The Radio Shack TRS-80 was a much-loved machine across America. However, one thing it lacked was MIDI. That’s not so strange given the era it was released in, of course. Nevertheless, [Michael Wessel] has seen fit to correct this by creating the MIDI/80—a soundcard and MIDI interface for this old-school beast. The core of the […]
If you made something blink, and now it’s time for you to make something move, something like a point-to-a-satellite tracker is a great idea. [Farid] made this moving arrow that always points at the ISS, and documented it nicely to boot. And there’s a little bit of everything here, from orbital mechanics and fetching the […]
Astrophotography, and astronomy in general, takes some fairly specialized tools and a high amount of precision. Setting up the equipment can also take a lot of time, especially for amateurs traveling to various locations with their equipment, so anything that can reduce the amount of time spent looking for objects and increasing the amount of […]
There’s plenty of surprises to be had when you become a parent, and one of the first is that it’s suddenly your job to record the frequency of your infant’s various bodily functions in exacting detail. How many times did the little tyke eat, how long did they sleep, and perhaps most critically, how many […]
Ham radio enthusiasts, people looking to borrow their neighbors’ WiFi, and those interested in decoding signals from things like weather satellites will often grab an old satellite TV antenna and repurpose it. Customers have been leaving these services for years, so they’re pretty widely available. But for handheld operation, these metal dishes can get quite […]
Solar panels are revolutionizing the electric power industry, but not everyone is a good candidate for rooftop solar. Obviously people in extreme northern or sothern latitudes aren’t going to be making a ton of energy during the winter compared to people living closer to the equator, for example, but there are other factors at play […]