When the AMSAT-OSCAR 7 (AO-7) amateur radio satellite was launched in 1974, its expected lifespan was about five years. The plucky little satellite made it to 1981 when a battery failure caused it to be written off as dead. Then, in 2002 it came back to life. The prevailing theory being that one of the […]
You might think you don’t need a hearing aid, and you might be right. But in general, hearing loss eventually comes to all of us. In fact, you progressively lose hearing every year, which is why kids can have high-pitched ringtones their parents can’t hear. You’d think hearing aids would be pretty simple, right? After […]
In the heart of Manchester, UK, a groundbreaking event took place in 1948: the first modern computer, known as the Manchester Baby, ran its very first program. The Baby’s ability to execute stored programs, developed with guidance from John von Neumann’s theory, marks it as a pioneer in the digital age. This fascinating chapter in […]
Over the decades there have been many denominations coined to classify computer systems, usually when they got used in different fields or technological improvements caused significant shifts. While the very first electronic computers were very limited and often not programmable, they would soon morph into something that we’d recognize today as a computer, starting with […]
Somewhere between the period of 1999 and 2007 a plague swept through the world, devastating lives and businesses. Identified by a scourge of electrolytic capacitors violently exploding or splurging their liquid electrolyte guts all over the PCB, it led to a lot of finger pointing and accusations of stolen electrolyte formulas. In a recent video […]
If you think about military crypto machines, you probably think about the infamous Enigma machine. However, as [Christos T.] reminds us, there were many others and, in particular, the production of a “combined cipher” machine for the US and the UK to use for a variety of purposes. The story opens in 1941 when ships […]
If you came of age in the 1990s, you’ll remember the unmistakable auditory handshake of an analog modem negotiating its connection via the plain old telephone system. That cacophony of screeches and hisses was the result of careful engineering. They allowed digital data to travel down phone lines that were only ever built to carry […]
The original locking wheel. Shopping carts are surprisingly expensive. Prices range up to about $300 for a cart, which may seem like a lot, but they have to be pretty rugged and are made to work for decades. Plastic carts are cheaper, but not by much. A basic metal cart can be had for about […]
Did you know that the land of flat-pack furniture and Saab automobiles played a serious role in the development of minicomputers, the forerunners of our home computers? If not, read on for a bit of history. You can also go ahead and watch the video below, which tells it all with a ton of dug […]
We like drinking out of glass. In many ways, it’s an ideal material for the job. It’s hard-wearing, and inert in most respects. It doesn’t interact with the beverages you put in it, and it’s easy to clean. The only problem is that it’s rather easy to break. Despite its major weakness, glass still reigns […]