Ancient History Of The Phone Jack

While watching a video about old radios from the 1920s, a phone jack popped up. The host mentioned that phone jacks are super old and he wondered what was their origin. I always assumed they had something to do with the telephone system, and that’s right, but I had no …read more

Netbooks: The Form Factor Time Forgot

Long ago, before smartphones were ubiquitous and children in restaurants were quieted with awful games on iPads, there was a beautiful moment. A moment in which the end user could purchase, at a bargain price, an x86 computer in a compact, portable shell. In 2007, the netbook was born, and …read more

Surviving The Pandemic As A Hacker: Peering Behind The Mask

We’re now several months into the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with most parts of the world falling somewhere on the lockdown/social distancing/opening up path.

It’s fair to say now that while the medical emergency has not passed, the level of knowledge about it has changed significantly. When communities …read more

Ford’s Powershift Debacle

In the automotive world, change is a constant, and if you’re not keeping up, you’re falling behind. New technologies and methodologies are key to gaining an edge in the market, and companies invest billions each year trying to find the next big thing, or even the next minor incremental improvement. …read more

Inputs Of Interest: ErgoDox Post-Mortem

In the last installment, I told you I was building an open-source, split, ortholinear keyboard called the ErgoDox. I’m doing this because although I totally love my Kinesis Advantage, it has made me want to crack my knuckles and explore the world of split keyboards. Apparently there are several of …read more

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64-bit And A Display: Minecraft Computers 10 Years Later

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By Sven Gregori | June 6, 2020

Some people build their own computer to play games, while others play games to build their own computer. Minecraft is the prime candidate for the latter, and while you can certainly arrange the blocks to make them look like a computer, we’re of course talking about replicating the actual functionality …read more
Testing Hardware With ASCII Waveforms

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By Al Williams | June 6, 2020

Testing software is — sometimes — easier than testing hardware. After all, you can always create test files and even fake user input before monitoring outputs using common tools. Hardware though, is a bit different. Sometimes it is hard to visualize exactly what’s happening. [Andrew Ray’s] answer? Produce simulated waveforms …read more
A DIY Electronic Load With A Twist

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By Tom Nardi | June 6, 2020

If you’re testing a power supply or battery pack, an electronic load is a nice tool to have. By watching the voltage as you crank up the resistance, you can verify the unit’s real-world capabilities quickly and easily. But [Xavier Bourlot] wanted a bit more information than is generally afforded …read more
Cheap Party Light Gets Arduino Upgrade

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By Tom Nardi | June 6, 2020

If you’ve got a party coming up and are looking to add a little bit of excitement, you might be interested in this recent project from [Gav Lewis]. The build is based on a commercially available party light, but with some upgraded components the final product is brighter and more …read more
Lattice Drops EULA Clause Forbidding FPGA Bitstream Reverse Engineering

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By Jenny List | June 6, 2020

Yesterday we reported that Lattice Semiconductor had inserted a clause that restricted the reverse engineering of bitstreams produced by their FPGA toolchains. Although not explicitly stated, it’s assumed that this was directed toward several projects over the past five years that have created fully open source toolchains by reverse engineering …read more
Burning Chrome

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By Elliot Williams | June 6, 2020

You want a good project that combines multiple disciplines, gives you something useful in the end, and will certainly wow the muggles? Or do you simply need a custom rig with which to “jack in” to “cyberspace”? How about building your own luggable, portable, computer with some style — your …read more
Sparklines For Your ESP32 Projects

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By Jenny List | June 6, 2020

On a typical microcontroller project we may only have access to a relatively tiny screen. Information display can be a challenge, but it’s one that may be made easier by [0xPIT]’s ESParklines library for Espressif processors using the Arduino framework.

A sparkline is a simple line graph without annotations (like …read more