Originally known as FORTRAN, but written in lower case since the 1990s with Fortran 90, this language was developed initially by John Backus as a way to make writing programs for the IBM 704 mainframe easier. The 704 was a 1954 mainframe with the honor of being the first mass-produced computer that supported hardware-based floating […]
Three-axis 3D printing has been with us long enough that everybody knows the limitations, but so far, adding extra axes has been very much a niche endeavor. [Daniel] at Fractal Robotics wants to change that, with the Fractal 5 Pro 5-axis printer, and its corresponding Fractal Cortex slicer. The printer looks like an extra-beefy Voron […]
The MOS Technology 6502 is a microprocessor which casts a long shadow over the world of computing. Many of you will know it as the beating heart of so many famous 8-bit machines from the likes of Commodore, Apple, Acorn, and more, and it has retained enough success for a version to remain in production […]
What should your first instinct be when the room catches on fire? Maybe get out of the room, pull an alarm, and have a disco party? Not your first instinct? Well, this seemed pretty obvious to [Flying-Toast], who retrofitted an old fire alarm to activate a personal disco party. After finding a fire alarm being […]
We all know that it’s easy to get caught out by fake electronic components these days, with everything from microcontrollers to specialized ASICs being fair game. More recently, retro components that were considered obsolete decades ago are now becoming increasingly popular, with the unijunction transistor (UJT) a surprising example of this. The [En Clave de […]
A wristwatch featuring the TDA7000 FM radio receiver IC. (Credit: Philips Technical Review) During the 1980s a lot of consumer devices suddenly got a lot smaller as large-scale integration using semiconductor technology took off. This included radios, with Philips’ TDA7000 FM radio receiver IC being the first to cram most of what you’d need for […]
The Apple II was made in great numbers, as was the Commodore 64. But the Mimic Spartan? It was a weird Apple II clone that you needed a Commodore 64 to use. [ARC Javmaster] has found one of these obscure machines and has set about bringing it back to life. Check out the video below. […]