The human eye’s color perception is notoriously variable (see, for example, the famous dress), which makes it difficult to standardize colours. This is where spectrophotometers come in: they measure colours reliably and repeatably, and can match them against a library of standard colors. Unfortunately, they tend to be expensive, so when Hackaday’s own [Adam Zeloof] […]
Here’s something fun from our hacker [Piers]: Software Defined ROMs. In this series of three videos, [Piers] runs us through what a software defined ROM is, how to make them, and then how to use them. As [Piers] explains, one frustration a retro technician will face is a failed ROM chip. In the era he’s […]
The Z80 might be decades obsolete and a few years out of production, but it’s absolutely a case of “gone but not forgotten” in the hacker world. Case in point is SymbOS, a multitasking OS for Z80 machines by Amstrad, Sinclair, and the MSX2 family of computers that updated to version 4.0 earlier this year. […]
Everything fails eventually, but moving parts fail fastest of all– and optical drives seemingly more than others, at least in our experience. Even when they work, vintage drives often have trouble with CD-R, and original media isn’t always easy to find. That’s why it’s so wonderful that [polpo]’s RP2040 ISA card, the PicoGUS 2.0, now […]
Have you ever seen a toy and said “That wants to be a deck”? [Attoparsec] did, when his eyes fell upon the Little Talking Scholar, a punch card driven toy from the 1980s. It’s now a punch card driven cyberdeck. The punch card interface on the toy is only six bits, but sixty-four application cards […]
Even within a single type of FDM filament there is an overwhelming amount of choice. Take for example Elegoo’s PETG filament offerings, which include such varieties like ‘Pro’ and ‘Rapid’. Both cost the same, but is there a reason to prefer one over the other, perhaps even just for specific applications? To test this, [Dr. […]
For as mysterious, fascinating, and beautiful as lightning is at a distance, it’s not exactly a peaceful phenomenon up close. Not many things are built to withstand millions of volts and tens to hundreds of thousands of amps. Unsurprisingly, there’s a huge amount of effort put into lightning protection systems for equipment and resources that […]
After getting a new car, [Solo Pilot] missed the automatic garage door opening and closing system their old car had. So they set about building their own, called GarageMinder. On the project page you will find a bill of materials, schematics, and some notes about the approach taken in various versions of the software. [Solo […]
The ZX Spectrum is perhaps most fondly remembered as a home computer and a games machine. [Tito] has grabbed the faithful black plastic box and turned it into a frequency counter as an innovative entry to our 2025 One Hertz Challenge. The code was prepared in assembly using ZASM—a Z80 online assembler. It works in […]
Film maker [David Greelish] wrote in to let us know about his recent documentary: Before Macintosh: The Apple Lisa. The documentary covers the life of the Apple Lisa. It starts with the genesis of the Lisa Project at Apple, covering its creation, then its marketing, and finally its cancellation. It then discusses the Apple Lisa […]