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Review of the Kinesis Advantage360 Professional
The Advantage360 Professional is the successor to the well-known Advantage2. It comes with several new features, such as Adjustable Split, Wireless connection, Tenting, ZMK (highly customizable firmware), and many other minor things. In this blog post, I will explain the significant design changes and my experiences…
RISC in 2022
You are seeing this because the administrator of this website has set up Anubis to protect the server against the scourge of AI companies aggressively scraping websites . This can and does cause downtime for the websites, which makes their resources inaccessible for everyone.
Refurb Weekend: PowerBook 1400
The PowerBook 1400 is, and remains, my favourite laptop. It was everything the PowerBook 5300 should have been and more. It was my first l...
NEC’s Tetris Processor
Tetris is a classic time-waster, both in and outside of the office. What good is any computing device if it can’t play this game? Tokyo System House certainly thought so, and ported it to the NEC mini5 line of CP/M-based word processors. Let’s preserve it for future generations and then see what it’s like!
Ryzen 7000 amdgpu boot hang
So you decided to build a brand new system using all the latest and coolest tech, so you buy a Ryzen 7000 series Zen 4 CPU, like the Ryzen 7700X that I picked, with a new mother board and DDR5 memory
1956 Philips 353A Bakelite Vacuum Tube Radio Repair and Restoration
A few months ago I bought my first ever vacuum tube radio, a 1956 Philips 353A bakelite AM/FM set, which is (currently) the oldest item in my collection. I’ve been wanting to get into vintage radio…
Cash, Canadians and CPUs: Intel's 'Lost' Early Microprocessor
The story of Microsystems International and the Intel 4005
Pimping my Casio with Oddly Specific Objects' alternate motherboard and firmware
Some time ago I bought a replacement motherboard for my classic Casio F-91W from Crowd Supply. The project keeps the original Casio LCD but...
Recovering a password-protected ThinkPad T60
An illustrated overview about the process of clearing the supervisor password from a ThinkPad T60, based on guides that some smart and persistent people have written.
DIY out-of-band management: remote power button
I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to make it possible to push a PC’s power button remotely via MQTT by wiring up an ESP32 microcontroller, a MOSFET, a resistor, and a few jumper wires. While a commercial solution like IPMI offers many more features like remote serial, or remote image mounting, this DIY…
Matter – Protocol to connect compatible devices and systems with one another
The Connectivity Standards Alliance has certified and released the first version of the Matter smart home interoperability protocol Tuesday and I couldn’t be happier. This means that member companies can now put their devices through the certification protocol and get a badge showing that their products are Matter…
Potential Issues of Using a USB Powerbank as a UPS (2021)
On my recent review of the Blitzwolf BW-P12 10000mAh Power Bank, a reader commented asking whether that particular power bank could be used as a makeshift uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for USB…
Testing a Cheap ExpressCard to NVMe SSD Adapter on My ThinkPad T430
I got curious about an ExpressCard to NVMe M.2 NGFF adapter I saw on Reddit, so I got one to try out myself, ending up with a total of 4 SSD-s on my ThinkPad T430. Yes, four.
You can't buy a Raspberry Pi right now
...or at least, not without a lot of patience or a fat wallet. But why? And are there any signs Raspberry Pis will become available to the general public again soon? To be clear, I'm speaking of the mainstream SBC Raspberry Pis, like the Pi 4 model B, the Compute Module 4, the Pi Zero 2 W, and even in many cases the…
The 'Egg' Laptop
When I was kids, I draw my perfect laptop PC to note. At that time, I couldn’t have the laptop. But, now I can start my project!
Eye-tracking is a missing input device for VR experiences
So you want to shoot lasers from your eyes, hmm?
Many indoor air quality sensor products are a scam
I have not posted for a very long time. Writeups on this site often take dozens of hours. Time for something lower effort!
The MIPS ThinkPad, Kind Of
Pop quiz: what classic brand of laptop is this? I'll give you another hint. Bright-red TrackPoint and mouse button trim, classic keybo...
We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
You can’t have a 4-slot GPU. You just can’t. We have finally left sanity behind, with nvidia’s 4000 series cards yielding a “clown car” of absurd GPU designs, as GamersNexus put it. These cards are so huge they need “GPU Support Sticks”, which are an actual real thing now. The fact that we insist on relegating the GPU…
Pcmcia Pico W Card
My fascination with PCMCIA cards was created out of “necessity”. Most of my retro computing interest revolves around networking, and I wanted something that could natively attach to modern Wifi networks without the need to maintain an old linksys router just for my retro computers. There are many ways to do this, I…
Using a Canon EOS camera as a webcam in Debian
Learn how to use your Canon EOS camera as a webcam on Debian Linux with secure boot enabled. Step-by-step guide for installing dependencies, signing the v4l2loopback module, and using the camera in applications. Works with many camera brands including Canon, Fuji, HP, Kodak, Nikon, Pentax, Sanyo, and Sony.
The tyranny of the supertweeter
So-called "filter bubbles" aren't necessary; it's enough that some people just tweet more.
Confirmed the MOS 7600/7601 Pong chip is a true microcontroller
In a previous article I discussed the MOS 7600 and 7601 "Pong in a chip" ICs, manufactured by MOS Technology (of the famous 6502) and act...
BliKVM PCIe puts a computer in your computer
This is the BliKVM PCIe, a full computer on a PCI Express card. This is an IP KVM (Internet Protocol Keyboard-Video-Mouse) that can be put inside another computer or server. Most server motherboards already have remote 'lights-out' management functionality built in. Most frequently this is referred to as IPMI…
Crazy Thin ‘Deep Insert’ ATM Skimmers
A number of financial institutions in and around New York City are dealing with a rash of super-thin “deep insert” skimming devices designed to fit inside the mouth of an ATM’s card acceptance slot. The card skimmers are paired with tiny pinhole cameras that are cleverly disguised as part of the cash machine. Here’s a…
iPhone 14 Pro Camera Review: Scotland
The iPhone 14 Pro's 48-megapixel camera in the Scottish Highlands — hiking, biking, and boating around the Dunton Kilchoan Estate.