31
Damnit I slipped and (mostly) built an Amiga 500
EDIT - the original article has an image of the PCB with the floppy power connector mounted the WRONG WAY. This is the INCORRECT WAY. Do NO...
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 421 posts.
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Korg makes music with Raspberry Pi
Think of synth music, racks of keyboards, or massive DJ rigs, and Korg comes to mind. Raspberry Pi is at the heart of some of its new synthesizers.
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Apple launches Self Service Repair in Europe
Customers in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK can purchase genuine Apple parts and tools.
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New process allows 3-D printing of microscale metallic parts
Engineers infuse a hydrogel structure with a metal solution and then use heat and chemical reactions to leave only the metal behind.
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How to estimate an SSD’s working life
The life of an SSD should be more predictable than a hard disk. All you need is its TBW, and the total amount of data written to it so far.
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How the 8086 processor's microcode engine works
The 8086 microprocessor was a groundbreaking processor introduced by Intel in 1978. It led to the x86 architecture that still dominates de...
38
Hijacking infrared to make a dumb device smart
I own a very old ‘flat’ screen television from 2009. One of the reason this TV is still kicking around is because I have a strange sentimental affection for it. Another is that I have written automation for it that works really well and it would be a pain to migrate away from it.
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CT scan shows there's still lots of toner left in an “empty” cartridge
CT scans of a new and "empty" toner cartridge reveal a 5% operating window, an 80% air hopper, and the real reason shaking the cartridge always works.
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Quarter-Scale Retrocomputing
Creating a quarter-scale replica of the iconic BeBox computer, complete with blinkenlights and custom case design
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How do transistors work, anyway?
The internet is littered with explanations of how transistors work. Most of them don't really explain anything.
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Notes on ExFAT and Reliability (2021)
Is exFAT as fragile as some say?
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The Oceanic+ app comes to Apple Watch Ultra
Today, the Oceanic+ app comes to Apple Watch Ultra, turning Apple’s most rugged watch into a fully capable, easy-to-use dive computer.
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A bug fix in the 8086 microprocessor, revealed in the die's silicon
The 8086 microprocessor was a groundbreaking processor introduced by Intel in 1978. It led to the x86 architecture that still dominates de...
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Converting a WW2-Era Engine Cowl Flaps Indicator into a USB Peripheral
General Electric 8DJ4PBV quad engine cowling indicator with PIC16F1459 and MCP41HV31-502 board to its right. A Microsoft Surface in the background is controlling the indicators via USB.
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New two-factor authenticator: Commodore 64
Multi-factor authentication is ripe for disruption. SMS 2FA is inherently defective. Phone authenticators get stolen. Security tokens get lo...
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I over-engineered a Fast Fourier Transform for Arduino
PhD student in Photophysics
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More than you cared to know about PC fans
Fans, an active cooling element, move air in a system. Heat must be removed from the site of its production, and from the system as a whole. A fan increases heat convection with surrounding air via airflow. Air is at its highest pressure immediately in front of the fan, and at lowest pressure immediately behind it.
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Disassembling an Amazon Blink Mini camera
I used Ghidra twice, so that means I'm officially an expert in reverse engineering
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A secret Apple Silicon extension to accommodate an Intel 8080 artifact
Lately I’ve been spending time on Mastodon for … reasons. Here’s my link: https://oldbytes.space/@blakespot. In my recently active time on the platform, I have found quite a few excellent retrocomputing-related posts by creative members of the community. One such post, … Continue reading →
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Adding a hinge to a Game Boy that God never intended
The Game Boy Pocket SP
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Rimac Nevera Hits 412kph to Become World’s Fastest Production Electric Car
The Rimac Nevera has set a top speed of 412kph (258mph), making it the fastest electric production car in the world.
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Emergency SOS via satellite
Apple’s groundbreaking safety service Emergency SOS via satellite becomes available to customers in the US and Canada starting today.
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Your Next Smart Home Device is a $30 Used Kindle
If you know how to use a command line, you can build one
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The unusual bootstrap drivers inside the 8086 microprocessor chip
The 8086 microprocessor is one of the most important chips ever created; it started the x86 architecture that still dominates desktop and ...
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Building an e-ink weather display for our home
Building a battery powered e-ink weather forecast display for our home. This was a fun Raspberry Pi project.
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Why is Rosetta 2 fast?
Rosetta 2 is remarkably fast when compared to other x86-on-ARM emulators. I’ve spent a little time looking at how it works, out of idle curiosity, and found it to be quite unusual, so I figur…
58
The Sad Saga of the 500 MHz Power Mac G4
In August 1999, Apple announced the first Power Mac G4: 1 The Power Mac G4 is powered by the revolutionary new PowerPC G4 chip architected by Apple, Motorola and IBM, and is the first personal computer in history to deliver supercomputer-level performance of over one billion floating-point operations per second. The…
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My DIY ergonomic travel workstation with aluminum and magnets
Ever since moving from NYC to SF to work at Anthropic I’ve been visiting NYC and working remotely quite often. So I designed myself a travel workstation that lets me get the best of ergonomics and packability.
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Recreating sci-fi terminals using VHS
I heard about VHS recently. It’s a tool for creating recordings of command-line tools, so you can create little demos and tutorials about how to use them. You can write a script to run comman…