If you’ve ever looked at the bottom of a bank check, you probably glanced over some strangely formed numbers? If you’re a fan of science fiction or retro computers, you’ve probably spotted the same figures on any number of books from the 1980s. They’re mostly readable, but they’re chunky and thin in places you don’t […]
The BASIC language may be considered old-hat here in 2025, and the days when a computer came as a matter of course with a BASIC interpreter are far behind us, but it can still provide many hours of challenge and fun. Even with our love of all things 8-bit, though, we’re still somewhat blown away […]
Mechanical switches are pretty easy to understand—the contacts touch, the current flows, and Bob is, presumably, your uncle. But what about soft switches? Well, they’re not that difficult to understand either, as explained by [EDN]. You can build a touch switch quite easily with old-school chips. The traditional softswitch takes input from a momentary single-pole […]
We’ve all been there. That sad day when the zipper on our favorite hoodie, bag, or pair of pants breaks in some seemingly irreparable way. But there is hope, and [Magic Stitches] is gonna show you how to make some common repairs using household items and, in some cases, just a little bit of easy […]
LEDs were once little more than weedy little indicators with low light output. Today, they’re absolute powerhouses, efficiently turning a flow of electrons into a searing beam of light. Despite their efficiency, they can still put out a fair whack of heat. Thus, if you’re building a powerful flashlight like [CrazyScience], you might wanna throw […]
The Camp Snap is a simple fixed-focus digital camera with only an optical viewfinder and a shot counter, which has become a surprise hit among photography enthusiasts for its similarity to a disposable film camera. [Snappiness] has one, and also having a liking for waist-level viewfinders as found on twin-lens reflex cameras, decided to make […]
The Free Software Foundation is holding an auction to celebrate its 40th anniversary. You can bid on the original sketch of the GNU head by [Etienne Suvasa] and [Richard Stallman’s] Internet Hall of Fame medal. There are some other awards, including the FSF’s 1999 Norbert Wiener Award. There’s even a katana that symbolizes the fight […]
A significant event in the world of high-power electrical engineering is under way this weekend, as the three Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, disconnect their common power grid from the Russian system, and hook it up to the European one. It’s a move replete with geopolitical significance, but it’s fascinating from our point of […]
Prolific woodworking YouTuber [Matthias Wandel] makes some awesome mechanical contraptions, and isn’t afraid of computers, but has never been a fan of CNC machines in the woodshop. He’s never had one either, so until now he couldn’t really talk. But he had the parts on hand, so he built a wooden CNC router. It’s lovely. […]