How Duck Tape Became Famous
If you hack things in the real world, you probably have one or more rolls of duck tape. Outside of the cute brand name, many people think that duck tape …read more Continue reading How Duck Tape Became Famous
Author Archives: Al Williams
No Acid: Open ICs with a Tesla Coil
We’ve taken ICs apart before, but if they are in an epoxy package, it requires some lab gear and a lot of safety. Typically, you’ll heat the part and use …read more Continue reading No Acid: Open ICs with a Tesla Coil
CP/M Porting in a Few Hours
If you’ve ever wanted to watch someone bring CP/M up on a new system and you have a couple of hours to spare, check out the recorded live stream of …read more Continue reading CP/M Porting in a Few Hours
Proper Decoupling Capacitors
If you’ve been building circuits for any length of time, you probably know you need decoupling capacitors to keep your circuits stable. But even though it’s a favorite technique of …read more Continue reading Proper Decoupling Capacitors
Tearing Down and Improving a Professional Power Supply
[OZ2CPU] has an HP power supply that is about 30 years old. It looks brand new, though, and has three outputs and includes tracking for the adjustable positive and negative …read more Continue reading Tearing Down and Improving a Professional Power Supply
Linux Device Drivers in Only a Few Years
[Johannes 4GNU_Linux] has been filming a video series on how to write Linux device drivers for a couple of years now, but luckily, you won’t need that long to watch …read more Continue reading Linux Device Drivers in Only a Few Years
Retrotechtacular: Better Living Through A-Bombs
Usually, if you are listening to people debate about nuclear issues, it is one of two topics: how to deal with nuclear weapon stockpiles or if we want nuclear power …read more Continue reading Retrotechtacular: Better Living Through A-Bombs
Kim-1: Memory Problem Resolved
At the very start of the personal computer revolution, there were relatively inexpensive boards with little more than a CPU, some memory, a display, and switches or a keypad. Some …read more Continue reading Kim-1: Memory Problem Resolved
A Quick Look at the Hilbert Transform
While the Fourier transform gets all the attention, there are other transforms that engineers and mathematicians use to transform signals from one form to another. Sometimes you use a transform …read more Continue reading A Quick Look at the Hilbert Transform
Roll Your Own Simple Tube Tester
You can easily get carried away when trying to test things. For example, if you want to know if your car is working, you could measure the timing of the …read more Continue reading Roll Your Own Simple Tube Tester