I've recently thought a lot about the essay The computer built to last 50 years by Ploum. It's a delightful piece about the author's ideal, long-lasting computational platform - precisely the thing I enjoy reading. It's got a nice blend of slow tech and libre computing advocacy mixed with personal ponderings centered…
Where the last two posts were primarily about software ( Navidrome and beets , respectively), this post will be more about hardware (and a bit of software to control it). Hopefully it’ll be useful to others with older sound hardware, especially those who are compelled (as I am) to avoid buying a “connected” device…
I found this on a security-related Slack (shared with permission). It launched an entertaining discussion about the risks of taking a potentially fake FIDO token. We all know the risks of taking a free USB drive and shoving it in our computer, right? USB sticks can install software, act as a keylogger, transmit data…
In this blog post, I reverse-engineer a hybrid module that was used for ground-testing of equipment from the Apollo space program. But fir...
Sometimes people ask me: “Nicole, how do you convert a Master System game to the NES?”, or some other combination of game consoles. And the answer is invaria...
I edit videos non-stop nowadays. In a former life, I had a 2 TB backup volume and that stored my entire digital life—all my photos, family video clips, and every bit of code and text I'd ever written. Video is a different beast, entirely. Every minute of 4K ProRes LT footage (which is a very lightweight format…
A tabletop LED display for quiet data
So you've got your hands on a late 1980s Minitel 1B (or something slightly later) and then you realize that the entire Minitel network shut ...
One of the more common arguments you hear in contemporary computer security circles is about hardware trust and embedded controllers. Technologies like Intel ME, the ARM Secure Element, TPMs, etc, remind us that the architecture of the modern computer is complex and not entirely under our control. A typical modern…
It is the best of times for electronic ink but it is the worst of times for actually reading eBooks.
The 8086 microprocessor is one of the most important chips ever created; it started the x86 architecture that still dominates desktop and ...
The Apple Studio Display is, unquestionably, a very good monitor. But the real question is, should you pay €1,800+ for it? I have been asking that question myself for the past ten days. Today I decided that while I can't recommend it, I wil
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…
An expensive and unreliable way to record low quality videos!
The IBM 1401 team at the Computer History Museum accumulates a lot of mystery components from donations and other sources. While going thr...
Is exFAT as fragile as some say?
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...
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…
I’m not a POWER (or recently: Power) expert, only an enthusiastic user and advocate. Still, in the past couple of weeks a number of people from around the world asked my opinion how the POWER architecture could be kept relevant. This blog is really just an opinion, as I do not have the financial means to go ahead. It…
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...
Buying a new monitor is stressful because there's so many things to understand. After reading this article, you will know what to look for.
This post is going to be a bit different from my usual posts. It’s still about computers, but it’s about a different type of computer: the computer modules in my 2009 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup. Vehicles these days have lots of computers in them. I’ve historically been afraid to mess too much with them in fear of screwing…
Scott Mabin's blog
Apple's first product was the Apple-1 computer, introduced in 1976. This early microcomputer used an unusual type of storage for its disp...
Once upon a time, microcomputers were simple and easy to understand. So simple in fact that a kid like me, with no computer experience whatsoever, could actually understand them, build them, program them, and put them to work in his very own projects!
So, there you are, the proud parents of a beautiful new baby, and you can hardly contain your excitement as you unwrap that new 35mm camera kit you bought to document your child’s early years. Although you’ve had a point-and-shoot camera for a while, you wanted to step up to a “real” camera for the kind of quality…
Fast compact external SSDs are prone to thermal throttling. This is demonstrated during tests writing 96 files, when transfer rates fell from 2 GB/s to around 700 MB/s.
But there’s only one slot, you say? It’s all a matter of using a clever part to adapt a pass-through.
