You can read e-books on just about anything—your tablet, your smartphone, or even your PC. However, the interface can be lacking somewhat compared to a traditional book—on a computer, you have to use the keyboard or mouse to flip the pages. Alternatively, you could do what [NovemberKou] did, and build a dedicated page-turning device. The […]
It’s becoming somewhat of a running gag that any device or object will be made ‘smart’ these days, whether it’s a phone, TV, refrigerator, home thermostat, headphones or glasses. This generally means somehow cramming a computer, display, camera and other components into the unsuspecting device, with the overarching goal of somehow making it more useful […]
Miniaturization is a trend that comes and goes in the cellular phone space. For a while, our phones were all getting smaller, then they started getting bigger again as screens expanded to show us ever more content and advertising. The iPhone air is going back the other way, with a design that aims to sell […]
Repairing vintage computers is bread-and-butter for many of us around here. The machines themselves tend to be fairly fixable, assuming spare parts are available and there hasn’t been too much physical damage. Peripherals can be another matter, though. Since they interface with the real world they can have more esoteric problems that aren’t always solvable. […]
Often, we face tedious tasks with no way around them. Sometimes, you just have to grit your teeth and push through. But small tweaks can make the onerous task a bit easier to handle. [James Bowman] sent in his latest quick project that helps him fold small boxes more efficiently. To fulfill orders on his […]
Ok, we’ll admit it. If you asked us what the first transistorized computer was, we would have guessed it was the TC from the University of Manchester. After all, Dr. Wilkes and company were at the forefront and had built Baby and EDSAC, which, of course, didn’t use transistors. To be clear, we would have […]
Remember AOL? For a lot of folks, America Online was their first ISP, the place where they got their first exposure to the Internet, or at least a highly curated version of it. Remembered by the cool kids mainly as the place that the normies used as their ISP and for the mark of shame […]
[Too Many Wires] has a custom computer he’s building. He wanted a mouse, but USB is a bit of a stretch for the fledgling computer. We might have opted for PS/2, but he went for something even older: a serial mouse connected with a DE-9 (colloquially, a DB-9). Check it out in his recent video […]