Collaborate Disseminate
If you grew up in the middle of the Cold War, you probably remember hearing about the Distant Early Warning line between duck-and-cover drills. The United States and Canada built …read more Continue reading The DEW Line Remembered
Radio Shack, despite being gone for a number of years, is still in our cultural consciousness. But Tandy, the company behind Radio Shack for many years. Did you ever wonder …read more Continue reading A History of the Tandy Computers
You would think detecting lightning would be easy. Each lightning bolt has a staggering amount of power, and, clearly, you can hear the results on any radio. But it is …read more Continue reading A Collection of Lightning Detectors
There was a time when all the cool kids had a 45 RPM record player. [RF Burns] picked up a 1950s-era player from RCA. However, it needed a lot of …read more Continue reading Record Changer Spins Round and Round
There’s something ominous about robots taking over jobs that humans are suited to do. Maybe you don’t want a job turning a wrench or pushing a broom, but someone does. …read more Continue reading Robots Want the Jobs You Can’t Do
It is virtually a rite of passage for C programmers to realize that they can write their own cooperative multitasking system. C is low-level enough, and there are several ways …read more Continue reading Coroutines in C
You are probably familiar with initiatives like Seti@Home, where you donate unused computer power to some science project that needs computer cycles. [Jeff Yoshimi] wants to borrow your most powerful …read more Continue reading Citizen Science is All Fun and Games
[Kevin Cheung] likes to upcycle old soda cans into — well — things. The metal is thin enough to cut by hand, but he’d started using a manual die-cutting machine, …read more Continue reading Die Cut Machine Makes Portable Metal Cuts
Few electronic ICs can claim to be as famous as the 555 timer. Maybe part of the reason is that the IC doesn’t have a specific function. It has a …read more Continue reading The 555 Writ Large
Who doesn’t want an X-ray machine? But you need a special tube and super high voltage, right? [Project 326] says no, and produces a USB-powered device that uses a tube …read more Continue reading DIY X-Rays Made Easy