Although not intended to be a game console, the CD-i would see a a couple of games released for it that would cement its position in gaming history as the butt of countless jokes, some of which still make Nintendo upset to this day. That aside, it’s still a fascinating glimpse at the CD-based multimedia […]
One of the good things about simulating circuits is that you can easily change component values trivially. In the real world, you might use a potentiometer or a pot to provide an adjustable value. However, as [Ralph] discovered, there’s no pot component in LTSpice. At first, he cobbled up a fake pot with two resistors, […]
Famously, the save icon on most computer user interfaces references a fairly obsolete piece of technology: the venerable floppy disk. It’s likely that most people below the age of about 30 have never interacted with one of these once-ubiquitous storage devices, so much so that many don’t recognize the object within the save icon itself […]
Over on YouTube [Kiss Analog] reviews the New Zoyi ZT-QB9 Smart Clamp meter. If you’re putting together an electronics lab from scratch you absolutely must get a multimeter to start. A typical multimeter will be able to do current measurements but it will require you to break the circuit you’re measuring and interface it to […]
For switching high-powered loads from a microcontroller, or for switching AC loads in general, most of us will reach into the parts bin and pull out a generic relay of some sort. Relays are fundamental, proven technologies to safely switch all kinds of loads. They do have their downsides, though, so if you need silent […]
[Dr Ali Shirsavar] from Biricha Digital runs us through How to Select the Perfect Output Capacitor for Your Power Supply. Your switching-mode power supply (SMPS) will require an output capacitor both to iron out voltage swings due to loading and to attenuate ripple caused by switching. In this video we learn how to calculate the […]
Internals of the 1900 Evershed & Vignoles Ltd 1 ohm resistance standard. (Credit: Three-phase, YouTube) Resistance standards are incredibly useful, but like so many precision references they require regular calibration, maintenance and certification to ensure that they stay within their datasheet tolerances. This raises the question of how well a resistance standard from the year […]
[Mike Stewart] powers up a thrust meter from an Apollo lunar module. This bit of kit passed inspection on September 25, 1969. Fortunately [Mike] was able to dig up some old documentation which included the pin numbers. Score! It’s fun to see the various revisions this humble meter went through. Some of the latest revisions […]
[Codeolences] tells us about the FORBIDDEN Soviet Computer That Defied Binary Logic. The Setun, the world’s first ternary computer, was developed at Moscow State University in 1958. Its troubled and short-lived history is covered in the video. The machine itself uses “trits” (ternary digits) instead of “bits” (binary digits). When your digits have three discrete […]
The invention of sprites triggered a major shift in video game design, enabling games with independent moving objects and richer graphics despite the limitations of early video gaming hardware. As a result, hardware design was specifically built to manipulate sprites, and generally as new generations of hardware were produced the number of sprites a system […]