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Here be dragons: Preventing static damage, latchup, and metastability in the 386
I've been reverse-engineering the Intel 386 processor (from 1985), and I've come across some interesting circuits for the chip's input/outpu...
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,805 posts.
Hardware & Electronics
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BBC Micro, ancestor to ARM
Meet my BBC Master, plus 5 1/4" floppy disk drive, and three-button mouse
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Passive Microwave Repeaters
One of the most significant single advancements in telecommunications technology was the development of microwave radio. Essentially an evolution of radar, the middle of the Second World War saw the first practical microwave telephone system. By the time Japan surrendered, AT&T had largely abandoned their plan to…
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An IRC-Enabled Lawn Mower (2021)
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat . Invented in the late 1980s, it's one of the oldest and most popular realtime chat protocols. Despite being over 30 years old, it's still actively developed, and hundreds of thousands of people still use it to chat every day.
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Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator
The Walkie-Textie is a simple handheld device with a 12-key keypad and OLED display that allows you to send and receive text messages using the LoRa wireless protocol. It's ideal for situations where there's no mobile signal, such as when you're camping or hiking in a remote area, when you don't want the cost of a…
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Candle Flame Oscillations as a Clock
Todays candles have been optimized for millenia not to flicker. But it turns out when we bundle three of them together, we can undo all of these optimizations and the resulting triplet will start t…
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Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?
How Chinas strategic focus on 3D printing and patent incentives since 2020 created a "minefield".
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Blood oxygen monitoring returning to Apple Watch in the US
Apple will introduce a redesigned Blood Oxygen feature for some Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 users.
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Pebble Time 2* Design Reveal
It's real and it's magnificent
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ARM adds neural accelerators to GPUs
Explore Arm Neural Technology, the first to integrate neural accelerators into GPUs, enhancing mobile graphics with AI.
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What's the strongest AI model you can train on a laptop in five minutes?
What’s the strongest model I can train on my MacBook Pro in five minutes? I’ll give the answer upfront: the best 5-minute model I could train was a ~1.8M-param…
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Vanishing from Hyundai’s data network
Finding and disabling the cellular modem for BlueLink in the Kona EV
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How Boom uses software to accelerate hardware development
How Boom Supersonic uses software to accelerate hardware development
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A CT scanner reveals surprises inside the 386 processor's ceramic package
Intel released the 386 processor in 1985, the first 32-bit chip in the x86 line. This chip was packaged in a ceramic square with 132 gold-pl...
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The Framework Desktop is a beast
I've been running the Framework Desktop for a few months here in Copenhagen now. It's an incredible machine. It's completely quiet, even under heavy, stress-all-cores load. It's tiny too, at just 4.5L of volume, especially compared to my old beautiful but bulky North tower running the 7950X — yet it's faster! And…
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The Whispering Earring
Cleaner, easier-to-reference repo of Scott Alexander’s The Whispering Earring (that’s the Schelling title, real title below). Original from livejournal is ba...
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We'd be better off with 9-bit bytes
A number of 70s computing systems had nine-bit bytes, most prominently the PDP-10, but today 1 [ 1 Apparently, it was the System/360 that really set the standard here. ] all systems use 8-bit bytes and that now seems natural. 2 [ 2 Though you still see RFCs use "octet", and the C standard has a CHAR_BITS macro, to…
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I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C
Look, I'm an idiot. I know that, you know that, and the man on the moon knows that. Let's not get into why I'm an idiot; let's just accept that I have my peculiarities and you have yours. My idiocy is a quest to make sure all my portable electronics can recharge using USB-C. Modern smartwatches are tiny and they do a…
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Wired Called Our AirGradient Monitor 'Not Recommended' over a Broken Display
A detailed critique of WIRED's AirGradient ONE review, focusing on methodology, product understanding, and what trustworthy monitor reviews require.
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This Old SGI: notes and memoirs on the Silicon Graphics 4D series (1996)
I am posting this assortment of notes and observations as a kind of "thank you" to the numerous people who have replied to my posts in the past. The free flow of information is the life-blood of the internet community, and this is my feeble attempt to maintain that flow, while at the same time repaying the kindness…
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Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU
A 1980s GE coffee maker converted into a working computer. Part art, part absurd machine, fully functional.
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MacBook Pro Insomnia
Update (01.08.2025): fixed broken link, typo, clarified problematic behaviour For a number of years now I have a MacBook Pro Silicon M1 Max. It worked beautifully. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I started noticing that the battery drained over night when I left the notebook somewhere, not connected to power. This got…
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Build Your Own Minisforum N5 Inspired Mini NAS
Print your own 5-bay N5 Mini NAS! Inspired by the Minisforum N5, this 175mm x 175mm design fits most small beds—use any mini PC you prefer.
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Learning basic electronics by building fireflies
From missing real fireflies to learning basic electronics and building my own blinking "fireflies"
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Robot hand could harvest blackberries better than humans
The soft robotic gripper developed at the U of A received a U.S. patent.
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I hacked my washing machine
I ran out of characters for microblogging so this is where the big words go
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Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops
Linaro Connect 2025 showcases progress in bringing Linux on Snapdragon-Powered Devices
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