial Intelligence Runs on Arduino
Fundamentally, an artificial intelligence (AI) is nothing more than a system that takes a series of inputs, makes some prediction, and then outputs that information. Of course, the types of AI in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Custom Drone Software Searches, Rescues
When a new technology first arrives in people’s hands, it often takes a bit of time before the full capabilities of that technology are realized. In much the same way that many early Internet users...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Custom Fan Controller For Otherwise Fanless PCs
Most of us using desktop computers, and plenty of us on laptops, have some sort of fan or pump installed in our computer to remove heat and keep our machines running at the most optimum temperature....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pi Pico Lays Down the Groove
From the 60s to perhaps the mid-00s, the path to musical stardom was essentially straight with very few forks. As a teenager you’d round up a drummer and a few guitar players and start jamming out of a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Few Things Are Cheaper than This Antenna
As far as hobbies go, ham radio tends to be on the more expensive side. A dual-band mobile radio can easily run $600, and a high-end HF base station with the capability of more than 100 watts will...
View Article