When Is An Apple Laptop Not A Macbook? When It’s An Apple II

May 29, 2026 by Tyler August 21 Comments

Do you remember, some years ago, when that brand-new 8086-based laptop hit the shelves? Great for PC lovers, but not so fun for those on the fruitier side of the street. Well, the same Chinese firm that brought us the Book8086 are back, this time with an ‘Apple’ Laptop that is decidedly not a MacBook– the Book II is a dual-processor Apple II clone in a laptop form factor.

… but just look at all those DIPs on the inside. Authentically retro!

Dual processor? On an Apple II? It wasn’t that uncommon, back in the day — that’s what the Z80 softcard was, after all: a second processor that let you run CP/M and associated business applications, and this one has it built-in. It also has the 80-column video card, a second floppy controller, a printer interface, and a 16 kB ROM card for languages. That leaves two of the Apple’s expansion slots available, one of which is broken out externally on the back of the laptop, along with the printer and floppy ports.

Useful? Probably no more so than the NEC V20-based PC version. Still, those did find buyers and we have no doubt that this new laptop will, too. Especially since with the right expansion card, you might get this machine running DOS as well. Of course if you don’t feel like shelling out the quid or running an emulator, you can always roll your own Apple II on an FPGA.

Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip! We usually steer clear of product announcements like this, but [Stephen] figured we’d be interested in this one since we covered the then-new retro PC versions way back in 2023.

Medication Reminder Uses Only One Button

May 29, 2026 by Bryan Cockfield 13 Comments

As anyone who takes medicines regularly will attest to, the days have a tendency to blur together, making it hard to remember if you did something like take that day’s dose or not. There are plenty of products available to help keep track of medication reminders but many are overly complicated, so [Jeroen] built this one which keeps simplicity and usability as its core design principle.

[Jeroen] calls it the MedMinder, and it’s a small, compact, rectangular device with a four-character display meant to sit on a countertop. When it’s time to take a medicine, the display will show that medicine’s four-letter code until the user pushes the single button under the display, signalling that they’ve taken their dose. If many different medications have to be taken at the same time, it displays the first priority until the button is pushed, and then displays whichever one is next after that.

Programming is a little less straightforward, as the medications need to be added to the source code and uploaded to the Arduino that sits at the center of this build, but with the source code available this isn’t too difficult for someone with minimal experience with microcontrollers.

In an idealized world, technology should make our lives simpler or easier, and this small device goes a long way towards helping with that goal. Especially for an important but mundane task that can be surprisingly easy to lose track of. Although we glossed over the accuracy of this device’s clock in this article, we do have a comprehensive guide for selecting the right real-time clock for microcontrollers like this.

An Atic Atac Minimap For The ZX Spectrum

May 28, 2026 by Jenny List 1 Comment

The use of modern microcontrollers as add-on peripherals for 1980s home computers has delivered significant benefits and capabilities unimaginable in the days when those machines were new. A great example come from [Happy Little Diodes], who’s using a Pi Pico based peripheral for a Sinclair ZX Spectrum to provide something that looks far more modern, a hardware minimap for the iconic Spectrum game, Atic Atac.

The ZX expansion port provides all the bus signals from the Z80 microprocessor, and the peripheral uses a latch to capture Spectrum memory writes. Because the game’s operation is well known it can easily watch out for updates to the in-memory variable that contains the game room ID. It’s then a case of drawing the map with the player centered on the room the are in, for a much more 21st century game interface component.

Having been around when both the ZX and this game were new, we like this add-on, a lot. We can imagine it could relatively easily support other games, too.

Haven’t got a Spectrum? Never fear, you can make yourself one!

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Recycling Two XBox One Consoles Into A 10 GB USB Flash Drive

May 28, 2026 by Maya Posch 9 Comments

Amidst the ongoing RAM & storage apocalypses, Mad Max-esque scenes are unsurprisingly developing, with the eMMC recycling project by [Chase Fournier] from a pair of XBox One S (‘XBone’) mainboards being just one more example. These mainboards come equipped with a 5 GB eMMC chip installed, alongside 8 GB of DDR3.

Removing the eMMC chips isn’t that complicated and after some reballing fun the chips were both installed on a carrier board with a Norelsys NS1081 controller IC. This provides a USB 3.0 interface and can connect to up to four SD or eMMC memories, with here just two channels used.

Although the eMMC testing device didn’t seem too happy with either chip, after mounting them on the PCB the controller could be programmed and saw both eMMC packages for a grand total of 10 GB storage.

Sequential read performance in CrystalDiskMark was about 140 MB/s while write performance was about 64 MB/s, which is zippy enough for smaller files. Not that you can store more than 10 GB on this USB drive anyway.

Turning the DDR3 ICs on the mainboard into proper DIMM or SODIMM sticks would also be an idea, as even such older memory tech keeps ramping up in demand. As for the XBone X variant with its 12 of GDDR5, that’s probably a harder proposition to repurpose, but recycling old consoles suddenly has become a lot more exciting.

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Camping On Unconventional Watercraft

May 28, 2026 by Bryan Cockfield 20 Comments

The fjords of Norway are world famous for their beauty, but even though the word itself is Norwegian, there are fjords all over the world in areas that used to be covered in glaciers. One of these areas is the Pacific Northwest of North America, we herit’s actually possible to travel by boat from the Seattle area all the way into Alaska without going to the Pacific Ocean, and although plenty of people make this journey by boat, [Matt] is planning on doing this journey on a jet ski with a custom camper on the back.

Normally a jet ski wouldn’t be the ideal platform for a multi-day on-boat adventure because of their size, but [Matt] found perhaps the largest jet ski ever made and he got a deal on it since it had previously been wrecked. Once he repaired the hull damage, he cut a sheet of plywood in half and put a hinge in the middle so it can unfold over the top of the jet ski but fold it away when he’s traveling. With the basic concept in place he took it right out on the water to a campsite before finalizing the construction of the rest of the tent, including the installation of a door, a window, and some interior lighting.

During that first night, a storm cropped up and pushed the craft out to shore while [Matt] was sleeping, so after realizing, waking up, and motoring back to shore, he made sure to tie the craft to a rock to avoid similar situations before going back to sleep. But besides some motion sickness which prevented him from cooking inside his camper, the rest of the adventure went off without a hitch. Before taking it on the Inside Passage he has been thinking of a few improvements like outriggers to keep it from rocking while he sleeps. [Matt] is no stranger to unusual camper builds, though, we recently featured his other camper which is an electric car converted to explore abandoned railroads.

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Attack Of The Atomic Oxygen

May 28, 2026 by Al Williams 19 Comments

While designing anything for operation in space has its challenges, there is at least one thing that is more of a problem for objects in Earth orbit than for deep-space probes: atomic oxygen. We like oxygen because we need it to live, but it is also highly reactive as a single atom. Luckily, on Earth, most of what we breathe is O₂. [Space Daily] talks about the challenges of the International Space Station dealing with the “space weather” of atomic oxygen in low Earth orbit.

Part of the problem is that even when we know better, we tend to think of the atmosphere coming to an abrupt end and space being a hard vacuum. But in reality, the atmosphere gradually dissipates, and at “only” 400 km above the Earth, the Space Station is really flying through a very thin atmosphere.

To compound the problem, this is above the ozone layer, so the Sun’s UV light rips O₂ into single oxygen atoms. Over time, these free oxygen atoms can affect many parts of a spacecraft exposed to them. Engineers first noticed that materials recovered from spacecraft had more damage and changes to material properties on the pieces facing the direction of travel. NASA has spent years testing different materials by mounting trays of different material samples outside the ISS.

Carbon-based polymers take a big hit from atomic oxygen exposure. Polymide film is frequently used, but it erodes with exposure. Carbon composites also lose mass. Other materials change in other ways. For example, an optical surface may roughen with exposure.

The usual answer is to over-design for mission objectives or to cover certain polymers with coatings like silicon dioxide or aluminum oxide, which are not as reactive to free oxygen. For a long-duration mission like the ISS, you may have to pay special attention to the materials in use. Very low satellites also need special care, as there is more oxygen in lower orbits.

There are other effects, too, such as extreme thermal cycles, debris strikes, and other indignities that space-traveling materials must withstand. But in deep space, atomic oxygen is a rare issue. Until, at least, we go somewhere else that has a lot of oxygen.