Why Every Microwave Has A “Popcorn” Button, But Every Bag Warns You Not To Use It

October 10, 2026 by Donald Papp 68 Comments

[Hyperfixed] has a podcast episode that does a deep dive into exactly why bags of microwave popcorn advise against using your microwave’s popcorn setting (in North America, anyway.) The answer is probably more complex than one expects, and involves the long history of microwave oven development as well as consumer behavior.

There are really two questions involved: one is “what does the Popcorn button actually do?” The other is “Why does every package of microwave popcorn say not to use it?”

The answer to the first question is “it depends”. Microwave ovens are amazing things, but the popcorn setting on any given microwave oven could be anything from just a dumb timer, to a setting that tells the oven to monitor popping sounds or humidity levels (because popping releases steam). These kinds of microwave oven features were figured out ages ago, meaning the technology to precisely handle a bag of microwave popcorn not only exists in equipped ovens right now, but has existed for decades.

The problem is not all microwaves are so equipped. A microwave oven where the popcorn setting is just a dumb timer is really an invitation to under- or overcook the bag. And when overcooked, microwave popcorn scorches and could even burn.

That brings us to the answer of the second question: why does every package warn not to use the popcorn setting? In short, because the popcorn maker has no idea what any given user’s microwave oven is doing. When people hit a button marked “Popcorn” they tend to leave the process unattended, and when a microwave oven ruins a bag of popcorn, the user blames the popcorn manufacturer.

This means microwave popcorn manufacturers stick to some variant of the only process known to work in all ovens: monitor the process, wait for popping to slow to a rate of one pop every two seconds, then stop.

That’s the quick answer, but [Hyperfixed] goes in a ton of researched detail across the entire spectrum of this issue. If deep-dive niche technical podcasts are your thing, we recommend queuing it up for a listen.

Belt File From Old Mixer And Junk Bin Parts

October 9, 2026 by Donald Papp 5 Comments

Making one’s own power tools can be a rewarding way to upcycle parts, and [bluesyann] does exactly that with a belt file made from an old mixer. We like how the enclosure for the old mixer is preserved and acts as a handle, so there’s no need to worry about motor mounting and wiring separately. It looks perfectly usable, and all the hardware needed is the sort of thing one finds in a scrap pile.

[bluesyann] stretches the sanding belt between a 3D printed pulley attached to the mixer motor, and a bearing fitted into the end of some aluminum U-channel. Scrap wood and more nested U-channel make up the rest of the assembly, and there’s even a tension adjustment made from a threaded rod.

There’s a bill of materials and a 3D model for the pulley, but a build like this is more about sharing the broad strokes rather than the exact design. Whenever one modifies or integrates an existing piece of equipment (the mixer, in this case) into a project, most of the work is about working with and around the bits one can’t change.

Watch it in action in a brief video, embedded just below. If you like the idea but don’t have a mixer like the one [bluesyann] used, let us point you toward a similar DIY attachment to get a similar result from a common angle grinder.

Continue reading “Belt File From Old Mixer And Junk Bin Parts” →

2026 Retrocomputing Challenge: Retro Terminal Bartop Arcade Topper

October 8, 2026 by Donald Papp 9 Comments

Retrocomputing is more than just hardware. It’s also a feel, a vibe, and [valkyrie0528]’s Retro Terminal Bartop Arcade Topper has it in spades.

The same unit, in bartop arcade machine mode.

Here’s how it happened. The gorgeous device you see in the image above in fact started out as a bartop arcade cabinet build. The front section — with arcade buttons and joystick — is a removable panel. While building it, the panel was uninstalled and [valkyrie0528] placed a keyboard in the empty recess to do some configuration. Sitting at the machine like that felt like being right back in the 80s, perched at an 8-bit home computer. Cue a visit from the Good Ideas Fairy.

Now, in addition to being an arcade cabinet, one can swap the arcade controls panel for a one that has a keyboard (clicky and mechanical, of course), touchpad, and small USB breakout. The result looks amazing either way. As an arcade machine it’s beautiful, and in retro terminal mode it’s simply gorgeous.

The icing on the cake is [valkyrie0528]’s use of cool-retro-term as the terminal emulator, and there’s even a widescreen wallpaper accompanying it that puts an image of two 5.25″ floppy drives to the side. If you like that idea, you can download the wallpaper file from the project page for your own use.

A widescreen wallpaper with two 5.25″ floppy drives is the perfect complement to a retro terminal emulator.

There’s still time to enter our 2026 Retrocomputing Challenge, so if you find yourself inspired and want to show off your own take of things, there’s no time to lose!

2026 Retrocomputing Challenge: Dungeons Of Daggorath, But Without Quite So Much Typing

October 7, 2026 by Donald Papp 4 Comments

People mod games all the time, but it’s not every day someone mods Dungeons of Daggorath for the TRS-80. [Nick Bild] did exactly that, adding joystick support and a couple DOOM-inspired monsters for good measure. And while he was at it, optional unlimited player health and power because why not?

A pretty good representation, in our opinion.

Dungeons of Daggorath was pretty unusual for its time. It portrayed a dungeon and its contents from a first-person perspective, and events progressed in real time.

Gameplay-wise, most commands entered by the player revolved around moving around and attacking monsters, and that was done with text commands like ATTACK RIGHT which could mercifully be shortened to A R. Still, not the most efficient control scheme.

[Nick] downloaded the original source code and made several modifications. A joystick moves the player much more efficiently, with the button acting as a shortcut to attacking with whatever is in the player’s right hand. He also replaced the spider and viper enemies with creatures inspired by DOOM‘s imp and cacodemon monsters, as well as the aforementioned optional limitless health and power.

[Nick] dubbed the modified game Dungeons of Doom and while the terms of the original don’t allow redistribution of modified code, his changes are simple enough to follow. Especially so for those from the generation that remembers typing programs in by hand from a magazine page.

A New Type Of LLM On The Block: Decision-Making Models

October 6, 2026 by Donald Papp 62 Comments

Large language models (LLMs) output language, but they are commonly tasked with making a decision or classification of some kind instead of writing an essay or chat reply. An LLM will be provided with input, and asked to classify that content in some way: with a rating, yes/no answer, a best-fit categorization, and so forth. A recent new type of model by the name of Jev was released only weeks ago and it is extremely fast, ultra-cheap, and laser-focused on that decision-making role. It can’t write even a single sentence, but it can classify and categorize very, very quickly.

Jev works like this: it still accepts text input, but it outputs only floating-point numbers. Those numbers are the “answers” to user-specified yes/no type questions, lists of choices, and scoring-type requests. [Simon Willison] provides a concise summary of what Jev does, and what makes this new category of model so interesting.

To say that the idea has caught on would be a wild understatement. Folks are making their own decision-type models and experiments in a flurry. Kev and Nimble are two examples (Nimble was added as a supported model in Ollama just recently, and is small enough to run locally with relative ease.)

If this type of local AI model was the missing link you needed to get an idea working, don’t keep it to yourself! Tell us all about it on the tips line.

A Good DIY Solder Stencil Begins With A Cleanly-Sliced Soda Can

October 3, 2026 by Donald Papp 10 Comments

Solder stencils are a fantastic way to accurately apply solder paste to a PCB. Professionally-made stencils are cut from steel, but for the home hacker, soda cans continue to be the alternative of choice. The only trick is how to actually get those little holes made, and [Saheen Palayi] shows off both his method of laser-engraving the holes, as well as a tool for cutting the can in the first place.

A good result starts with cutting a can cleanly, thanks to a 3D-printed tool.

To turn a soda can into a flat-ish aluminum sheet means cutting off the ends and slicing it open. Ideally, one achieves this without kinking or bending the thin metal. In practice, this is quite difficult. [Saheen]’s solution is something a little like a pipe cutter — a 3D printed tool that gradually presses a blade section from a utility knife into the empty can as it turns until it cuts through. Once the top and bottom are off, it’s easy enough to snip down the side to get a curved sheet.

The hole pattern comes from one’s PCB design software of choice, and the actual cutting is done by a fiber laser. The wavelength of fiber lasers makes them good at marking and cutting metal, and [Saheen]’s laser takes almost no time at all to cut the stencil into the thin metal.

Fiber lasers used to be the sort of tool that only industrial shops had, but they’re a prosumer-level tool that can be bought online nowadays. [Saheen] uses an xTool F1 Ultra to cut his solder stencil, and we’ve previously seen that same laser used to create a PCB by blasting away unwanted copper until only the traces remain.

We’ve seen aluminum cans etched and also machined to create stencils, and the laser is certainly the fastest. Watch it in action in the video below.

Continue reading “A Good DIY Solder Stencil Begins With A Cleanly-Sliced Soda Can” →

Fixing A Power Grid That Loses Over Half Its Power To Inefficiency And Theft

October 3, 2026 by Donald Papp 52 Comments

[Mini Shaji Thomas] has a deeply interesting article on IEEE Spectrum detailing how the power distribution system for a city of over twenty million people went from failing to first-class. In the early 2000s, over half of Delhi’s generated power was lost to inefficiencies of all kinds, and theft. Losses were technical as well as administrative, and the rampant theft was perpetuated by “both the powerful and the powerless”. Spoiler alert: it’s a big job.

That level of loss is staggering, and caused by many issues rather than just one or two. Many of the problems tended to compound one another. For example, an effective power grid relies on balancing active and reactive power, but if that is not well managed then inefficiencies cause losses and outages that tend to lead to even more losses and outages as the system is never able to catch up to demand. On the scale of tens of millions of inhabitants, such losses are far from trivial.

There wasn’t a silver bullet solution. Modernizing and stabilizing the power distribution required technical resources, modernized equipment, political will, expert planning, a willingness to follow through, and authority.

The starting point was grim: a failing network that was constantly overloaded, poor or nonexistent controls and safeguards, inaccurate records and inefficient administration, no real means of sensing faults or inefficiencies or theft, weak to nonexistent enforcement, and an untrained workforce. Still, it could be done, and it was. While there’s still improvement to be made, revamping the system was ultimately successful.

Individually, some of the solutions were quite simple. For example, replacing bare overhead distribution wires with a system of insulated cables containing multiple conductors was not just safer and more resilient, it made it much harder for people to tap into the lines. Other initiatives like making it easier and more convenient to pay accurate bills helped, too. Turns out it’s easier to have legit customers when the product and service is reliable.

Give it a read if you have a few minutes, because besides providing a peek into the technical end of how effective power grids work, it’s a good analysis of what can be accomplished with some co-operation and a willingness to change.