Author: Al Williams

4296 Articles

Solar Power, Logically

March 20, 2025 by 86 Comments

We’ve all seen the ads. Some offer “free” solar panels. Others promise nearly free energy if you just purchase a solar — well, solar system doesn’t sound right — maybe… solar energy setup. Many of these plans are dubious at best. You pay for someone to mount solar panels on your house and then pay them for the electricity they generate at — presumably — a lower cost than your usual source of electricity. But what about just doing your own set up? Is it worth it? We can’t answer that, but [Brian Potter] can help you answer it for yourself.

In a recent post, he talks about the rise of solar power and how it is becoming a large part of the power generation landscape. Interestingly, he presents graphs of things like the cost per watt of solar panels adjusted for 2023 dollars. In 1975, a watt cost over $100. These days it is about $0.30. So the price isn’t what slows solar adoption.

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Linux Fu: A Warp Speed Prompt

March 20, 2025 by 27 Comments

If you spend a lot of time at the command line, you probably have either a very basic prompt or a complex, information-dense prompt. If you are in the former camp, or you just want to improve your shell prompt, have a look at Starship. It works on the most common shells on most operating systems, so you can use it everywhere you go, within reason. It has the advantage of being fast and you can also customize it all that you want.

What Does It Look Like?

It is hard to explain exactly what the Starship prompt looks like. First, you can customize it almost infinitely, so there’s that. Second, it adapts depending on where you are. So, for example, in a git-controlled directory, you get info about the git status unless you’ve turned that off. If you are in an ssh session, you’ll see different info than if you are logged in locally.

However, here’s a little animation from their site that will give you an idea of what you might expect: Continue reading “Linux Fu: A Warp Speed Prompt” →

3D Printed Brick Layers For Everyone

March 17, 2025 by 18 Comments

Some slicers have introduced brick layers, and more slicers plan to add them. Until that happens, you can use this new script from [Geek Detour] to get brick layer goodness on Prusa, Orca, and Bambu slicers. Check out the video below for more details.

The idea behind brick layers is that outer walls can be stronger if they are staggered vertically so each layer interlocks with the layer below it. The pattern resembles a series of interlocking bricks and can drastically increase strength. Apparently, using the script breaks the canceling object functionality in some printers, but that’s a small price to pay. Multi-material isn’t an option either, but — typically — you’ll want to use the technique on functional parts, which you probably aren’t printing in colors. Also, the Arachne algorithm option only works reliably on Prusa slicer, so far.

The video covers a lot of detail on how hard it was to do this in an external script, and we are impressed. It should be easier to write inside the slicer since it already has to figure out much of the geometry that this script has to figure out by observation.

If you want more information, we’ve covered brick layers (and the controversy around them) back in November. Of course, scripts that add functions to slicers, tend to get outdated once the slicers catch up.

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The Amiga No One Wanted

March 16, 2025 by 60 Comments

The Amiga has a lot of fans, and rightly so. The machine broke a lot of ground. However, according to [Dave Farquhar], one of the most popular models today — the Amiga 600 — was reviled in 1992 by just about everyone. One of the last Amigas, it was supposed to be a low-cost home computer but was really just a repackaged Amiga 1000, a machine already seven years old which, at the time, might as well have been decades. The industry was moving at lightspeed back then.

[Dave] takes a look at how Commodore succeeded and then lost their way by the time the 600 rolled out. Keep in mind that low-cost was a relative term. A $500 price tag was higher than it seems today and even at that price, you had no monitor or hard drive. So at a $1,000 for a practical system you might as well go for a PC which was taking off at the same time.

By the time Commodore closed down, they had plenty of 600s left, but they also had refurbished 500s, and for many, that was the better deal. It was similar to the 500 but had more features, like an external port and easy memory expansion. Of course, both machines used the Motorola 68000. While that CPU has a lot of great features, by 1992, the writing was on the wall that the Intel silicon would win.

Perhaps the biggest issue, though, was the graphics system. The original Amiga outclassed nearly everything at the time. But, again, the industry was moving fast. The 600 wasn’t that impressive compared to a VGA. And, as [Dave] points out, it couldn’t run DOOM.

There’s more to the post. Be sure to check it out. It is a great look into the history of the last of a great line of machines. Maybe if Commodore had embraced PC interfaces, but we’ll never know. [Dave’s] take on the end of the Amiga echos others we’ve read. It wasn’t exactly Doom that killed the Amiga. It was more complicated than that. But Doom would have helped.

Wire Recording Speaks Again

March 16, 2025 by 14 Comments

If you think of old recording technology, you probably think of magnetic tape, either in some kind of cassette or, maybe, on reels. But there’s an even older technology that recorded voice on hair-thin stainless steel wire and [Mr. Carlson] happened upon a recorded reel of wire. Can he extract the audio from it? Of course! You can see and hear the results in the video below.

It didn’t hurt that he had several junk wire recorders handy, although he thought none were working. It was still a good place to start since the heads and the feed are unusual to wire recorders. Since the recorder needed a little work, we also got a nice teardown of that old device. The machine was missing belts, but some rubber bands filled in for a short-term fix.

The tape head has to move to keep the wire spooled properly, and even with no audio, it is fun to watch the mechanism spin both reels and move up and down. But after probing the internal pieces, it turns out there actually was some audio, it just wasn’t making it to the speakers.

The audio was noisy and not the best reproduction, but not bad for a broken recorder that is probably at least 80 years old. We hope he takes the time to fully fix the old beast later, but for now, he did manage to hear what was “on the wire,” even though that has a totally different meaning than it usually does.

It is difficult to recover wire recordings, just as it will be difficult to read modern media one day. If you want to dive deep into the technology, we can help with that, too.

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Inside A “Budget” Current Probe

March 16, 2025 by 10 Comments

Current measurements are not as handy as voltage measurements. You typically need to either measure the voltage across something and do some math or break the circuit so a known resistor in your instrument develops a voltage your meter measures and converts for you. However, it is possible to get non-contact current probes. They are generally pricey, but [Kerry Wong] shows us one under $200 and, thus, budget compared to similar probes. Check out the review in the video below.

The OWON unit has three ranges: 4 A, 40 A, and 400 A. It claims a resolution of 10 mA and a bandwidth of 200 kHz. It requires a 9 V battery, which [Kerry] suspects won’t last very long given the rated power consumption number, although the measured draw was not as high as claimed. The specs aren’t great — this seems to be little more than a current probe meter with a connector for an oscilloscope, but if it meets your needs, that could be acceptable.

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A Look At The Panasonic FS-A1FM

March 16, 2025 by 12 Comments

MSX computers were not very common in the United States, and we didn’t know what we were missing when they were popular. [Re:Enthused] shows us what would have been a fine machine in its day: a Panasonic FS-A1FM. Have a look at the video below to see the like-new machine.

The machine isn’t just an ordinary MSX computer. The keyboard is certainly unique, and it has an integrated floppy drive and a 1200-baud modem. The case proudly proclaims that the floppy is both double-sided and double-density. Like most MSX computers, it had a plethora of ports and, of course, a cartridge slot. Unfortunately, the machine looks great but has some problems that have not been repaired yet, so we didn’t get to see it running properly.

He was able to get to the MSX-DOS prompt to show along with the BIOS menu. We hope he manages to get the keyboard working, and we were glad to see another computer from that era we had not seen before.

We don’t think anyone made one at the time, but we’ve seen a modern take on a luggable MSX. Of course, you can emulate the whole thing on a Pi and focus on the aesthetics.

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